Review of Still, by Lauren F. Winner

Christian, Musings, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Still

Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis

by Lauren F. Winner

HarperOne, 2012. 244 pages.

This is going to be one of those “reviews” that talks more about me than about the actual book. But it’s a book on musings about faith, and aren’t the best books of musings those that set off all kinds of thinking and musing in your own head? Many different things came together for me, and I need to write them out to get a grasp on them. In fact, in that I relate to the author herself. She says in the Author’s Q & A section at the back:

I’m sure a therapist somewhere could tell you why I do this, dissect my spiritual life on the page for readers. I like to think I’m called to do it. My own spiritual life owes so much to reading, to books; I like to imagine my own books help other people, that they are a debt offering, a gratitude offering. Also, frankly, it is a kind of writing I enjoy — it is “deep play” for me, this kind of writing. Still, I don’t think this book is really about me. If I’ve written it well, it isn’t about me. It’s about the questions: How does a spiritual life change? How do you enter that change?

First, I’ll talk a bit about what the book is. It’s a book of musings, and it’s also a book about middles. Mid-faith. Midlife. It’s a book about crises. Death. Divorce. And it’s a book about after crisis. Here’s another paragraph from that ending section:

I wanted to emphasize the subtle but hugely significant shift from depressed, intense crisis to pacific openness, from no sense of God to a new sense of God. From wrenched and wrecked to calm communion with a God I both know and don’t know. In part the structure was hard because what might be considered the real crisis point . . . is the prelude to the book. The spiritual unraveling, the alienation from God that I felt after my mother’s death and in the midst of my marriage — that is the backstory. Still opens at the tail end of that darkness. The book is not primarily a picture of the darkness. It is a picture of the end of the darkness, of the stumbling out of the darkness into something new.

Here’s what she says about it at the start of the book:

I was carried to the middle of my spiritual life by two particular events: my mother died, and I got married, and the marriage was an unhappy one. Had you asked me before — before my mother got sick, before I found myself to be a person thinking about divorce — I would have told you that these were precisely the circumstances in which one would be glad for religious faith. Faith, after all, is supposed to sustain you through hard times — and I’m sure for many people faith does just that. But it wasn’t so for me. In my case, as everything else was dying, my faith seemed to die, too. God had been there. God had been alive to me. And then, it seemed, nothing was alive — not even God.

Intuition and conversation persuade me that most of us arrive at a spiritual middle, probably we arrive at many middles, and there are many ways to get there. The events that brought me to the middle of my spiritual life were dramatic, they were interruptions, they were grief.

But grief and failure and drama are not the only paths to a spiritual middle. Sometimes a whole life of straightforward churchgoing takes you to a middle. Sometimes it is not about a conversion giving way, or the shock of God’s absence. Sometimes a life of wandering takes you to a middle. Sometimes you come to the middle quietly.

You may arrive at the spiritual middle exhausted, in agony, in what saints of the Christian tradition have called desolation.

Or your journey to the middle may be a little easier, a little calmer — it is not that God is absent — it is, rather, that your spiritual life seems to have faded, like fabric. Some days the fading doesn’t trouble you at all; other days, it seems a hollowing loss. You’re not as interested as you once were in attending to God. You no longer find it easy to make time for church, for prayer. . . .

This book is about the time when the things you thought you knew about the spiritual life turn out not to suffice for the life you are actually living. This book wants to know about that time, and then about the new ways you find, the new glory road that might not be a glory road after all but just an ordinary gravel byway, studded with the occasional bluet, the occasional mica chip.

So that should give you an idea what the book is about. If you’re the sort who likes spiritual musings (as I do) and books who make you think, there is much to enjoy here.

Now for the part about me. It began on a totally different topic. Our pastor’s been doing a series of sermons on politics, and last week he covered homosexuality.

Now I have to say that I was cringing at the very thought of these sermons. I’ve heard some very dogmatic sermons where I don’t think dogma is warranted. I don’t think the Bible is terribly clear on most political topics, and I definitely don’t think that one political party in America has the lock on the “Biblical view.” In fact, I really hate it when someone claims there is a “Biblical view” on most of these political topics.

But the pastor did a good job at doing his best to present two sides to each one of these topics. He never told us, “This is the Biblical view,” and presented different views on the Bible’s teaching on all of the topics, even when he had a clear leaning one way or the other. I appreciated that very much.

Part Two: Thinking about the sermon later, it occurred to me that it’s worlds easier to decide something’s sinful when it’s not something you’re tempted to do. For example, lying isn’t my weakness. My weakness is telling too much truth to too many people. So when my ex-husband lied, it was incredibly easy for me to think, “See! He has NO self-control!” But the fact is, I have no self-control when it comes to lying, because I need none. I’m just not really tempted in that direction.

Since homosexuals haven’t exactly been welcomed into the church, it’s so easy for those left to decide that homosexuality is sinful. We don’t have to look at the other sins that we actually are tempted toward.

Part Three: At Bible Study last night, one person asked what people at church thought of the sermon series. I mentioned a little bit about why I was so glad that two sides were presented. We talked about not being judgmental. Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, “Then neither do I condemn you.” But he also told her, “Go now, and leave your life of sin.” So he was not telling her adultery is fine.

I’d just been reading a novel where a gay person has to deal with a hate-filled Christian group. I said that Jesus started with love. But some in the group said that if you love someone, you are going to worry about them staying in sinful conduct.

Part Four: I was reading this book today, and this thought occurred to me: What if it isn’t sinful?

I know, this will seem pretty obvious to many of my readers. But it seems to me that was what the Pharisees were all about: Telling everyone exactly what was sinful and what was not. And Jesus challenged that dramatically, in many different ways.

What’s more — wait for it — I am not Jesus!

In Romans 14:4, it says, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” If I am sinning, I believe that God Himself is going to be working on me, right where I need to be worked on. Can’t I trust him to do that for others?

Then came Part Five. Lauren Winner says this about her divorce: “Among other things, divorcing has shaken up the assumptions I bring to reading scripture. In leaving my marriage, I was doing something that was simply not permissible, not in the way I have always interpreted scripture, and that is something I remain troubled by, confused by — it is not something about which I feel cavalier.”

Now, for someone who is divorced myself, I’m still awfully judgmental about divorce. Because I KNOW what my husband did is wrong! I was hurt by it!

Today, thinking about these issues regarding gay marriage, and thinking that I approve much more of someone who sticks with his gay partner for 30 years than someone who breaks his heterosexual marriage vows after 15 years — well, I realized that I’m awfully judgmental in certain areas myself.

What if I applied that same question to everyone who isn’t me? Even *gasp* my ex-husband?

What if it isn’t sinful?

And what if it isn’t my business even if it is? Shouldn’t I spend my real scrutiny on the activities and attitudes that take up my own time?

As you can see, this author of spiritual musings really got me thinking. She must have been doing something right.

laurenwinner.net
harperone.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/still.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

And We’re Off! The 7th Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge Begins!

48-Hour Book Challenge 0

I confess: I really do look forward to this weekend all year. It’s the weekend of Mother Reader‘s 48 Hour Book Challenge.

I began at 11:30 pm tonight, Friday night. My challenge will then run until 11:30 pm Sunday night. I’m going to see how much time I can spend reading.

My stats from last year are definitely going to be hard to beat. If not impossible. Last year, I hit 30 hours and 30 minutes. I finished 8 books, read 1,606 pages, and wrote 9 reviews, but only posted one of them.

This year, I’m going to try very hard to get less behind rather than more behind. With this in mind, I plan to post all reviews I write, as well as several reviews I’ve already written. Since I have about 45 reviews waiting to be posted, any amount will help! And during the 48 Hour Book Challenge, I have a nice amount of traffic from other book challengers, so it’s really a good time to post! Oh, I also want to catch up on writing reviews of books I’ve written. I have 11 books sitting here that I very much want to review, so I will try to review them in the next 48 hours. Mind you, I also want to review every book I read during the challenge, so this writing will cut down on my reading time. But all of it will be fun.

The biggest obstacle to a high number? Well, today is my 22nd day with a low-grade vestibular migraine. I felt somewhat better today, but I find that staying up later does not help. So I’m thinking it would not be a good time to avoid sleep, and that may be my undoing.

Once again, I am lucky in that I am not scheduled to work this weekend. I waited until late so I could go to small group Bible study without it cutting into my time, and then I did the grocery shopping for the week, so I won’t need to do that. Love those late night hours! I brought in my audiobook for in a pinch.

Now, I do need to be my son’s chauffeur for going to Prom tomorrow night, but they are just going to have to bear with me listening to an audiobook! I confess, I’d be tempted to skip church Sunday morning — but they will be showing pictures of the graduating Seniors, and I chose many for my son. Of course the big challenge will be: Can I possibly stay awake on Sunday afternoon and read, or is a Sunday afternoon nap a biological necessity? Time will tell.

I did save Code Name Verity to start tonight, because I have a feeling I won’t be able to stop until I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open. Then it would be cool to go through my entire “rotation” of books — a book I own (Code Name Verity), a new library book (The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection), an award winner (Breaking Stalin’s Nose), an Advance Reader Copy of a book not yet published (Keeping the Castle, by Patrice Kindl), an older library book (Silver Phoenix, by Cindy Pon), and rereading a book (Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper — though I might save that for the plane). I also have a lot of Capitol Choices books I’d like to get read and a lot of shorter books still for 5th grade and up that I’d like to slip in there. We shall see.

Now I’m going to go read!

Review of The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate

Animal Characters, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The One and Only Ivan

by Katherine Applegate

Harper, 2012. 305 pages.
Starred Review

This book is already my early Newbery pick. This might change during the year, but the book itself is exquisitely crafted and told simply. You believe a real gorilla is telling the story, and you see his growth.

Ivan is a gorilla. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

Ivan lives “in a human habitat called the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. We are conveniently located off I-95, with shows at two, four, and seven, 365 days a year.” That’s what the owner says when he answers the phone.

Also in the mall circus are an aging elephant, some sun bears, chickens, rabbits, dogs, and some parrots. The other animals do tricks for the people who come in to watch them.

Ivan is resigned to his lot. The janitor’s daughter, Julia, has brought him crayons. He draws pictures of things in his domain. The people don’t recognize them, but they are willing to buy pictures made by a gorilla. He is an artist at heart.

But things change to make Ivan no longer so resigned. A baby elephant comes to their little circus. She is very young, very curious, very talkative, and misses her family. We see Ivan change now that he has someone to protect.

But how can a gorilla in a cage protect anyone?

This book will appeal to a very wide age range. I’m often prejudiced against prose poems, but in this one, it seems natural, since you don’t expect complicated sentences from a gorilla. I am also prejudiced against present tense, but again, it seems like a natural way for a gorilla to tell us about his lot. After all, his life has hardly ever changed, and he’s telling us about it as it happens. As a prose poem, there is plenty of blank space on the pages and the story reads quickly, so the language won’t be an obstacle for less advanced readers. But the story covers issues that people of any age will care about.

The craft in this book is exquisite. We see Ivan grow, slowly and realistically, as he is confronted with situations that make him care, in spite of himself.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/one_and_only_ivan.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Sonderling Sunday – Chapter Seven – Here’s to Villainy!

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, Sonderling Sunday 0

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! Where we play with words in all their nerdy glory, by looking at the German translation of The Order of Odd-Fish, by James Kennedy, in the volume Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge.

I’m on Chapter Seven, which begins on page 60 in the English version and on page 78 in the German translation.

My caption comes from the first sentence. And I will continue, because it’s too full of wonderful words and alliterative delights not to mention:

“Here’s to villainy!” cried Ken Kiang, lifting his glass. “Here’s to wicked work well wrought! Here’s to outrage, injustice! Violence and venom! Marvelous murderers and cutthroat criminals! I embrace you all, brothers! I’m one of you now!“

How will the translator deal with this? Will he attempt to retain the alliteration? Will he simply define the concepts as closely as possible? Will he retain the rollicking, roll-off-the-tongue language? The feeling of criminal glee in a moment of apparent triumph?

Here’s what the translator presents us with:

»Auf die Schurkerei!«, schrie Ken Kiang und hob sein Glas. »Auf gut gemachte widerliche Werke! Auf Wahnsinn und Ungerechtigkeit! Gewalt und Gift! Makellose Morde und gemeine Gauner! Ich umarme euch alle, Brüder! Ich bin jetzt einer von euch!

Answer? Yes, he pretty much kept the alliteration, with the understandable exception being “wicked work well wrought.” gut gemachte widerliche Werke is close, anyway.

Some other phrases to look at:
“villainy” = Schurkerei (Google translates this word “roguery”)

gut gemachte widerliche Werke would be “well-made disgusting work,” a good translation, I think, for “wicked work well wrought.”

“outrage, injustice!” is a pretty straight translation, Wahnsinn (“madness”) und Ungerechtigkeit

“Violence and venom!” = Gewalt und Gift!

“Marvelous murderers”= Makellose Morde (“flawless murders,” which is not quite the same thing, but worth it for the alliteration.)

“cutthroat criminals” = gemeine Gauner (“common crooks.” Hmm. Pretty good.)

Later, as Ken Kiang confesses:
“Until tonight, I was all hat and no cattle!” = Bis heute Nacht habe ich nur gebellt, nicht gebissen! They didn’t attempt the cowboy metaphor, but translated it as “I’d only barked, not bitten.”

And more alliteration: “It’s only now, with this magnificent quadruple murder, that I’ve married my malevolent mistress of malefaction and started sliding down the slippery slope to sweet sin!” There’s not as much alliteration in the translation, but there is some: Erst jetzt, nach diesem herrlichen vierfachen Mord, habe ich endlich meine bösartige Geliebte der Schandtaten geheiratet und den ersten Schritt getan, um diese schlüpfrig schiefe Bahn der sü?en Sünde hinabzugleiten!

“married my malevolent mistress of malefaction” = meine bösartige Geliebte der Schandtaten geheiratet (“my evil Beloved of crime married”)

“started sliding down the slippery slope to sweet sin” = den ersten Schritt getan, um diese schlüpfrig schiefe Bahn der sü?en Sünde hinabzugleiten! Yeah, okay, that just isn’t the same. But it means “took the first steps to slide down the slippery sloping path of sweet sins.”

schlüpfrig schiefe Bahn is almost, but not quite, as good as “slippery slope” because the slippery sound of schlüpfrig schiefe almost makes up for the out of place word Bahn. But I’m sorry, “slide down” fits much, much better into the sentence than hinabzugleiten! I do have to say that sü?en Sünde is much more seductive sounding than “sweet sins.”

Moving on, I’d like to say a little bit about Pie.

Hoagland Shanks is obsessed with pie. This is translated as “Kuchen.” Now, I always was told that “Kuchen” is “cake.”

Ah, but some things are un-translatable! I’m not crazy about a lot of German food. Not a big fan of various kinds of Schnitzels. But anything that comes from a German bakery? Outstanding.

This kind of explains why my dear German friend, Elfriede, called all of the wide range of German pastries, “cake.” They were called Kuchen, which she’d been told is the English word “cake.” But, truth be told, we simply don’t have English words for all the kinds of German kuchen available.

For example, when Elfriede would take a break and go to the “coffee place,” she’d always want to bring me something, and she’d ask what I wanted: “fruity or creamy?” One of my favorites was Flockensahne which was almost (but not quite) a phyllo dough filled with cream. (Ha! I found an image on the internet. Follow the link to see the credit for this image of Flockensahne.)

Would you call that Pie? Certainly not! But it’s not exactly cake either.

And when we’d go there on my birthday in June, I’d always have one of the concoctions that involved fresh strawberries. This Erdbeerkuchen is similar to strawberry pie. Similar, but not the same.

Mmmm. I’m getting so hungry. Thinking about those wonderful birthdays in Germany always makes me nostalgically sad. (The weather is always perfect in June as well. We’d go to a castle for dinner…..)

However, as it appears that Americans do not have words to adequately describe German Kuchen, neither do Germans have words for pie. This is perhaps appropriate, since haven’t we all heard the words “as American as apple pie”?

I like where Hoagland Shanks tells Ken Kiang to stop waxing so eloquent and get him some pie:

“Now talk sense, talk pie!” = Jetzt reden Sie endlich Klartext, reden Sie von Kuchen!

I like Klartext. Make your text clear.

I have to mention this one:
“The Club of Weird Desserts” = dem Klub der Sonderbaren Desserts

A candidate for longest word!
“dormant taste buds” = schlummernde Geschmacksknospen (Yes, you pronounce both those ks.)

Oh! I spoke too soon! Here’s one with 23 letters:
“black-and-white TV” = Schwarzwei?fernsehgerät

This translation doesn’t come out as catchy:
“A deal’s a deal.” = Eine Abmachung ist eine Abmachung.

Nor this one:
“a mighty yawp” = einen lauten Schrei (“a loud cry”)

There we have it! That’s it for Chapter Seven. Summing up:

Longest word: Schwarzwei?fernsehgerät

Hardest to say: Geschmacksknospen

Most fun to say: sü?en Sünde

Clunkiest translation: habe ich endlich meine bösartige Geliebte der Schandtaten geheiratet

Best metaphor: nur gebellt, nicht gebissen

Best new concept: Klartext

Best use of the prefix Sonder: Sonderbaren Desserts

Tune in next week as we find out what happened to Jo and friends!

Picture Books Challenge

48-Hour Book Challenge 0

I’m still gearing up for the 48 Hour Book Challenge, coming next weekend! Huzzah!

Now, awhile back I posted about how I was going to catch up on reviews during Memorial Day weekend and then turn in all the books I hadn’t reviewed.

Did I succeed? Well, no. I didn’t have the heart to turn in all the books I hadn’t reviewed. However, I did make good headway, getting five books reviewed. And I turned in a whole mess of picture books that I decided I wasn’t crazy enough about to review.

There are ten books left sitting here that I definitely want to review. (This is much better than 23.) I still have this coming week before the 48-hour Book Challenge to get them reviewed. But this amount is not unmanageable. I figure when the Challenge comes, if I haven’t finished with back reviews, after every book read, I will review the book I read, and then review one of the books from the To-Be-Reviewed pile, if I haven’t yet gotten it down to nothing.

Now, I’ve got some other grand plans brewing. First, Mother Reader has an unreasonable prejudice against picture books. Why do I think this is unreasonable? Because if the 48-Hour Book Challenge is by time, not number of books, and not pages, well, why not allow picture books? What have they ever done to be excluded?

Now, I also have a big pile of picture books sitting here. My goal this coming week (besides making headway on those other reviews) is to read all of the picture books waiting. Those I’m not crazy about, I will just return to the library. Those I love, I will write a review now, before I can be accused of using the Book Challenge time on *gasp* a Picture Book! That’s the plan anyway!

Let’s see. I’ve already gotten it down to 14 picture books waiting in the wings. Of course, if I don’t get all of them dealt with, I can always keep going after the challenge.

Now another goal I’m shooting for — an impossible goal but one I hope to at least make progress toward — is, when I go to ALA Annual Conference at the end of June, to turn in all my library books. Well, to make that slightly more possible, all the library books I haven’t actually begun. (This will exclude a whole pile of nonfiction.) During the 48-Hour Book Challenge, I think I will work toward quantity. Now, among all the other piles, there are lots of short books I have set aside thinking I will quickly read them some day. These are, mind you, longer than picture books, but still short. So I will attempt to focus on these during the 48HBC, and try to get every book I read also reviewed. We will see how I do.

But until Friday, let’s see how many picture books I can return to the library, either read or read and reviewed.

Review of Cloaked in Red, by Vivian Vande Velde

Children's Fiction Review, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Humorous, Short Stories 0

Cloaked in Red

by Vivian Vande Velde

Marshall Cavendish, 2010. 127 pages.

I loved Vivian Vande Velde’s The Rumpelstiltskin Problem, so I made sure to snap up Cloaked in Red when I heard about it.

In both books, she takes a fairy tale you thought you knew, and casts it in a very different light. Okay, several different lights. She looks at the story from many different perspectives.

Her Author’s Note at the beginning makes some fun points:

“There are different versions, but they all start with a mother who sends her daughter into the woods, where there is not only a wolf, but a talking, cross-dressing wolf. We are never told Little Red Riding Hood’s age, but her actions clearly show that she is much too young, or too dimwitted, to be allowed out of the house alone.”

Or how about the heroine’s unusual name?

“And what happened later in life, when Little Red Riding Hood was no longer little? Did she shift to ‘Medium-Sized Blue-Beaded Sweater’? Did she eventually become ‘Size-Large and Yes-That-DOES-Make-Your-Butt-Look-Enormous Jeans’?”

I love the way she points out how unlikely it all is. Here’s Red in the cottage:

“I don’t like to criticize anyone’s family, but I’m guessing these people are not what you’d call close. Little Red doesn’t realize a wolf has substituted himself for her grandmother. I only met my grandmother three times in my entire life, but I like to think I would have noticed if someone claiming to be my grandmother had fur, fangs, and a tail.

“But Little Red, instead of becoming suspicious, becomes rude.

“‘My,’ she says — as far as she knows — to her grandmother, ‘what big arms you have.’

“Big she notices. Apparently hairy and clawed escape her.”

Vivian Vande Velde concludes her introduction with these words:

“However you look at it, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is a strange and disturbing story that should probably not be shared with children.

“That is why I’ve gone ahead and written eight new versions of it.”

The eight stories that follow are amazingly varied, even though you can see how they relate to the fairy tale. These ones seemed darker to me than the ones in The Rumpelstiltskin Problem, but then “Little Red Riding Hood” is a quite dark and violent tale.

We’ve got one from the perspective of pretty much every one in the story. I like the one where Jakob and Wilhelm, the dimwitted Grimm brothers, sons of a woodcutter, misunderstand when Grandma’s talking about making a wolf draft-stopper for her granddaughter. My favorite is probably the one about the nice wolf who is trying to be helpful after an annoying little girl steps on his tail, screams, and drops her basket.

“The wolf inhaled deeply the tantalizing smells of meat and baked goods, and was strongly tempted to gobble everything up. But his mother had raised him better than that.

“‘Little girl!’ he called after the fleeing child. He could no longer see her, though her shrieks trailed behind her like a rat’s tail. ‘You forgot your food!’

“Apparently the little girl could not understand wolf speech any more than the wolf could understand human speech, since she didn’t come back.

“If the wolf hadn’t had such a deeply held moral belief system, he could have convinced himself that by leaving the basket behind, the girl had forsaken her rights to it. But, instead, he picked up the basket in his teeth, then loped through the trees, following the trails of wailing, crushed forest vegetation and human scent.”

Reading this book makes me want to try my hand at rewriting fairy tales. Above all, all the variations are clever and inventive and a nice exercise in how point of view changes a story.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/cloaked_in_red.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own book, ordered from Amazon.com.

Librarians Help! – With Early Literacy

Uncategorized 0

In my Librarians Help! series, I’ve decided to start providing links to sites explaining ways other Librarians Help. Here’s a link from Pierce County Library System that I find extremely cool. They did an actual study with pre- and post-tests to show that when childcare providers are trained by librarians, the children under their care actually do increase in Early Literacy Skills. And they compared with a control group to show this was a significant improvement from the untrained providers.

Don’t forget: Librarians are educators. And we help people learn at all ages and from all backgrounds.

Now, here are some of the ways I got to help people this week.

I got to help with some computer skills this week:
— Helped a woman load a picture onto Facebook.
— Helped another woman get data from a PDF file on the internet into an Excel spreadsheet on her laptop.

I showed someone where we keep our tax forms now that tax season is past.

Mostly, again, besides back room work (mostly about converting books from Reference to Circulation this week), my work was about helping people find books. Like ones about:

— Various SAT Subject Tests
— Cooking in crock pots
— Ancient Chinese art
— The history of Batman
— French resources for kids
— Drawing
— Espionage

People also asked for specific books, such as:
— The next one of the Psalm 23 Mysteries
— Running With the Kenyans
— Bone chapter books
— specific issues of Wired magazine
— next Rick Riordan book
— First Harry Potter book for a girl who currently does most of her reading in Korean. (Mom wants to tempt her. I did suggest that would be a good choice for listening to the audio version.)
— My Weird School books

By far the most fun question this week was for suggestions for books to tempt a 15-year-old son. Some of my suggestions that were chosen were:
— The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner
— White Cat, by Holly Black
— Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi
— Octavian Nothing, by M. T. Anderson

Spread the word! Librarians Help!

Disclaimer: The views expressed on this blog are entirely my own and should not be construed in any way to represent those of my employer.

Review of The Map of My Dead Pilots, by Colleen Mondor

Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The Map of My Dead Pilots

The Dangerous Game of Flying in Alaska

by Colleen Mondor

Lyons Press, Guilford, Connecticut, 2012. 242 pages.
Starred Review

Full disclosure: Colleen Mondor is an acquaintance whom I like very much. It seems a little presumptuous to call her a friend, but I’m confident that eventually, after enough KidLitCons, we’ll be that. She hosted the last one I attended in Seattle, and I’ve definitely read her blog, Chasing Ray, many times. Today I was on her blog for an Unconventional Blog Tour, where she gave an insightful post about Bloggers and Authors. She mentioned that it’s been six months since her book came out, and it dawned on me that I really need to get her book reviewed! So watch me go! I got home from work, and I’m writing the review!

Now, I should point out that there are two main reasons I took so long to review this book, and neither one has anything to do with how much I like it (very much).

1. It is nonfiction.
2. I own it.

The reason Nonfiction slows me down is this: I learned many years ago that if I read nonfiction at bedtime, I will think about it, and I won’t be able to go to sleep. Sometimes fiction does this, but not as often as nonfiction. So I read nonfiction sitting at the table, either eating or knitting while I read. What’s more, I rotate books. I’ve got a hugely complicated rotation system. Generally, every day I read a chapter of inspirational nonfiction, one of narrative nonfiction, and one of informational nonfiction. With the other two categories, I even rotate books within categories, but I’m finding that with narrative nonfiction (like this book), I tend to stick with one book until I finish, though I usually do just read one chapter a day.

This book worked well with that method, since almost every chapter is essentially a story in itself. The chapters do work together and do have an overarching theme, but they definitely work as separate stories. And I have to say, there were many times, and more and more as the book went on, when I definitely couldn’t bring myself to stop with one chapter.

I also had an interruption in reading the book when I flew to ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas. This is decidedly NOT a book you want to read on an airplane or within about a week of flying on an airplane! It will not be a spoiler to say that many pilots die in this book.

The reason owning the book slowed me down is that continuing problem of it, unlike library books, not having a due date. I am getting better at putting my own books higher in the stack to be reviewed, or, well, at least I thought I was. But apparently I still have a ways to go. Because I did finish it quite some time ago.

In The Map of My Dead Pilots, Colleen Mondor tells stories from her days of working for “The Company” that had a flight business in Alaska. Her stories are eye-opening and amazing. She helps you understand how people could fudge on cargo weights in order to get the job done — with possibly life-threatening results. She talks about the many factors that sometimes lead to narrow escapes but sometimes lead to disaster. She talks about the kinds of people who end up living a life of adventure in Alaska.

The whole thing is completely fascinating. Sometimes in the way that a train wreck is fascinating — in this case, I should say the way a plane wreck is fascinating, because there are several of those. Though they don’t always find the wreckage.

Another part of the fascination is the whole look at bureaucracy and how bureaucracy so often does not lead to good decisions and how people try to get around it with bad results. I know about bureaucracy because I was an Air Force wife. I think many things said about The Company can be applied pretty easily to the military. (But these views are entirely my own and do not in any way reflect the official views of the US Air Force.)

The book reads like friends sitting around and telling yarns. Colleen admits that they don’t sound believable, so it’s a treat when she’s with someone who was there and knows it’s all true.

I’ll quote a few sections to give you the feel of the book:

Sam Beach . . . didn’t see himself as Ben Eielson, heading to Fairbanks in 1922 on his way to fame and glory as the first pilot to fly across the Arctic. By 1995 commercial flying in Alaska wasn’t really about the bush anymore; it was about commuter schedules and hauling mail and building flight time to get a jet job. But he still had that same vision of Eielson’s in his head. This time it would be different; this time the job wouldn’t go away; this time he would make it. Sam had been in aviation long enough to know what Alaska meant; it was the place where pilots were needed, where they mattered. This is my chance, he told his parents, and he said it just like Eielson did so long ago, with promises to be smart and careful and come home again soon.

He said it like he believed it, and maybe then he did. Sam believed a lot of things in the beginning, and he learned to repeat those things every time his parents called, even after he realized they were lies. And he never told them Ben Eielson crashed in 1929. And of course they never thought to ask.

Some things never do change after all.

There’s a section right at the start about things the pilots learned. Here are some bits from that:

If they were based in the Bush, flying out of a place like St. Mary’s or Aniak or Bethel or Kotzebue, then they flew with a specific set of habits. Out there it was about the snow and the ice and the wind. It was also about illusions, about pretending you could see when you couldn’t and accepting that no one else could see either. They learned to trust one another in those places, or at least to trust every sane guy and avoid the ones who were nuts. Mostly though, they just learned to hate it. . . .

Along with the words, they also had to play the game — fly when it was legal but maybe not safe, and lie when it was illegal but definitely much safer. There was physical survival, job survival, and career survival to consider. Rarely did the three converge on any flight. They had to pick and choose which was most important and fake it when they made a mistake. Some guys figured this all out in the first day with the Company, but others never got it at all.

If they were the kind to worry, there were a lot of things to be concerned about. The planes they flew were old and tired. The exteriors were patched, the interiors stained, and in a hundred different ways each of them was suffering from some sort of neglect. They were used for hauling sled dogs and snow machines as well as any other freight that fit, and they looked it. There were a lot of things that went wrong, and flying a broken airplance quickly became part of the job, just another test of loyalty in a place too cheap to do things right.

She tells sad stories, poignant stories, amazing stories, and a lot of fun stories like this one:

I can still remember Tony coming back from every single Mount McKinley sight-seeing flight and his passengers going on and on about how spectacular the mountain was to see. I ask him how come the mountain is never clouded in when he’s flying, and he laughs and says the trick isn’t finding Denali on a good day but any mountain on a bad one.

This book is hard to describe because I haven’t read too many others like it. It’s true-life adventure, but not one big saga like a trip to the South Pole. No, this is the story of people for whom life-and-death adventure becomes a matter of course, and all wrapped up in working for a Company that’s trying to make money and cutting corners to do it. Meanwhile, she talks as well about what drives the pilots today and the pilots of the past whose names are now legendary. And she makes it all fascinating.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/map_of_my_dead_pilots.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy, ordered from Amazon.com.

Conference Corner – ALA Midwinter Meeting – Susan Cain on Introverts

Conference Corner 0

I’m continuing a weekly blog series, “Conference Corner,” where I share my notes from conferences. I’ve now finished the first big day of Midwinter Meeting, when I got to attend the Morris Seminar. Next up was the main conference. Midwinter Meeting is more about committee meetings than educational sessions, but there were still quite a few noteworthy sessions for which I will share my notes. First up was Susan Cain, author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.

They also gave us a copy of the book afterward, and we got to have her sign it. Since I read nonfiction very slowly – theoretically so I can absorb it better, but practically speaking because I’m reading lots of nonfiction books at a time and rotating them – I have not yet finished the book. When I do finish, I will definitely review it here.

I have a feeling at a library conference there was perhaps an unusual proportion of introverts in the crowd. Susan Cain began her talk by discussing the main differences between extroverts and introverts. The primary difference is this: Where do you get your stimulation?

Introverts are more stimulated by lower levels of sound, light, or other outside sources. Social stimulation is the highest level of stimulation.

There are some profound advantages to being more easily stimulated.

She talked about some big contributions to society that have been made by introverts. But recently there’s a strong bias against introverts.

“When we view introversion as somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology, it’s a colossal waste.”

Many times, introverts try to pass as extroverts. This is a loss for us all at a social level.

Even in the animal kingdom, there are introverts and extroverts.

When introverted children are sitting quietly, they are paying more attention. They take in subtleties that others miss. Introverted kids know more than extroverts, even with same intelligence.

Introverts also take less risks. “Extroverts seize the day. Introverts make sure there’s a day left to seize.”

Most creative people tend to be introverts, because solitude is an important catalyst for creativity, and introverts are comfortable being alone.

Susan Cain’s Three Main Points:
1) Call for a world with more peace and quiet for everybody.
2) Call for a world in which we enjoy and celebrate introverted children.
3) We need to understand how much introverts and extroverts need each other.

We need to come together and truly delight in each other.

“Introverts are not antisocial, but differently social.”

Review of The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

Contemporary, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Fault in Our Stars

by John Green

Dutton Books, 2012. 318 pages.
Starred Review

I was already a fan of John Green and his books, but he has surpassed himself with this one. I think it’s funny that two books that I hope figure high in next year’s awards feature heroes August (in Wonder, a Newbery contender) and Augustus (in this book, which I would love to see win the Printz).

This is a book about teens who are dealing with cancer, but it’s not a “cancer book.” This is how Hazel, the narrator of this book, defines a “cancer book”, as she describes her favorite book, which is about a girl dealing with cancer:

“Like, in cancer books, the cancer person starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, right? And this commitment to charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes him/her feel loved and encouraged because s/he will leave a cancer-curing legacy. But in AIA, Anna decides that being a person with cancer who starts a charity is a bit narcissistic, so she starts a charity called The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure Cholera.”

Hazel meets Augustus at a cancer support group meeting that her mom makes her go to. But they hit it off well enough that she loans him the book and they start a relationship. John Green is good at portraying the clever banter of two nerds falling in love.

Now, Hazel’s favorite book does not end well. She wants nothing more than to find out from the author what happens after the book ends. And Augustus wants to make that happen. Meanwhile, their friend Isaac, who has eye cancer, is about to lose his vision, and his girlfriend breaks up with him right before that happens.

But there’s a whole lot more that happens, and I don’t want to say any more than that. I’ve heard objections that these teens use words that are too big even for adult readers — but those objectors clearly were not nerdy teens themselves. I know some nerdy teens, and dare I say I was one myself, and I remember the delight when you actually found someone who gets you, who lets you spout off your existential angst and crazy philosophizing. This book captures all that.

Now, these are teens dealing with life-threatening illness. Normal adolescence has a good share of drama. You’re figuring out life and love and your emotions and what’s important. Adolescence with a life-threatening illness thrown in has even more at stake. So these are some teens for whom philosophizing is completely appropriate.

I’ll say no more, except that I love the way John Green headed off anyone tracking him down and asking what happens after the book ends. He included an Author’s Note right at the front:

“This is not so much an author’s note as an author’s reminder of what was printed in small type a few pages ago: This book is a work of fiction. I made it up.

“Neither novels nor their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.

“I appreciate your cooperation in this matter.”

This book is brilliant. I only hope there are enough nerds on the Printz committee for it to get the recognition it deserves. Meanwhile, read it!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/fault_in_our_stars.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book I purchased at ALA Midwinter Meeting and had signed by the author to my son Tim.