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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Feb19

A wise little story . . . a richly complex fable . . . like a beautifully tailored garment . . . poetic and affecting.

That’s what the reviews on the back of the book say, but I didn’t get it. I read this book on the recommendaton of Jane at Much Ado, and I, too liked the parts about the suitcase full of books and how the books enriched and transformed the lives of the people who read and heard the stories. However, the ending was beyond sad. I won’t give away the ending, but after that kind of self-imposed tragedy, how could any of the main characters in the novel ever experience joy again? The narrator says that he and his friend Luo have only a three in a thousand chance of escaping their Chinese Cultural Revolution re-education camp, but as the book ended, it felt as if they were doomed. Even if they did leave the village to which they were exiled, what would they do?

It just occurred to me: the ending to this book reminded me of the ending to Bee Season. Someone gives up the one thing that has brought joy to his/her life so that? What? To prove a point? What point?

For pointless fiction that’s beautifully written and hopeful along the way, I recommend both Bee Season and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. When you get through with either one, come back and tell me why they did it.

Bookspotting #23

Feb18

Leif Enger’s second novel, So Young, Brave and Handsome is set for publication in early 2008 according to Dave at Faith in Fiction. It’s a “tale of passion and adventure in early 20th century America, about an aging train robber, pursued again after years of obscurity, seeking to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life.”

I’m looking forward to it.

Doesn’t this book sound like a great idea for boys? And will it be challenged or censored in U.S. libraries —or just not selected? So far, it’s not even available in the U.S., but you can pre-order it at Amazon.

Sarah Vine reviews a book she’s never read, but it’s OK. The book is called Comment Parler des Livres que l’on n’a pas Lus (How to Talk About Books that You Haven’t Read) by M. Bayard, and it’s a best-seller in France. “Bayard himself confesses to never having finished Ulysses, by James Joyce. Personally, I have a theory that there is a very good chance that Joyce himself didn’t even finish writing the book, since I have never actually met anyone who has read the thing cover to cover.”

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born February 17th

Feb17

Thomas Robert Malthus, b. 1766. “Population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio.” Some still consider this ratio problem to be insoluble, a conundrum of impending doom for humanity; others have come to see an opposing problem.

Anne Manning, English writer, b. 1807. Wikipedia says she wrote a book called The Household of Sir Thomas More, “a delightful picture of More’s home life told in the form of a diary written by his daughter Margaret.” Eldest Daughter, who detests More, should get a copy of this book for April Fool’s Day.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American author and essayist, b.1879. For children, she wrote Understood Betsy, the story of an orphan girl who lives with her relatives around the turn of the century. You can read it online with illustrations here.

Bess Streeter Aldrich, b. 1881. Nebraska author of A Lantern in her Handand many other books and short stories. I read a description of her writing as “cheerful realism.”

Robert Newton Peck, author of Soup and others in the series, b. 1928. At his website, Peck says that the character Soup was based on his best friend, Lester Wesley Vinson. Soup grew up to become a minister. Peck also says a lot of other things that indicate to me that he’s read and agrees with Malthus.

“Earth, our beautiful planet today has only one problem. Excess human population. This dreaded disease, human pregnancy, is the mother lode which spawns disease, poverty, litter, crime, animal annihilation, and war. Not to mention traffic, or din. Because of this mire of people, which I dub peoplution, our animals are dying.”

It sounds just like the propaganda I heard when I was in high school. Nevertheless, the Soup books are lots of fun.

Chaim Potok, b. 1929. Rabbi and author of The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev. “I would prefer to say that the universe is meaningful, with pockets of apparent meaninglessness, than to say it is meaningless with pockets of apparent meaningfulness. In other words I have questions either way.” (Potok in Christianity Today, September 8, 1978)

Ruth Rendell, b. 1930. Author of detective fiction and also other non-detective fiction using the pseudonym, Barbara Vine. “I think that most writers have these two opposing feelings co-exist. One, this is the most wonderful work of art since War and Peace, and also this is the most awful trash, and why did I ever write it?” I feel that way about almost everything I write–especially the latter feeling. Does that mean I’m a real writer?
Here’s a post from Cathy of Poohsticks on Ruth Rendell. I read Tree of Hands by Ms. Rendell last year, but never got around to reviewing it. It was a rather disturbing story, but worth the time.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere: Love and Marriage

Feb16

Justin on Marriage and Honeymoons and Sustained Committment: “We must find the balance between a comfortable taken for grantedness and a fiery passion…”


 What better way to show love than to read to and with your family? Jennifer Snapshot is sponsoring the Read To Me 2007 Challenge. Click on the picture for more details.

Kelli shares some Valentine’s Day traditions, several of which would be suitable for anytime this month. SHe’s got a picture of my favorite Valentine’s Day book, All for Love by Tasha Tudor.

Happy Catholic Julie’s favorite romantic movies and books.

Absolutely nothing to do with love and marriage, but one of the Bees at the Beehive has found a new link to my favorite music video: The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Think of it as a collaboration collision between Tolkien and Star Trek.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born February 16th

Feb16

Henry Adams, b. 1838. He was the grandson of one president and the great-grandson of another. Numbered among his many friends were Lincoln’s private secretary John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, geologist Clarence King, Senators Lucius Lamar and James Cameron, artist John La Farge, and writer Edith Wharton. His most famous work was an autobiography written in third person, The Education of Henry Adams. (online here) He also wrote and published many books about his extensive travels and about history.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

LeVar Burton, b. 1957. Star and executive producer of the PBS series Reading Rainbow. We used to watch a lot of Reading Rainbow, and I still have quite a few episodes on videotape. Mr. Burton also starred as Geordie in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he got his start as Kunta Kinte in the mini-series Roots, based on the book by the same name. How many of you read Roots when it was a best-seller, about thirty years ago? I remember it as a good story, and it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976. However, in 1978 Mr. Haley was sued for plagiarizing several passages in his book from a book called The African by Harold Courlander. Haley admitted that he did copy Courlander’s work “unintentionally,” and the suit was settled out of court for $650,000.
It was still a good story, and Mr. Burton started a fine career with it. Thanks to Roots and its success as a TV-miniseries, we have Reading Rainbow, a good deal if you ask me.
“But you don’t have to take my word for it.”
Reading Rainbow Official website.
On January 29, 2007, LeVar Burton announced that he had made his last episode of Reading Rainbowand that he was retiring, citing a difference in vision with the new owners of the show. “Their vision was not in alignment with what I stand for,” he said.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born February 15th

Feb15

Galileo Galilei, scientist and astronomer, b. 1564. The Catholic Encyclopedia on Galileo and his conflict with the Inquisition.

Jeremy Bentham, eccentric philosopher, b. 1748.

Susan B. Anthony, women’s rights advocate and abortion opponent, b. 1820. “Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! Thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to the desperation which impels her to the crime.”
Frederica Matthewes-Green on Susan B. Anthony, Pro-Life Feminist.

Lucy Beatrice Malleson, author of murder mysteries using the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert, b. 1899. Her most popular detective character was “beer-drinking Cockney barrister Arthur G. Crook, an overweight detective like Nero Wolfe, who drives in Rolls Royce and comes on stage when it is time to solve the case.”

Norman Bridwell, author of Clifford the Big Red Dog, b. 1928. Scholastic Clifford website with games and stuff for kids.

Cybils

Feb14

The Cybil Award winners will be announced this afternoon (2/14/07) at 2 p.m., CST. Watch this space for more information, or go directly to the Cybils website.

So, they couldn’t wait and announced early. Here they are —the 2006 Cybil Award Books. Check them out.

Fantasy and Science Fiction:
Ptolemy’s Gate (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 3)
Jonathan Stroud
Hyperion: Miramax
Ptolemy’s Gate receives the first Cybils for Fantasy and Science Fiction for its richly imagined fantasy world, strongly realized and unique characters, delightful language and well-honed plot. As a concluding volume of a trilogy, it delivers everything a final volume should do, taking the story arc to its peak with a climax that is both action-packed and emotionally charged. At the same time, Ptolemy’s Gate stands alone as a story and will inspire readers, children and adults alike, to seek out the previous installments and revisit the world of Bartimaeus over and over again.


Fiction Picture Books:
Scaredy Squirrel
by Melanie Watt
Kid’s Can Press
This eponymous squirrel hits little kids and big alike right where they live: in the numbing comfort of routine and abject fear of The Unknown. This is a tiny book with a big lesson about bravery. Watt makes the most of each page, using repetition and exaggeration to hilariously dissect Scaredy Squirrel’s paranoia, from the minutiae of his daily habits to a tour of his emergency kit. When the unexpected finally occurs, the joke’s on all of us. Field-tested in libraries and living rooms and at bedsides by the judges, Scaredy Squirrel elicited the most giggles per page and requests for re-reads among a variety of age groups, including parents.


Graphic Novels:
Ages 12 and Under:
Amelia Rules! Volume 3: Superheroes
by Jim Gownley
Renaissance Press
Amelia Rules celebrates the power of imagination when school lets out for summer vacation. There’s plenty of time for dressing up in capes, fighting a gang of evil ninjas, and investigating the evil conspiracy known as the Legion of Steves. Amelia McBride’s adventures are portrayed with warm-hearted good humor. There’s plenty of slapstick comedy, which combines with an exploration of some of the serious issues of childhood – moving, growing up, and the secret a new friend tries to hide. Jimmy Gownley’s art shifts styles based on his character’s vivid inner worlds, portraying superhero space battles and silent movie romances with ease. Amelia Rules can be easily be enjoyed by readers of all ages.


Ages 13 and Up:
American Born Chinese
Gene Yang
First Second
American Born Chinese skillfully explores the idea of identity by weaving together three distinct stories – the traditional tale of the Monkey King, Jin Wang’s longing for acceptance by his classmates, and popular Danny being plagued by his cousin Chin-Kee who embodies the worst Chinese ethnic stereotypes. Gene Yang uses humor when portraying the perils of adolescence, and his colorful art easily adapts to the tonal shifts of the three stories.


Middle Grade Fiction: This is the one I helped choose, and I’m rather proud of it. I feel as if I helped write the book or publish it or dotted an i or something. Anyway, read it; it’s a good book.
A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick Press
It’s a mystery story, it’s a ghost story, it’s delightully gothic and eerie. In A Drowned Maiden’s Hair we have a protagonist with a very authentic child voice, and her motivations and feelings are described in clean, nuanced lines. Maud is also a person of her time and place; she never comes off as anachronistic. The story, too, is something of a time and place–the darkness of the Hawthorne estate was like an L.M. Montgomery novel gone delightfully to seed.The adoption of the plucky orphan by the wealthy lady is a trope of the Victorian novel, and yet does not come off as trite or formulaic. It is as if Schlitz had taken familiar characters and plotlines from Victorian fiction and injected them with a realism and emotional force that transcends its familiarity, making it seem new again. Truth–be it in the cries of a widower, or in a tearful confession–is what lets Maude see her true role and path, and ultimately brings redemption.


Non-Fiction, Middle Grade and Young Adult:
Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
by Russell Freedman
Holiday House
The story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott has been told many times by many different people and has almost become legend, but in Freedom Walkers, Russell Freedman is not sharing folklore or the iconic stories of civil rights heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. This book tells how ordinary men, women and children planned and worked together to peaceably stand up against the injustice of the segregated transportation system–and won. Their heroism makes the reader ask, “Could I do this? Could I stand up to the threats? Could I walk to school every day for almost a year to make justice happen in my hometown?” Well-chosen historic photographs bring to life the American South of the 1950’s. The true story is gripping and well documented. This is a read-in-one- sitting kind of book, which will appeal to young teens up through adults.


Non-Fiction Picture Books:
An Egg Is Quiet
written by Dianna Aston; illustrated by Sylvia Long
Chronicle Books
Don’t be surprised if some future master birder cites this book as an early influence. Multiple layers of thoughtful, poetic text–about not only birds but also insects, reptiles and sea creatures–make An Egg Is Quiet a book that readers can enjoy quickly or in depth, depending upon their level of interest. The handwriting font gives the feeling of a scientific field journal, and the artwork is of the first class, with outstanding visual variety and clarity. The endpapers alone are breathtaking.


Poetry:
Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow
written by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes
Houghton Mifflin
Three cheers for Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow! Each poem is a nature riddle–guessing the answers will keep children hopping. Joyce Sidman’s rich, rhythmic language and Beth Krommes’ intricate scratchboard illustrations make the Cybils poetry winner a book to return to again and again.

You can purchase any one (or all) of these books via Amazon by clicking on the cover picture. Or take a trip to the bookstore and purchase your Cybil Award books there. Either way, you have some good reading in store for you. (The blurbs were written by the judges in the various categories, not by me.)

Kiki Strike by Kirsten Miller

Feb11


Reviewed by Brown Bear Daughter, age 12:

I’ve been reading the five finalists for the Middle Grade Fiction Cybil award (Kiki Strike by Kirsten Miller, Drowned Maiden’s Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz, Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Heat by Mike Lupica, Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata), and Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City has, so far, been my favorite.

What I really loved about Kiki Strike was that I could imagine myself as many of the different characters, and I would be content with who I was. I would think, “If I was Kiki Strike, would I be happy?” And the answer was yes. This made me love the book. Because simply imagining something can make me so happy.

Of course, it was terribly sad in the end, and yet happy too. I really enjoy sadness in a book. This one, sadly, didn’t make me cry, but it was very pathetic nevertheless. I can’t reveal the ending, but I wish I could because then I could explain why it made me so sad. But now you’ll probably want to find out why it is so sad, and you’ll read it.

The book is about a girl named Ananka Fishbein. Kiki Strike is a girl who goes to her school. Kiki Strike, with her deathly pale features and mysterious actions, arouses Ananka’s curiousity. Kiki Strike chooses Ananka and few other girls to form the Irregulars, a group which discovers one of the greatest secrets of underground Manhattan.

Sidonia Galatzina, or The “Princess,” as Ananka calls her, and Sidonia’s mother are the villains of the story. Sidonia is rich and snobbish, and becomes very interested in Kiki Strike, when Sidonia’s precious ring is stolen at school and Kiki reveals the real thief when Ananka is blamed. Sidonia’s suspicions are aroused, and not until the end of the book do you find out why Sidonia is so interested in Kiki.

Now I hope I’ve gotten you so interested in Kiki’s fate that you’ll read the entire book.

Note from the blog owner:
The winners of the 2007 Cybil Awards for Children’s and Young Adult Literature will be announced in just two days, on Valentine’s Day. I am one of the judges for the Middle Grade Fiction category, so I haven’t posted my reviews of the the finalists that I hadn’t read or reviewed before the judging started. The Middle Grade Fiction committee has chosen a winner, and you’ll see the announcement, as I said, on the 14th. Now you know which book was Brown Bear Daughter’s favorite, although she’s enjoyed all of the books she’s read for the award.

Semicolon review of Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

Semicolon review of Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata.

Semicolon review of Heat by Mike Lupica.

A list of the books nominated in the Middle Grade Fiction category for the Cybil Award.

Real Romance for Grown-up Women

Feb9

I was once stuck in a house for two weeks, no library nearby, with only a box full of Harlequin romances to feed my reading habit. I read them all. I’ve never had any desire to read another. A couple of years later I had a friend who was hooked on “bodice-rippers,” the books that have a picture on the cover of a beautiful young woman with a lowcut dress and a sexy tall-dark-and-handsome who looks as if he’s about to rip it off. I read half of one of those and again never had any interest in reading another. If you like either genre, there are plenty of them out there. However, I’m a sucker for real romance, the kind of romantic story that shows both the difficulties and the joy of initiating and sustaining a loving male/female relationship, aka a marriage. Here are a few of my favorite intelligent and multi-faceted romances —just in time for St. Valentine’s Day:

The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle. Charlotte is running away from home, running away from her husband Patrick and from their very troubled marriage. She runs from New York City to a Portuguese retreat, and there she discovers a book of love letters written by a seventeenth century Portuguese nun, a nun who pursues a forbidden love to its bitter end. Charlotte struggles with her marriage vows as she reads about Sister Mariana’s struggle with her vows.

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Yes, I think Gone With the Wind is an intelligent romance. It’s a tragedy; Scarlett realizes, too late, that she’s given her life to goals that are foolish fantasies and in the meantime she’s missed the love she could have had. Yes, it paints a somewhat sentimental picture of the antebellum South, but actually the book is much less sentimental and shallow than the movie was.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Newland Archer is torn between the expectations of society and his own desire for stability and respectability and the passion and adventure he experiences with the exciting and forbidden Countess Olenska. He must choose between May Welland, the woman whom all New York society expects him to marry, and Ellen Olenska, the woman who needs his love and awakens his passion.

Emma, Pride and Prejudice, or Sense and Sensibility, all by Jane Austen. What can I say about Jane Austen that hasn’t already been said? One of my daughters hates Jane Austen’s novels in which she says “nothing happens.” I think she’s just not grown-up enough to see the action that lies under the surface calm.

The Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger. Adventure and romance in Renaissance Italy. Andrea Orsini poses as an up-and-coming son of the minor nobility trying to make his way admidst the intrigue and danger of Italy’s labyrinthine political situation during the time of the Borgias. Madonna Camilla is the beloved wife of the old and respected gentleman, Lord Antonio Varano. The two of them have nothing in common, but their lives become intertwined and their fates are joined.

A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Van Auken. This one is a true love story that not only tells the story of the human love of a man and a woman who were determined to have the ideal romantic relationship, but it also tells what happened when God unexpectedly entered the relationship and changed the lives and the marriage of Mr. van Auken and of his wife, Davey, forever.

Christy by Catherine Marshall. Christy is an eighteen year old innocent idealist when she goes to the mountains of Appalachia to teach school in a one-room schoolhouse. By the end of the story she’s a grown-up woman who’s experienced friendship, grief, and love.

Anna Karenina and War and Peace are both very romantic novels. They’re probably not any longer than Gone With the WInd, and people who see you reading one of them will be much more impressed with your reading choices. Kitty and Levin and Natasha and Pierre are both very romantic couples, not without their share of obstacles to a perfect marriage.

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. Kristin also begins her story as an innocent, but she makes choices as a teenager that set the course of her life. Again, the choice is between established expectations and passion. Kristin chooses the passion, and the rest of this 1000+ page novel in three parts demonstrates the consequences, good and evil, of that decision.

Christian Science Monitor: What Authors Read on Valentine’s Day.

All moms need a little romance in their lives. I think I’ll buy a copy or two of one of these romances to give to a friend for Valentine’s Day.

Poetry and Fine Art Friday: Frosty Doors

Feb9

Knock at the Door




Knock at the Door

Art Print

Tobey


Buy at AllPosters.com


Today in American Literature class, we’re reading and discussing Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg. I’m rather fond of Frost, and some of Sandburg’s poetry is fun, too.

Here’s a poem by Mr. Frost that you may not know:

The Door in the Dark

In going from room to room in the dark,
I reached out blindly to save my face,
But neglected, however lightly, to lace
My fingers and close my arms in an arc.
A slim door got in past my guard,
And hit me a blow in the head so hard
I had my native simile jarred.
So people and things don’t pair any more
With what they used to pair with before.

You may not think the picture pairs too well with the poem, but maybe I just ran into a door in the dark.

Cindy Swanson posts about one of my favorite childhood poetry books.

Rebecca Writes is collecting poetry posts, especially posts about children’s poetry, for the entire month of February. Share your post with her and she’ll spotlight and link to it.

Watch out for those poetic doors; they may knock your native similes all out of whack.