These are not all ancient texts; some are just books that have been around for a while that I want to read. This post serves as a reminder to myself, and maybe a help to you.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I am in the midst of re-reading this my favorite novel of all time. I first read it more than twenty-five years ago when I was in college. I stayed up until 4:00 in the morning, reading to find out what would happen to Jean Valjean and Cosette. Since then I’ve read excerpts of the novel, but never the entire book again. Now is the time. There are things about it I had forgotten, and I will be sharing with you my thoughts, probably in several posts.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I’m watching the mini-series now. I don’t usually do things in that order, but I’ll be reading the book this year anyway. Recommended by Carrie at Reading to Know.
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. There were a lot of comparisons between this best-seller and one book in particular that we read for Cybils this year. I couldn’t compare since I’ve never read Ms. Turner’s first book in the Attolia series. In fact, I think I have it mixed up in my mind with another book that I tried to read and couldn’t get interested in completing. The Thief comes highly recommended by the members of the Cybils judging committee that I was privileged to be a part of.
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Maybe it’s this book that I tried and couldn’t get into. About some Italian street kids living in a theater or something, but with fantasy elements? Anyway, I’m going to try it again—or for the first time. (I looked it up, it’s The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke that I have confused with The Thief. Oh, well, I’m just confused.)
For several years now, I’ve been starting off the year with projects instead of resolutions. I don’t always complete my projects, but I enjoy starting them and working toward a goal. And I don’t feel guilty if I don’t finish. If I do finish, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Win-win. So, here are my twelve projects for 2013:
2. Reading Through West Africa. The countries of West Africa (according to my scheme) are Benin, Biafra (part of Nigeria), Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. That’s fourteen nations, if I include Biafra, and I would very much like to read at least one book from or about each country. If you have suggestions, please comment.
3. I’m working on a project with my church for a community/tutoring/library media center. This TED talk by author Dave Eggers was inspirational, although it’s not exactly what I have in mind. I am working more on a library and study center for homeschoolers and of course, it would be open to kids who are in public or private schools, too. A lot of my work will be in relation to the library, gathering excellent books and adding to the library and helping homeschool and other families to use the library to enrich their studies. I am also inspired by this library and others like it.
4. I want to concentrate on reading all the books on my TBR list this year –at least all of them that I can beg, borrow (from the library) or somehow purchase. I’ve already requested several of the books on my list from the library.
6. I have house-keeping project that I’m almost embarrassed to mention here. I’ve started small–cleaning and sorting piles in a corner of my bedroom. I’d really like to continue cleaning, purging, and organizing around the perimeter of my bedroom and then the living room until eventually I get around the entire house. A project so ridiculously mundane and yet so needed.
7. I continue to work through this list of new-to-me recipes and through several cookbooks and other recipe sources for dishes I want to try this year. I would like to make one new dish per week, and maybe I can manage to “review” the meals and food I make here at Semicolon. If you have any extra-special recipes you think I should try, please leave a comment.
8. Praying for Strangers (and Friends) Project. I was quite impressed by my reading of River Jordan’s prayer project book, Praying for Strangers. I still can’t walk up to strangers and tell them that I’m praying for them or ask them for prayer requests. But in 2013 I hope to ask God to give me one person each day to focus on and to pray for. Maybe I’ll be praying for you one day this year. I have been much more consistent in praying for specific people this past year, and I hope to continue the practice.
9. U.S. Presidents Reading Project. I got David McCullough’s biography of Truman for Christmas in 2011, and I plan to read that chunkster during my Lenten blog break since I didn’t read it last year. I don’t know if I’ll read any other presidential biographies this year, but if I finish Truman I’ll be doing well.
11. 100 Movies of Summer. When we’re not traveling, which will be most of the summer, we might watch a few old classic but new-to-us movies. I’ll need to make a new list, since we’ve watched many of the ones on the list I linked to, but I hope to find a few gems this summer.
12. I got this Bible for Christmas (mine is red), and I’ve already begun transferring my notes from my old Bible into this new one and taking new notes. I just jot down whatever the Holy Spirit brings to mind with the intention of giving the Bible to one of my children someday.
Dancing Priest by Glynn Young. I never managed to get this book reviewed after I read it over Lent, but I have purchased and downloaded to my Kindle the sequel entitled A Light Shining. I hope to read it and then review both books together soon.
The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith.
Best novel of the year? Nanjing Requiem, I think. Fascinating history and fascinating moral dilemmas. It made me wonder how much courage and sanity I would retain in such a crisis situation.
For my Cybils judging responsibilities this year I read 84 of the 151 books nominated. I still have more that I would like to read in the next couple of months. Of those 84, these are my twelve favorites:
Princess Academy Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale. The only one of these favorites I didn’t get around to reviewing, but it’s Shannon Hale and it’s wonderful. I closed the book at the end with a happy and satisfied sigh.
The shortlists of Cybils finalists for 2012 in all of the categories are posted today at the Cybils website. Take a look and add to your reading list from these well-written, high kid-appeal books for young adults and children–all published between November 2011 and October 2012.
Children: “you must never ever light a fire yourself, unless under the close supervision of a responsible adult pig with advanced circus training.” Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan by R.A. Spratt.
“[P]eople run deep and complicated like rivers, hold their shape and are carved upon like stone.” Crossed by Ally Condie.
“Listen to your second thought, or the third might be too late.†Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale.
“Truth is when your gut and your mind agree.” Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale.
“Words can fall hard like a boulder loosed from a cliff. Words can drift unnoticed like a weed seed on a breeze. Words can sing.†Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale.
“An idea is like fire under ice. You can try to put out the fire, but the melting has already begun.” Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale.
“Once someone is picking a lock, there’s not a lot you can do except stand in front of them to block them from view and whistle. . . Whistling is probably optional.” ~Project Jackalope by Emily Ecton.
“If one does not know how one will cross a bridge, one best figure that out before one reaches it. Otherwise, it is just poor planning.” ~Beauty and the Beast by Wendy Mass.
“[N]ot everyone who lives on a pretty street is a good person, and . . . even in the rottenest places you might find someone you can trust with your life.” ~Deadweather and Sunrise by Geoff Rodkey.
“Youth is overrated. Anyone can be a genius at twenty-five. The trick is to be one at fifty.” Degas in Mira’s Diary: Lost in Paris by Marissa Moss.
“All mirrors are magic, or can be. They show you yourself, after all. Really seeing yourself, though–that’s the hard part.” ~In a Glass Grimmly by Adam Gidwitz.
“There are other ways to be brave without demonstrating it with the sword. Most battles are won by changing minds and turning hearts. Sometimes that’s all the bravery you need.” Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill.
“A real princess engages with the world in a state of grace. It is with grace that she listens and with grace that she speaks. A princess loves her people , no matter what their birth or station. Even ugly jailers.” Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill.
“Love [is] sharp and hot and dangerous. . . Love transforms our fragile, cowardly hearts into hearts of stone, hearts of blade, hearts of hardest iron. Because love makes heroes of us all.” Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill.
“It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.” ~Gandalf in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
“You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.” ~The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherine Valente.
“Sometimes the best decision is a painful one, but it is never one made out of anger.” ~Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin.
“It is better to light a lantern than to bemoan the darkness.” ~Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin.
“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves–say rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere. ~Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
Young Adult Fiction: Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow.
Adult Fiction: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Since everybody and her dog was recommending this psychological thriller, I decided to read it. It was intelligent, well-plotted, psychologically astute, crude, profane, and ultimately repellent. The ending was especially disturbing. Call of Duty by Charles Todd.
Nonfiction: From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart: Rekindling My Love for Catholicism by Chris Haw. Gray Matter, A Neurosurgeon Discovers the Power of Prayer . . . One Patient at a Time by David Levy, with Joel Kilpatrick.
I once tried reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, but both the plot and the humor eluded my grasp. I did better, or Mr. Fforde did, with The Last Dragonslayer. The humor in this book reminded me of The Princess Bride or Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. High praise indeed.
Almost-sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange is temporary manager of Kazam Mystical Arts Management, an employment agency for sorcerers, magicians, and wizards, most of whom are almost out of “wizidrical” energy. Magic has been waning in the UnUnited Kingdoms for the last four hundred years, give or take, since the initiation of the Dragon Pact. The dragon population has also been dwindling, and now the kingdoms are down to one last dragon. And one last dragon-slayer.
I think this book will appeal more to teens and young adults rather than middle grade readers. The humor is wry and witty and based on making fun of human materialism, greed, and warlike tendencies. Jennifer, the protagonist, does a lot of running around trying to figure out what’s happening and how she can manage the magical events that are mostly out of her control. Other than that, not much really happens. But it is funny. As a sidekick Jennifer sports a Quarkbeast, a “ferocious beast” who looks like “an open knife drawer on legs” and whose only line is “Quark,” spoken at appropriate intervals. And the book also features aging wizards and dragons in various stages of decrepitude and disrepute, a crazy, greedy king, and a Slayermobile (Rolls-Royce). What else could a reader ask for? I can picture this book as a movie. Maybe it’s already been optioned.
Two more books are coming in the series, The Chronicles of Kazam, The Song of the Quarkbeast and The Return of Shandar. The Song of the Quarkbeast has already been published in the UK, but it’s not yet available in the United States. I’m looking forward to reading both of them.
Pirates and treasure and ugly fruit and heroes and islands and ocean adventure, oh, my! Yeah, it doesn’t quite have the rhythm and swing I’d like it to have, and neither does this book. But for a pirate story aficionado, Deadweather and Sunrise might do the trick.
Deadweather and Sunrise is billed as Book 1 of the Chronicles of Egg. In the story, the aforementioned Egg lives on Deadweather Island with his abusive father and two siblings who also mistreat him. They all live together on an ugly fruit plantation until on a trip to nearby Sunrise Island, Egg’s family disappears and Egg is left in the care of the very rich Pembroke family: mother, father, and spoiled, sheltered daughter, Millicent. Egg crushes on Millicent; someone tries to kill Egg, and the adventure begins.
There’s a possible treasure to be found, and there are pirates, either to defeat or to enlist as allies. Not everything or everyone is to be taken at face value. As Egg very wisely learns, “”[N]ot everyone who lives on a pretty street is a good person, and . . . even in the rottenest places you might find someone you can trust with your life.”
I think this book might be one of those things that shouldn’t be immediately devalued or written off. The story has potential not only to “grow on” the reader with time for reflection but also to get even better in the next book(s) in the series. Egg’s supporting cast is made up of thieves and rogues and mostly unreliable people, but Egg himself is a kind of Oliver Twist character transported to a mythical South Sea island world.
Recommend to those who like pirate stories, Dickensian fantasy worlds, or poverty-stricken boy heroes.
There are (at least) two approaches to the recasting of old tales for children–anything from fairy tales to Chaucer to Shakespeare to even the stories of the Bible. Because these stories were not necessarily written (or told) for children, they sometimes contain dark, very dark, material –blood and violence and illicit sex and senseless mayhem and other things that are just nasty or repulsive and not terribly uplifting or useful to educate or grow or even entertain young minds.
Of course, if an author wants to re-tell a story that contains disturbing elements for a young audience, it can be bowdlerized. “Thomas Bowdler was an English physician and philanthropist, best known for publishing The Family Shakspeare, an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare’s work, edited by his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler, intended to be more appropriate for 19th century women and children than the original.” (Wikipedia, Thomas Bowdler) Bowdlerization has been denigrated, unjustifiably in my opinion, but it’s done all the time. As Mr. Gidwitz says in his introduction to In a Glass Grimmly, “Once upon a time, fairy tales were horrible. . . strange, bloody, and horrible.” And almost all of the storytellers since then have downplayed or bowdlerized the bloody, gruesome, unpalatable parts of the fairy tales they were telling—for the sake of the children and even the adults who are reading.
Some would say that the older the audience the more unjustified the omissions and changes are. However, an author or storyteller who is spinning his own story made up of elements of old tales has the right to pick and choose the elements he thinks will make for the strongest and most artistic story. Some of the darker elements, especially for an older audience, may make the story stronger and more meaningful or they may just make it it stupid or repugnant, as in the example that Mr. Gidwitz also shares of how Cinderella’s step-sisters actually sliced off parts their feet to make them fit into the glass slipper. I can’t imagine how that little detail would improve the story unless you’re doing a meditation on self-injury and cutting.
So, anyway, one direction to go is to cut out the nasty parts. The other approach is to play up the nastiness: describe in great and excruciating detail how Jack the giant killer eviscerated the giant and just how the blood and vomit mixed on the floor and how utterly revolting and disgusting the entire scene was. Use phrases such as “the steaming, putrid pool rippled” or “spilling his blood and viscera and porridge” or “a burbling swamp of (stomach) acid” (actual phrases from In a Glass Grimmly, and not the most revolting ones), and maybe because you used descriptive, mature vocabulary words in your middle grade fantasy novel, people will ooh and aah and say how well-written the novel is.
In a Glass Grimmly takes the well-written but disgusting approach, and not to good effect. I waded, or at least skimmed, through all the blood and vomit in giant-land, and I was not impressed. The descriptions are vivid, and I suppose, well-written, but the chapters are sort of disconnected, and the narrator is intrusive and annoying. I hate books that seem to say, “Oh, kids like gross, nasty, slimy stuff. Let’s take the really loathsome parts of this tale and make them the centerpiece of the narrative because that will draw the kids in.”
There was a bit of redeeming value towards the end of the book, but it wasn’t enough to make up for all the gratuitous blood, gore, guts, and puke that came before. When the narrator actually says, “Ooooh, you won’t like this part. You might want to put the book down now,” then it’s supposed to make me feel contrary enough to go ahead and read anyway? It’s kind of like saying, “I double dog dare you!” But it made me feel SO contrary that I wanted to close the book immediately because I knew the author/narrator didn’t really want me to quit reading. I think many (most?) kids are smart enough to get the same message.
About the only thing I did enjoy while reading In a Glass Grimmly was trying to figure out which fairy tale each part of the story came from, but I thought it meandered quite a bit. And it isn’t the “darkness” of the book or of its original sources that I’m complaining about. Guts and vomit aren’t really dark; they’re just foul and I think, pandering.
If this review makes you want to read the book even more than you did before, you are the intended audience. Have fun.
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary Schmidt. I was reminded of this unread-by-me Newbery Honor book by Betsy at LiterariTea.
The Silver Pencil by Alice Dalgliesh. 1945 Newbery Honor Book.
