1. Do not think dishonestly.
2. The Way is in training.
3. Become acquainted with every art.
4. Know the Ways of all professions.
5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
6. Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything.
7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
8. Pay attention even to trifles.
9. Do nothing which is of no use.
-Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
-William Morris
“Oh I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.”
And that picture and quote combination is probably the nerdiest thing I will do this year. I’m not even going to explain it – either you’ll get it or you won’t.
I started a new set of pictures of the Rocket. I also intended to post something more substantial here this weekend, but time ran away from me. Maybe later then.
The wind is picking up, but we are still waiting for the threatened snow here in Q-town. Hope everyone is warm, well-fed and watered, and enjoying the holiday season.
My daughter has started smiling over the past week or so. Mundane but amazing.
When she is happy she sings her Madeleine song, an assortment of chirps, burbles, and hoots. At moments of extreme joy she erupts with a yell of delight, often emphasized by a wave of the arm. This is most likely to happen after bath time, which she loves. A list of Madeleine’s favorite things would include:
-baths
-hanging out on the changing table in a fresh diaper
-being held
UPDATE: She also enjoys the Clancy Brothers, Handel’s Messiah, and white noise (preferably ocean waves).
And here we are at the end of the series. Fifteenth in a series of fifteen.
Spinelli, Jerry (2000). Stargirl. NY: Random House. 186 pages.
Evaluation and summary: Leo Borlock is an unremarkable guy at an unremarkable high school. In fact, pretty much everyone at Micah High School is unremarkable, and they like it that way. No one really gets excited about sports or any other extracurricular activities, and most importantly, no one is different enough to stand out – until Stargirl arrives. She is very different, from her unusual garb, to her penchant for singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to anyone and everyone (while playing the ukelele), to her habit of attending the funerals of complete strangers. Leo falls head over heals for Stargirl, but will their relationship survive their classmates’ shunning of Stargirl?
When choosing the titles for this series, I tried to mix up the types of books I selected, varying the genres and picking some books that weren’t to my personal taste in reading material. Based on a classmate’s book talk I chose Stargirl, along with Heavy Metal and You, as books about romance and relationships, as opposed to my usual fare of ray guns, sword points or flintlocks. And maybe it’s because the book is not my usual fare, but I didn’t much care for Stargirl, despite the pile of awards it won.
My cool reaction to Stargirl is due to the characters. Stargirl herself is entirely too good to be true, saint like in her regard for others. Just as David Levithan created an ideal world (or at least an ideal town) to make a point, Spinelli created an ideal character to make a different point. Leo, while a little more believable as a real person than Stargirl, is a lot less likable. The only character I found appealing never spoke a word: Dori, Stargirl’s friend who remains loyal throughout all the events of the book.
Booktalk hook: I can see the appeal but I personally wouldn’t try to convince anyone to read Stargirl. The book did won loads of awards, so this may be just a matter of taste.
We’re almost through – fourteenth in a series of fifteen.
Gaiman, Neil (2007). M is for Magic. NY: HarperCollins. 260 pages.
Evaluation and summary: On the face of it, a book of short stories for young adults seems like a fine idea. The notion certainly has a distinguished pedigree, going back to (at least) Mr. Kipling and Ms. Potter. The format is ideal for those who want to sample a genre or an author without committing to a whole book, and the short time needed to finish a story must have an appeal to reluctant readers. Granted, short stories seem to have largely vanished from popular culture along with the pulps and slicks they once populated, but the idea still seems workable.
Neil Gaiman agrees with me, noting in his introduction to M is for Magic that his enjoyment of short stories as a young sprout inspired this collection. The Gaiman has a knack for self-promotion* and inspires near cult-like devotion in some of his fans; I’ve enjoyed much of his work but regret to say I found this collection little lacking. No doubt part of my disappointment is due to having previously read some of the selections (“Sunbird,” “How To Talk To Girls At Parties,” and “October in the Chair,” all of which are in Fragile Things), selections which were among the strongest stories in the collection. Some of the other stories left me cold. “Don’t Ask Jack” seemed like a synopsis of a story to be fleshed out later, while both “How To Sell the Ponti Bridge” and “The Price” ended rather abruptly for stories with such a lengthy buildup.
I did enjoy the last story in M is for Magic. “The Witch’s Headstone” features Nobody Owens, ‘Bod’ for short, an orphan who lives in a graveyard and is raised by an assortment of ghosts. The story went on to be included in The Graveyard Book, which I’ll get around to reading eventually.
Booktalk hook: I would booktalk M is for Magic by recommending The Sandman or Fragile Things.
*This is not intended as a slam at Gaiman. If you’ve ever heard one of his readings it’s obvious he put quite a bit of time and effort into his public speaking (reading?) skills.
Lucky thirteen brings us back to New York. Thirteenth in a series of fifteen.
Krovatin, Christopher (2005). Heavy Metal And You. NY: Scholastic. 186 pages.
Evaluation and summary: Sammy Markus is a high school student who really likes two things: heavy metal music, and getting fall-down drunk with his friends. All is well in his world, until he encounters something, or rather some one, else that he wants – Melissa. Pretty soon Sammy’s life is filled with conflict. He spends most of his time with Melissa, who convinces him to quit drinking and smoking. She doesn’t much care for his friends. Sammy’s friends in turn don’t much like Melissa; they she’s not only stolen their friend away, but turned him into some one he’s not in the process.
I grabbed this one from the shelf because of the title and it made me feel old. I was a teenage metalhead, so I figured I’d get the musical references. Not so much. For one thing, I was a teenage metalhead over twenty years ago, and was never really much into thrash, unlike Sammy. The only band we shared fondness for is Judas Priest. I also noticed Sammy’s tendency to cry, something I don’t recall the male protagonists doing in the YA books I read when I was actually a YA. Maybe things have changed and young men in YA literature are more sensitive? Or perhaps the crying was just a result of this author’s vision for the character? Either way, it pointed out the fact that I come from a generation with different social mores when it comes to male displays of emotion.
Booktalk hook: I didn’t dislike this book, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it.
We return to present day England for the next title. Twelfth in a series of fifteen.
McCaughrean, Geraldine (2005). The White Darkness. NY: Harper Teen, 369 pages.
Evaluation and summary: What can I say about The White Darkness without giving away too much away? My professor has obviously read the book – she assigned it to the class. But the rest of you haven’t, as far as I know, and I don’t want to ruin it for you. Because I really like The White Darkness and highly recommend you read it yourself. Really, it was excellent – neck and neck with Montmorency in the race for my favorite read of the semester.
So I will say this concerning The White Darkness. The main character is Sym Wates, a fourteen year-old girl who is clumsy, shy and obsessed with Antarctic exploration, especially Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates. Captain Oates, it should be said, is Sym’s imaginary friend and they converse frequently. Anyway, Sym sets off on a trip to Paris, courtesy of her Uncle Victor, and I don’t have to tell you that things quickly get out of hand from that point. Go read and it and find out what exactly happens.
I don’t think it gives too much away to discuss here my extreme dislike of Uncle Victor. Actually, scratch out extreme dislike and insert intense hatred: Uncle Victor got on my nerves quickly and remained there for the entire book. It was his many eccentricities that did it to me. Everybody has their own little quirks. Me, I like to sleep on the cold side of the pillow, and I’m sure you have your own peccadilloes. Uncle Victor on the other hand – what with his special diet, sleeping upright in a special chair, sleeping upright in a special chair facing a certain direction to align his brain neurons and thus gain IQ points – is a crashing bore. And like Dr. Franklin, Uncle Victor too has his real-life compatriots, a whole host of people who are unable to deal with reality and so take refuge in conspiracy theories and other idiotic notions. You know them: the people who think there was a plot to steal the election for Bush; the people who think there was a plot to steal the election for Obama; the Birthers; the Truthers; and so on and so on. I’m sure much of my visceral reaction to Uncle Victor is due to the fact I since avoid folks like him in real life, encountering his ilk in fiction is all the more aggravating.
I did grow quite fond of Captain Oates, who made for a much more interesting imaginary friend than did Tony Hawks in Slam, perhaps because Captain Oates, to my way of thinking, had a much more interesting life. Serving in Ireland, Egypt and India, he was the kind of adventurous and insanely brave young man that formed the backbone of the British Empire, nearly winning the Victoria Cross with the Inniskilling Dragoons prior to his gallant but futile self-sacrifice on the Scott Expedition. In short, Oates is almost a picture perfect version of the stiff-upper-lip-play-up-play-the-game British gentleman. The imaginary Oates who spends so much time with Sym, is aware that by dying in 1912, to such great acclaim, he avoided the anonymity that waited for him in the muck of Flanders:
“I told you before : I’m the luckiest of men! Think! Two years more and it could all have been ours: the Great War! Lice and rats. Drowning in mud. Shrapnel wounds. Mustard gas. One among millions known only unto God. Would that have been somehow preferable?
Too true, too true, although there can be little doubt that Oates would have been one of those mad bastards who went over the top kicking a football. (He also gives another reason he feels fortunate to have died in Antarctica, but I’ll let you discover it for yourself, as it’s part of The White Darkness’s grim charm).
Booktalk hook: Reading aloud the scene with the ponies and the killer whales would be a pretty effective attention grabber.
