January Progress Report

 In terms of reading, this was a very successful month. I read 17 total books, 16 off the list which translates to 4113 pages or 4625 if I count the extra book. My favorite reads for the month were A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Janet Winterson. Least favorite was probably The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.

I probably won't be able to keep up this rate, but it's still a great start to the year!

1. Girl, Stolen by April Henry
2. Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
3. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
4. The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
5. The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
6. Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
7. The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
8. Thrilling Tales edited by Michael Chabon
9. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
10. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
11. Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (RR)
12. Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (RR)
13. The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell
14. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
15. Little Bee by Chris Cleave
16. In the Name of Salome by Julia Alvarez
17. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (RR)(B)
18. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (B)
19. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
20. Ranger's Apprentice: Book 1 The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan (B)
21. Quantum Gravity Book One: Keeping it Real by Justina Robson (B)
22. Quantum Gravity Book Two: Selling Out by Justina Robson (B)
23. Quantum Gravity Book Three: Going Under by Justina Robson (B)
24. Quantum Gravity Book Four: Chasing the Dragon by Justina Robson (B)
25. Witch World by Andre Norton
26. Buried Fire by Jonathan Stroud
27. The Falcons of Fire and Ice by Karen Maitland
28. Perfect Peace by Daniel Black
29. City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte
30. The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
31. Perdita by Hilary Scharper
32. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
33. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
34. Matched by Ally Condie
35. A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
36. Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis by Ali Smith
37. Binu and The Great Wall: The Myth of Meng by Su Tong
38. Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams by Alexander McCall Smith
39. The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur by Victor Pelevin
40. Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson
41. Paper Towns  by John Green (B)
42. Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
43. Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher (B)
44. Thinking Through Genre: Units of Study in Reading and Writing Workshops 4-12 by Heather Lattimer (B)
45. Writing About Reading: From Book Talk to Literary Essays, Grades 3-8 by Janet Angelillo (B)
46. Inside Writing: How to Teach the Details of Craft by Donald H. Graves and Penny Kittle(B)

(RR = Reread, B = Borrowed)

Ack! All the Series!

It seems like two thirds of the books I pick up to read are secretly part of some series. I suspect that this is a result of all the YA lit I've been slogging through just lately, but really what happened to the stand alone book? Is this representative of a shift in culture or is it just marketing? Is it both?

In a way, I find it very exciting. If I liked the first book, it's exciting to think that there is more. I never want the story to end when I find a book I love. On the other hand, I feel trapped as though I can't properly move on until I've finished the series. Heaven forbid it be an unfinished series. I sympathize with George R.R. Martin fans.

There is something beautiful about a good stand alone novel. Sure, I'm sad when it's over and sure, I wish there were more. However, when dealing with one self contained work the ideas are more pure. When extending plots over several novels, themes tend to get muddy and characters either lose their focus or change radically. I like looking at a work and really digging into the themes.

A Reader of Loose Morals

It happened again. Someone saw me reading and said, "I can't believe you'd read something like that." For the record I was reading Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs which is light reading to be sure but hardly worthy of derision. My response is usually, "why not?"

This is often met with a stammering explanation about how I'm such a big reader and how I have such interesting insights on books that they just couldn't see me reading victorian pulp. This isn't even my students, mind. I get this much more often from adults and other teachers.

Being a big reader doesn't mean a person reads good literature. Some of the biggest readers I've met are the little blue haired ladies who used to call up at the Book Nook and make me scurry down the series romance aisle after missing issues in their collections. Some of them pack away 15 romance novels a week. They blow away my page counts by a handy margin.

Being a good reader doesn't mean every book is or should be a brain-buster. Yeah, I do read things like Pride and Prejudice for fun, but I also read plenty of YA fiction, sci fi, and trashy vampire novels. While no one would discount the value of a Jane Austin novel, there's a lot more value in the plebian literature than people give it credit.

Take Princess of Mars for example. Burroughs creates this amazing southern genteel voice without any hint of dialectical writing. As a writer myself, I find that worth study. My only conclusion is that Burroughs has a mastery of meter and cadence that I find enviable. But that's not the only thing I found interesting. John Carter is an American take on the archetype of 'Gentleman Explorer'. As a general rule, most of those are Victorian Brits, so it's interesting to see an American cast in that mold. Honestly, I found that more interesting than the somewhat lurid plot line. John Carter is this interesting mix of warrior and artist. He's a very masculine figure but not pig-headed, I'd almost call him sensitive. Almost.

So, I'm not going to apologize for my reading diet. I'm not indiscriminate in my reading, but I'll give anything a try and in doing so, I have a much broader base of knowledge and experience than people expect. This is no bad thing. I think that it's more important that people read than worrying about the relative worth of the book.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

I spent the end of last semester trying to think up literature themes for independent study courses. One of the themes I like to kick around is censorship. There's a lot of good discussion fodder there and an a potential way to involve the civics class. (there's a large push to run cross curricular projects lately) Also, for the most part, high school students love the idea of doing something "forbidden". 

The American Library Association keeps statistics on challenged literature. It's an interesting browse, particularly if you investigate the sidebar links, but I find that I'm familiar with most of the literature. Mostly, people challenge books on the basis of nudity or sexual content. I get it, but I think it's ridiculous. Sex is a part of life, if it weren't we wouldn't have much of a population base. I'd rather deal with it head on than create some sort of mysterious taboo about it. As previously noted, if you really want to get a teenager to do something, tell them it's forbidden or better yet, tell them it's taboo to even talk about it.

What gets really interesting to me is when the lists of challenged lit intersect with the canonical high school reading lists. The Chocolate War is one such intersection. It is usually challenged on the grounds of sexual language. The story is set on the campus of Trinity, a boy's catholic school. So no actual sex going on here. However, since the main characters are all teenage boys, Cormier has them thinking and talking, sometimes a little crudely, about sex and girls. I'm not sure how necessary it was, but it certainly wasn't shocking and did set the mindset and maturity levels for the characters. So banned for sexual content, really?

If I were going to challenge the book it would be for thematic reasons. There are a lot of similarities between The Chocolate War and Lord of the Flies. Both books left me feeling alienated and depressed. However, in Lord of the Flies there is at least the unusual and extreme situation of a group of boys being stranded alone on an empty island. There is no such pressure on the boys of The Chocolate War which seems to imply that this level of mass cruelty needs no cause. Maybe it's depressing because on some level I think it's true. Or maybe, it's because the adults were so ineffectual. I'm not sure. But I do know, the sexual language didn't really bother me.

There is an argument to be made that any book that can affect you deeply is a good book. So according to that metric The Chocolate War is a good book. I felt edgy and anxious for about 24 hours after finishing it. I will never willingly read this book again. It affected me, deeply. As a teacher, I can see reasons for teaching this. The main characters are age appropriate to a high school student. It describes a world that is at least partly familiar to them: bullies, cliques, sports teams, good and bad teachers. Thematically, there's a lot to talk about: social politics, manipulative leaders, secret societies, avarice and ambition. The ethics alone are interesting to talk about. At the same time, I wonder how many teachers really did the analysis necessary to make this worth reading in a class.

Breakfast

I often think we Americans are idiots when it comes to food. Breakfast, for instance, is, for a lot of people, basically an entire meal devoted to desert. Sugar drenched pastries, quick breads, and deep fried monstrosities. Don't get me wrong, I love a good danish but not for breakfast. Other people use it as an excuse to down slabs of fried meat and refined carbs. The worse I've seen is when people get those big combo breakfasts that seem to award points for artery assault. Honestly, I don't get it.

I believe in a big breakfast but all that sugar in the morning gives me a headache and all the fried meats make me feel like I'm sweating grease for an hour. It's just not very sensible and other places in the world don't do this. The Japanese eat miso soup, rice, and maybe a piece of broiled fish. Even muesli, although high in sugar, is full of protein and calcium when served with yogurt.

Personally, I've started making large batches of hearty vegetable soups and boiled eggs. It's surprisingly satisfying and just as easy as making oatmeal, and much easier than pancakes.

Organization

One of the best things about this reading project is that I'm connecting with people I'd never thought of as readers over books. I've had several long conversations with them over books in which I'm getting more titles to check out.  In fact, my backlog is getting large enough that some monthly themes seem to be in order.

February - month of series lit. I'm in the middle of an unusual number of series. More on that later, but without even trying February's list is already up over 40 books.

March - month of the recommended, suggested, and gifts. I want to keep those reader conversations going, and it seems like the best way is to read the books people recommend me. So I'm going to start sifting through my stacks for those books. If you have any suggestions, by all means comment them.

April and on I don't have any solid ideas for. I think at least one month in there will need to be "other list leftovers" and, of course, I'm going to try to keep 4 or 5 professional development books on each list to satisfy my sub goal. I'm thinking about specializing in short stories and collections of short stories one month and maybe poetry another. Another thought might be "classics I never got around to reading" and yet another might be "books from other people's lists." There's a lot of options.

That's the glorious thing about reading, there's always more to discover.

Readicide by Kelly Gallagher

One of my of my sub goals for the year is to read a pedagogy book each month. I hate pedagogy books. You'd think that books written by and for the people responsible for educating our young, and therefore intelligent strong readers themselves, would be well written. They aren't, as a rule. Generally there is about 60 pages of content delivered in a repetitive and overly formatted manner over 200 pages. (I feel there is a deeper statement about the education in the U.S. to be made here.) Nevertheless, if I have a weakness as a teacher, it is that I'm unfamiliar with the formal world of teaching and therefore have a hard time comparing notes with other teachers. Hence the goal.

So, for the genre, Readicide is a pretty decent read and the reason I'm blogging it is that I feel anyone interested in the state of education in the U.S. would find it interesting. (This means you parents.) I suspect that Gallagher had a broader audience in mind when he wrote Readicide.

Readicide does a good job tracing and outlining what's gone wrong in education over the past few years. He has, in fact, loads to say about No Child Left Behind. He isolates why we ever thought it was a good idea and comes just shy of calling it fraud...which it was. Continuing on, Gallagher traces how the NCLB policies have had far reaching effects.  High stakes, multiple choice tests are just wrong headed.

Speaking as someone in the trenches, teaching the LD population: hallelujah brother. We need to be emphasizing critical thinking over fact memorization. We need to get them reading and thinking and experiencing. Teaching to these tests is producing smart kids who can't think their way out of paper bags with a flashlight and a map.

However, as good a job as Gallagher does outlining the problem, he doesn't spend much time on solutions. He points in some good directions, and I plan to follow up, but he ended up writing more of a polemic. Unfortunately for me, I'm already there.

Anyway, if you have a kid in school (private too) you should read this. It will give you a good basis of understanding for the issues involved and the pressures your student's teachers face. It will arm you with facts and point you to more credible sources about what's going on. More than anything else, this is a very good reference for those concerned with these issues. The references are voluminous and useful. Many teachers see what's happening and want to change things, but we need parent support to get the administrators to shift.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini

I read Kite Runner over Thanksgiving break. I actually don't read that much mainstream fiction. My taste tends to run towards science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism. It's not a conscious choice, I just find it easier to pick up and get into genre fic. However, Kite Runner made a big enough splash on the social consciousness that I eventually got around to reading it. It was fantastic. I didn't really know much about the story or what to suspect other than that it had to do with current events. It was worth the read. However this post isn't really about Kite Runner.

When I find a book I like, I usually try to pick up whatever else the author has written. Hosseini thus far has written two other books A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountains Echoed. I just finished A Thousand Splendid Suns. If anything, it's even better than Kite Runner.

A Thousand Splendid Suns follows the intertwined lives of two women: Miriam and Laila. Both have tragic lives in a normal sort of way but it's compounded by living in Afghanistan. Hosseini does a good job of illustrating the complex issues troubling the Afghan region using the lives of ordinary people. I spent about a quarter of the book crying my head off; the characters felt that real.

I'm looking forward to And the Mountains Echoed.

Atlanta and Winter Weather

Atlanta gets a lot of flak for how its residents handle winter weather.

Some of it's warranted. I once saw a woman drive 10 miles an hour down hill riding her brakes because it was predicted to be bad. . . soon.

I've also seen:

• The grocery stores completely emptied gladiator style of bread and milk because a flake of snow was predicted in the next 24 hours. Soccer moms were fighting over the nesquick on aisle three and the stock boys huddled in a mass in the floral department crying or catatonic.
• A college campus cancel class because the student body was outside trying to catch snow flakes that were melting before they got below the tree line on their tongues.
• A whole group of adults slipping, sliding, and giggling like little kids on a patch of 'ice' that was actually just a bit of wet pavement.

On the other hand, when Atlanta gets winter weather it doesn't get snow. Snow is actually relatively easy to deal with. Any northern city moves it out of the way with their fleets of plows before it has a chance to melt and refreeze. So it sits mounded up like bumpers on a bowling alley until a thaw. Even in Atlanta, most of the time snow is not a problem. It hits the ground and melts within a day. Most of the time.

The problem is, every once a while, about once a year or so, Atlanta gets an ice storm. Before moving to Atlanta, I'd only ever seen one ice storm. It was severe enough that it shut southern Michigan down for two days and a week later you could still see pine trees snapped in half like toothpicks along I-75. Granted, things were back to business with in 48 hours but it's one of the few times in my childhood I can remember the state still shut down two whole days after the weather was over.

Ice is nasty business and Atlanta gets a lot of ice storms. We don't get a lot of snow down here but when the weather turns "cold for us" it hovers right at the freezing line. So what'll happen is that Atlanta and the environs will get 2 to 6 inches of freezing rain. If we are lucky it'll just coat the roads and turn them into canals of sheet ice. If we are not lucky, the ice coats everything from tree branches to powerlines. Trees come down, power lines snap, and whole communities are without power for a week because the service trucks can't get past downed trees across iced over roads. In a weird way, it's beautiful but it's hard for people to appreciate when they don't have power and can't navigate their ways to the grocery stores or emergency rooms. And that's the situation if we are lucky and the low temperature is just a 24 hour dip.

Unfortunately, every couple of years Atlanta gets the ice along with a more serious cold snap. So we get all the initial nastiness followed by a rapid cycle of thawing and refreezing as the temperature gets just above freezing during the day and then refreezes overnight. Over and over and over. This creates massive sheets of ice that stretch along the roads for miles and just shuts the city down until the temperatures come up. The worst cycle I've seen lasted 10 days.

• I watched cars slide down hills a quarter of a mile into intersections and not because the driver made any mistake, aside from being on the road.
• I've seen the interstates completely covered over with sheets of black ice.
• I've seen people abandon their cars on roads that really were practically undrivable...even for me... because we don't have the vehicles down here or the equipment to handle snow and ice on consumer vehicles.
• I've seen conditions on the road get worse 3 days after the precipitation was over as the snow slowly turned to ice perfect enough to skate on.

So yes, Atlanta gets a little hands in the air, head exploding, panicked about winter weather. Yes, no one down here know's how to deal with it. And yes, a northern city/state wouldn't get paralyzed under the similar conditions.

Want to know why?

1. Northern cities have the infrastructure to deal with these conditions. Up north, once the weather turns, it stays cold for 3 to 5 months before a thaw. So, the cities and states invest in salt trucks and plows to keep the roads moving. The power lines have stronger reinforced connections to the poles and can handle more weight. And all of this is a good use of civic funds because it prepares for conditions that last at least a quarter of the year. Georgia had, last time I checked, 5 plows for the whole state because this only happens once a year...and not even every year. It's not a good use of funds maintaining a large fleet of plows for one week of the year that may or may not happen.

2. Georgia doesn't get snow. It gets ice. Snow is much easier to deal with. You can shovel snow. In the worst of the ice storms I've seen people out with pick axes and mallets breaking the ice up before it could be moved.

So go gentle when you mock the South and its attitudes on winter weather. Because it doesn't happen often, but when it does it's worse than "a little bit of snow" and we don't get opportunity to practice as much. It makes an impression and it's scary. The people get a little ridiculous. It's true. However, you would too if a brief snap of winter weather could mean isolation from grocery stores and basic medical care. Or if it meant the loss of power and therefore heat for up to two weeks. We are a little complacent in the North about what the weather can mean without our plows, salt trucks, and tire chains.

Go gentle. It's ok to laugh, we laugh at ourselves and our helplessness. But what would you do without the plows and salt trucks. What would you do without power. What would you do without access to food and medical care.

Go gentle.

5 Random Personal Facts

1. When I was a kid all my dolls were named Lucy. I have no idea why. To the best of my knowledge, I'd never met a Lucy or seen "I Love Lucy." This made things very confusing when communicating with my parents. Was I talking about Lucy the bear, Lucy the koala bear, Lucy the stuffed rabbit (who was clothed in a very masculine suit by the way), or Lucy the giant stuffed doll.

2. I love hummus when I eat it off of a dippable edible object. However, licking it off a spoon is repulsive. I also feel that way about peanut butter and frosting. Except in the case of frosting, licking it off a finger is acceptable.

3. I can identify mayonnaise in a compound sauce or dip by smell. My accuracy is something like 95%.

4. According to my students, I have multiple tattoos and piercings all over my body, I've been a play tester for the their favorite first person shooters, and I'm wanted by the CIA as a notorious hacker. None of these things are true. In most cases, I have no idea how these rumors start. I've even tried to set them straight from time to time, generally it just makes it worse.

5. I love coffee and can drink gallons of the stuff before the caffeine makes me feel even a minor buzz. However, a single cup of black tea has enough caffeine in it to make my hands tremble.

Hello World...

I'm a firm believer of the following: anything worth pursuing must be worth it even if no one notices.

I've believed this for a long time in an intellectual sort of way. However, it's hard to pour time into something like a blog when it feels like dumping one's ideas into the digital void. I decided recently to write anyway and, because it doesn't matter if anyone reads it, I try not to look at my usage statistics. 

I decided to look at them today. (I was having some serious blank page issues) So, that I have readers in the U.S. is not surprising. I know for a fact that my dad reads every day (Hi Dad!), my husband reads most days, if not every day (love you honey), and I have a few coworkers that read from time to time (Yo, what up my work-peeps.) It's even possible a couple of my students have found my blog, I don't keep it a secret (remember to do the Steinbeck reading tonight, there will be a quiz :-P). Because my mother is an interesting topic of conversation, I have at least one regular reader in Finland (Hi Mummy) and I think some of her friends/students may check in now and then (Hey Jani, how's the book biz?). And that's about it. Or so I thought.

I'm getting pings in Mexico and Poland. Hi guys, whoever you are. I don't know people in either of these countries. Now, probably they just tripped across my blog as a result of a random search. 

Still, it's kinda cool.

Thomas Likes Being Read To!

As a parent, you  try not to compare your kid to others. Everyone is different and kids develop at different rates, but it's hard not to. It is especially hard given that I've had very little experience of babies and toddlers. I've always worried because I want my kid to love books. I love books and loving books makes a lot of other things easier in life. It's kind of the gateway drug for education. Thomas, however, is a doer. He wants to investigate things and chase things, dump out boxes of things and put the things back in. He want's to throw his bowl across the table viking style and demand bananas. (Not ok. We do not throw dishes full of food. Let the battle of wills commence) He's always been interested in the objects that are books but hasn't generally been interested in sitting down and being still enough to be read to.

His cousin Sam has always, and belligerently, loved being read to. So, I worried.

Tonight, after a battle of wills over a banana (oh the screaming!), Thomas sat for me to read him at least 10 different books. Tiny board books, but still, 10 of them! I'm so happy I could do snoopy dances. Hopefully it's not a fluke.

I'll love him no matter what, of course.

I just really want him to read...

(maybe it's worth some screaming. . .)

Battle Creek

So a buddy cop show set in Michigan doesn't  necessarily sound all that interesting. Except one of the cops isn't a cop, he's an enigmatic and charismatic FBI agent sent out to a remote one man field office to help the local Battle Field, Michigan police department. Also, they aren't buddies. At best their relationship is strained. The polished swanky FBI agent just rubs the gritty disheveled son of a con artist local detective all kinds of the wrong way. (getting a little more interesting isn't it.)

Incidentally, the con artist mother is played by Candice Bergen. Which brings me to the other reason I got drawn in: there are a ton of actors in sizable roles that made huge impressions with small roles in other shows. Kal Penn who played on of the long suffering interns on "House" plays Font, one of the detectives. Peter Jacobson, another "House" intern is the brother of the mayor. Liza Lapira who I first saw as a very dislikable IA officer in "Dexter" is one of the detectives. The list just keeps on going. Nearly every episode was like a T.V. programming connect the dots and it was a lot of fun.

As is always the tragedy, the show is good, so of course there is only ever going to be one season of it. Too bad. But it's on Netflix right now; go check in out.

A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong

This is about 400 pages of content crammed into a 150 page book. As such, it's quite dense. Honestly, 10 years ago (and pre-officemate who slings around terms like logoi and mythos for fun in everyday conversation) I'd have had a hard time following and sorting through all the ideas. Even with the reading I've done and the conversations on religion, story, and myth I've had, I found A Short History of Myth a challenge.

Armstrong sets out to trace the phenomenon and purpose of myth creation over the entirety of human development. She divides it up by sociological shifts: neolithic to paleolithic to early civilization and so on. The idea is that myth and the creation of myth is a sort of mass psychological coping mechanism. As society shifts and changes so do the myths. What was a satisfying way of coping with the fear of the unknown in the paleolithic probably wouldn't help a city inhabitant nor a soldier in WWI. 

All this makes sense. Where it gets interesting to me is when Armstrong gets to the axial age and beyond. She takes on Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in a way that is both detached and respectful. I found her take on the historical influences on religious interpretation very interesting. Ultimately, it seems like she wants to sit down all the literalists and say, "look guys, you just aren't doing it right."

It was a good read, but I think I will have to reread it before I really get it all absorbed. 

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Usually I try to read a book before I see a film adaptation of it. Sometimes though, the opposite process can yield some interesting experiences. In this case, my oversight was unintentional. I saw "Odd Thomas" because Netflix kept telling me to watch it and because I have a little crush on Anton Yelchin. I only later found out that it was adapted.

The film got extremely mixed reviews. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it's too grim to be a comedy and yet the tone of narration is too light to be a thriller. Personally, I liked that about it. There were some admittedly hokey details like a large stainless steel heart (anatomical) necklace and a bizarre chase scene that both seemed out of place. But those things didn't bother me enough to keep me from tracking down the book.

It took me a long time (for me) to get through Odd Thomas. From the time I started in December, it took me 31 days to pick my way through it. The problem wasn't the writing. The narrative tone was the same that I found so engaging in the movies. The problem was that it was such a faithful adaptation that I was too familiar with the events of the book.

As is always true, the movie simplified and reduced the number of characters. I found myself reading for those differences. Koontz created a fascinating backdrop of characters for Odd Thomas to interact with. I loved Koontz's system for the supernatural.

Oh, and those weird hokey moments in the movie? They aren't in the book.

Corn & Black Bean Soup

I like soups. Soups are very forgiving to the cook. Because of the liquid, they are unlikely to burn. Over cooking simply means that everything is softer, and undercooking often means that the ingredients are still toothsome. It's not that it's impossible to screw up a soup. Anything can be screwed up. However, I like something that requires herculean efforts to do badly.

2 Tbs. oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced or chopped
2 red bell peppers, chopped
2 Tbs. chili powder
4 cups corn kernels, frozen is fine
4 cups water or stock
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper to taste

Soften the onion, garlic, and bell pepper in the oil over medium heat. Add the chili powder and corn. Stir occasionally until the corn starts to brown.

Add water or stock and canned tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Add black beans. Turn down heat, simmer for 15 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

serves 10

On Being Sick...

i remember
being sick
snuggled safe
a little kid
warm in bed
miserable and
happy
all at once

How different
it is now

Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams by Alexander McCall Smith

Yet another in the CanonGate Myth Series. After this I think I'm going to give them a bit of a break.

I don't really know too much about Celtic Myths. It's kind of on my list of things to look into and this book was certainly a good start on that. Smith retells the myth of Angus in a contemporary setting in an engaging manner and then treats Angus as a sort of archetype. In the more modern sections there is always an Angus character. Sometimes the character is minor, sometimes he is central, but in each case the character explores some aspect of the Angus character.

I liked it. This is the first time I've seen the archetypal approach in one of these and it seemed a natural choice. Smith's adaptation felt like a thorough examination of the character and I would recommend this to someone interesting in celtic mythology.

Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson

I've always liked the Greek Myths. I have very early memories of sitting with a kids book version of them with my Uncle Dan (I think) reading about Hera and Iris. I liked the stories about Poseidon. I loved all the changing into animals and crazy hijinks. It was a cleaned up kid's version of the myths clearly. Still I didn't mind the more sinister and sordid overtones when I was older. If anything, they made the stories more relevant to me.

One myth I always disliked though was the story of Heracles. I was always torn between sympathy (because it really wasn't his fault that Zeus is a divine horndog) and contempt because he was such a crude character with rocks for brains. Karen Armstrong says that he's a holdover from the earlier myths of the paleolithic era which makes sense. After all, he has a club. I just have a hard time rooting for a muscle bound pretty boy.

By contrast, Atlas always seemed to get a bum rap. I mean the guy is systematically stripped of all his belongings and eventually punished to carry the entire universe on his shoulders. Even then he can't be left alone, Heracles comes along to 1. remind him of what he's lost by sending him after the golden apples and then 2. tricks him back into his punishment. Just doesn't seem fair.

I found Winterson's adaptation satisfying. Heracles was every bit the dispicable over-sexed lout I always imagined him to be and Atlas was the compassionate figure I always wanted him to be. I even liked how she folded the modern era into the story at the end. It really seemed correct somehow.

Marketing

I hate writing marketing blurbs. I accept that they are necessary and I can whip one out in no time for someone else, but ask me to do one for myself and I just freeze up. They are so deliberately puffed up and fake. For all my faults, and I have many, I'm pretty honest about myself and what I can do.  I have a hard time being all. . . glossy.

Lydia, 35 year old veteran teacher slogs through endless bogs of grammar stew to find the precious stone of your child's work.

I'm being pretty snarky. I know that it's a big deal choosing a school, especially for LD students.

10 year veteran of the English department, Lydia brings her experience as a librarian to foster an enthusiasm for reading in her students. She can, and will, share the wealth of her reading knowledge to steer your child to the books that will speak to him or her.

I even get that marketing is a necessary evil. It's not lying, it's being noticed. . . with panache.

Do you wish everyone could see how brilliant your child is. Is there a Faulkner or Dickens hidden in their psyche? Well bring them on down where our team of professionals with prompt, pry, and push that genius to the forefront.

But all I really want, is to tell them the truth exactly as I see it.

It's tough having an Learning Disability. With all that difficulty, your child deserves someone who cares about them and about their learning. Lydia, a 10 year veteran teacher, will use every tool she has to make your child confident in their abilities. In her class, they'll experience a teacher who will explain and teach using multiple approaches. Your child will be given multiple opportunities to rework writing to show mastery. Reading will be approached as a joyous occupation, and they will be encouraged to find the books that excite their imaginations. Lydia, cannot make your kid's LD go away, but maybe she can help them like learning just a little more.

Is that so wrong?

Health, Fitness, Blah Blah Blah . . .

I bought a fitbit today. I've been thinking about it a long time, and I finally decided to do it. So, now I've done it. I can be physically tracked by the evil computer overlords. I hear you going, "Yeah but Lydia you own a cell phone, the detestable binary tyrants already know what you do."

"Ha ha," I reply, "I'm such a flake, I forget my phone in the couch at least twice a week thus confounding the malignant digital demigods."

At this point the house is raided by several T-1000's and I must revert to my Sarah Conner-esque militia style survival techniques.

. . .  this escalated really quickly. I should go now.

Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith

This is part of the Canongate Myths Series and is supposed to be the Iphis myth retold. Iphis is one of the sunnier parts of Ovid's Metamorphosis. It tells the story of a child who is born to a family who cannot afford to raise a girl and will have to kill the child by exposure if things turn out that way. (happy, right?) So the very pregnant mother goes to the temple to pray and the goddess Isis tells her that all will be well as long as she raises the child. The child is a girl and her mother calls her Iphis (gender neutral name apparently) and tells everyone that the child is a boy and raises her that way. Iphis grows up as a boy, falls in love with a girl, and, as is the normal progression, plans to marry her. Iphis, however knows that he's really a girl, and that this is a problem and "despairs." So Iphis's mom goes back to the temple and prays for a solution and the gods turn Iphis into a man. Everyone, apparently, lives happily ever after. (See, positively chipper for Ovid.)

I spent most of my time reading Girl Meets Boy frustrated and irritated. Most of the book is basically a love story between two women. It's a nice story, kind of sweet, really fast paced. We also hear from the sister of one the lovers who is having difficulty adjusting to her sister suddenly having a girlfriend. It's drearily devoid of the myth. In fact, the subtle little nods and Iphis seeme a little contrived.  The exceptions to this are the first and last chapter and they lay on the myth super thick. It felt, in fact, like two mostly unrelated novellas squished together and haphazardly linked. So, I spend most of the novel wishing I had more of the direct retelling (that is after all why I picked up the book) instead of enjoying the sweet little love story. Expectation is a powerful thing.

Smith's use of language is beautiful and lyrical. Parts of the book are almost prose poem. It's a good book, even if it isn't quite what I wanted/expected.

Pork Stew

Sometimes the recipes I just throw together are the best recipes. This was much better the next day. The texture thickened to a loose stew or thick soup depending. This is also the sort of dish that is super flexible. You can add whatever vegetables you have sitting around. Just make sure you adjust the liquid and seasonings to compensate.

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 bell peppers (not green), chopped
2 Tbs Paprika
1-2 pounds pork shoulder, cut in 1" pieces
water or stock
2 cups egg noodles
1/4 cup cornmeal
salt and pepper to taste

Sautee the onion and peppers in the olive oil until beginning to soften. Sprinkle the paprika over top and stir.

Add the pieces of pork shoulder and brown. When the pieces are evenly brown add enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle the cornmeal over top and stir. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Add egg noodles and simmer until soft. You may have to add more water.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 8-10

Progress!

When I was a kid I hated book reports. I didn't mind the reading, not at all, but I found the forms and writing tedious. I'm pretty sure I had teachers who thought I was functionally illiterate when, in reality, I was devouring books by the dozen...I just didn't want to write about it. And, honestly, old-style book reports are dreadful and practically obsolete in a world with the internet in it.

So big shocker, now that I'm an adult, now that I'm in control of my classrooms and get to decide what happens there, what am I doing? I'm delivering book reports to my students. I've been doing a lot of research about literacy lately and it has changed many of my preconceived notions. One of the biggest realizations I've had is that my best weapon is my own love of literature. It really never occurred to me that my own enthusiasm for books could make a difference. It's been three days, and it's already obvious. I've got boys reading April Henry books. I've got freshmen asking me if I think they are ready for Kite Runner. I have kids telling me they are excited to find a book.

It's precious and fragile and new, but it's a start. I'm just so scared I'm going to screw it up.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

Much like the previous post, I found Girl, Stolen by April Henry through Penny Kittle. However, it was a strange sort of recommendation. In her book, Book Love, Kittle essentially said that she had a hard time reading Girl, Stolen. Kittle's issue was not the quality of the narrative, but rather the subject matter.

She doesn't appear squeamish exactly, it's just that some subjects hit hard and, for Kittle, it seems that young girls kidnapped in a moment, not even on purpose, hits hard. That being said, Kittle mentioned the book in such a way that the title stuck in my head when I chanced upon it in a MacKay's Used Books in Chattanooga.

I read it over a four hour period one Saturday morning. It's not a long book and the plot isn't exactly convoluted. However, it is very well written. It's a YA novel that approaches a tough subject and tries to do so unflinchingly. It did a pretty good job of avoiding over-sentimentality while still making both the girl, Cheyanne, and the kidnapper, Griffin, sympathetic.

I liked this book. I would recommend this book. Clearly, Kittle and I have different baggage.

Perils of the Ordinary

So. Sometimes I'm seduced into reading a book because of someone else's enthusiasm. I've been  reading a lot of Penny Kittle just lately and she just raved about a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It's an autobiography. I hate autobiography. Generally speaking, there's nothing more tedious than someone wittering on about their own navels. (I include my own witterings about my own navel, incidentally) Yet, Kittle wrote so passionately and so convincingly about this particular autobiography that, I not only decided to read it, I had to track a copy down to buy online in order to do so.

My feelings on this book are mixed. On the one hand, Rosenthal is sentimental in a way that I find irritating. It seems like she can find meaning in the crumpled remains in an old newspaper. She feels a connection between things that have nothing to do with each other. In fact, I'm a little jealous of her ability to find awe at the utterly ordinary. An ordinary life is ordinary, so much of it runs the risk of being tedious. Rosenthal finds wonder in the ordinary and that's not a bad thing. Just really, really irritating.

On the other hand,  the thing Kittle was so enamored of was the structure. Rosenthal has written her autobiography in form of a collection of encyclopedia entries. Everything is included, the profound ("meaning," "statement," "rejection," & "profound") as well as the minutia ("closet," "stupid slow driver," & "weather, asking about the".) All of it's deeply personal, if not deeply important. Even so, some of it resonated with me on a deep level.

I too find my conversation becoming overly verbose when I'm uncomfortable, I too find pictures in the random patterning of my shower tiles, and I too look for the super-rich folded over potato chips in the bag to savor first. They are simple things, but they make me feel connected to this woman who I have nothing substantial in common with.

I'm still not sure what I ultimately think about this book. It may take me months, or even years, to decide, which is, perhaps, a recommendation it its favor.

Five Vegetables I Used To Hate, But Now I Love. . .

It's funny how taste changes as we age. My parents used to have a rule that I had to at least try everything on my plate. The idea is a good one. Studies show that it can take up to five exposures before a child will accept a new food. I, however, was a particularly stubborn thing and would insist I didn't like the thing (whatever the thing) even after tasting it, no matter what my true opinion. From there I got entrenched in my stance to a point that sometimes I think I convinced myself that I really didn't like the food.

Later on after college, I decided to revisit these deeply entrenched "hatreds." Some, I still don't care for (okra, for example) but some are now on my go-to veggie list:

1. Winter Squash - Apparently when I was really little, I'd eat mashed winter squash by the quart. I'd just suck it down and ask for more. Then one day I completely flipped around and refused to eat any more from that day forward. Oddly, I actually remember (or think I remember; I couldn't have been much older than 4 or 5) what caused the flip. I was at my grandparents' condo and my grandmother had heated up some frozen mashed squash. I remember the vivid orange color and slightly stringy flesh. I remember it smelled so good. Then I took a bite and it tasted like plastic and, no matter what I drank or ate, I just couldn't get the taste out of my mouth. From that day forward, no one could get me to eat the stuff. In hindsight, I think the frozen squash had gotten freezer burned. I tried it again after college. I just roasted a butternut squash in the oven with a little butter. It was divine. Now I'm back to slurping the stuff down. I roast it, stew it; I'll even steam it. Great stuff. Totally worth wrestling with the rock hard skin and all the swearing that ensues.
2. Olives - As it turned out, I never really disliked olives because I'd never really tried them. All I'd had as a kid were those rubbery little rings that came out of cans and called themselves olives. They were so bitter and disconcertingly springy between my teeth that I couldn't choke them down. I was in college when I had my first properly treated kalamata. It was a revelation. Sure there was a little bitterness hiding in the background, but overlaying that bitter taste was a beautiful rich, salty, silken flesh. From there I went on to try many other types of olive and appreciate their varied characteristics. It's a tragedy that it took me so long. Not that my step-father, Mike, didn't try. He and mom used to buy these massive glass jars of kalamatas. I bet those were pretty good olives. Better late than never, I suppose.
3. Avocados - Back in the 80's and 90's avocados just weren't that common in Michigan. So, what I really didn't like was that horrible insipid green mush that Mexican restaurants in Detroit called guacamole. Later on, I had the opportunity to eat a fresh avocado in Costa Rica, but I couldn't get past the awful green mush experience and refused to even try. I really am quite the idiot sometimes. I'm not sure what changed my mind. I think fresh avocados just became more omnipresent and so I eventually got over my green mush problem. I even like guacamole now, but I'm pretty picky about who makes it.
4. Brussels Sprouts - Just ask my in-laws about my brussels sprouts recipes. Brussels sprouts have almost become my "thing." Which is kind of hilarious considering that I once got grounded to my room on account of brussels sprouts. I'd snuck them off my plate during dinner, wrapped them oh-so-carefully in a napkin, and hidden them under the table in a little cubby created by the trim connecting with a support oddly. My father found them while cleaning up after dinner and just like that, I was sitting in the disaster area I called a room. As I recall, I started cleaning my room out of utter boredom. In my defense, boiled brussels sprouts are just awful. I roast them in olive oil and garlic. Some times I braise them in coconut milk. Occasionally, I shred them and eat them raw with pecans and blue cheese. Much better.
5. Beets - In all fairness, it's not that I didn't like beets, it's that I didn't like my dad's borscht (sorry Dad). Beets weren't very present in my childhood. They came in two forms: super sickly sweet pickled out of a can and dad's borscht, both of which I hated.  Later on, one of my roommates went through an ill-advised Russian cuisine kick and I discovered what beets tasted like roasted simply in foil like a potato. Divine! I've been a beet convert ever since.

Reading List - January 2016

The last couple of months has been a book buying extravaganza interrupted periodically by family gatherings. One of the great joys, for me, of a long road trip is the opportunity to browse unfamiliar used book stores. It's really interesting to browse around and surprising the differences in what's available just 50 miles up the highway. With my reading "habit" being what it is, I don't generally buy new books, so I do a lot of buying used and borrowing from libraries, friends, and family. The holidays means a lot of family gatherings and a lot of talking about books.

As a result, my To-Read stack is more than usually tall. On the docket for this month:

1. Girl, Stolen by April Henry
2. Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
3. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
4. The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
5. The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
6. Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
7. The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (B)
8. Thrilling Tales edited by Michael Chabon
9. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
10. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
11. Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (RR)
12. Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (RR)
13. The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell
14. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
15. Little Bee by Chris Cleave
16. In the Name of Salome by Julia Alvarez
17. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (RR)(B)
18. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (B)
19. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
20. Ranger's Apprentice: Book 1 The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan (B)
21. Quantum Gravity Book One: Keeping it Real by Justina Robson (B)
22. Quantum Gravity Book Two: Selling Out by Justina Robson (B)
23. Quantum Gravity Book Three: Going Under by Justina Robson (B)
24. Quantum Gravity Book Four: Chasing the Dragon by Justina Robson (B)
25. Witch World by Andre Norton
26. Buried Fire by Jonathan Stroud
27. The Falcons of Fire and Ice by Karen Maitland
28. Perfect Peace by Daniel Black
29. City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte
30. The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
31. Perdita by Hilary Scharper
32. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
33. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
34. Matched by Ally Condie
35. A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
36. Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis by Ali Smith
37. Binu and The Great Wall: The Myth of Meng by Su Tong
38. Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams by Alexander McCall Smith
39. The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur by Victor Pelevin
40. Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson
41. Paper Towns  by John Green (B)
42. Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
43. Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher (B)
44. Thinking Through Genre: Units of Study in Reading and Writing Workshops 4-12 by Heather Lattimer (B)
45. Writing About Reading: From Book Talk to Literary Essays, Grades 3-8 by Janet Angelillo (B)
46. Inside Writing: How to Teach the Details of Craft by Donald H. Graves and Penny Kittle(B)

(RR = Reread, B = Borrowed)

Whew! Totally doable in a month, right?

First Book of 2016: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Summer Sword

When I start these big momentous reading challenges (100 books in 2016), I always want book #1 to be something impressive... like a Foster Wallace... or Faulkner. Reading challenge just screams gravitas. It calls for ambition. It cries out in serious tones the depth of literary commitment. (Or, conversely, it makes me a little old lady voraciously reading romance novels. It's a tough line to walk really.) It just seems so much more appropriate to read something "important" rather than a Rick Riordan novel. Nevertheless, I read the Riordan novel first. (Unofficial theme of the year: self-effacing. It's a stretch goal.)

I have always loved the idea of mythology. It's not just the fantastical realm of gods and heroes, magic etc, it's the sense of a deeper importance to the stories. Imposing an order to the world and to human emotion. It's pretty powerful stuff and I like how Riordan provides a gateway into that world for younger readers. For the last five years I've seen his books floating around the campus in the hands of my students. He's done the Greek myths with Percy Jackson, the Roman myths with Jason Grace, the Egyptian myths with Carter and Sadie Kane, now he's branched out into the Norse myths with Magnus Chase. What's really impressive is that each of these series is tenuously linked together into the same world.

The Norse myths were my favorite growing up for being somehow grittier and more raw so it shouldn't have surprised me that Magnus chase is a harsher more sardonic protagonist than the rest of Riordan's YA work. Magnus starts the story as a homeless orphan living on the streets of Boston and is dead before page 50. So yeah, darker. Riordan backs it up though and it's a good solid read even if it took Magnus "dying" for the book to really grip me.

Series Starters

Usually I start a series and read through all the extant books before starting in on the next series. However, in the last couple months I've started four new-to-me series, and I'm currently in my fifth.

The Giver Quartet: The Giver was a victim of the "too many people told me to read it" phenomenon. This is one of those perverse little quirks in my personality wherein I get very resistant to watching, reading, doing something because too many people told me that they loved it. Inverse herd mentality I guess. I'm an anti-sheep. It's too bad really because I actually really enjoyed The Giver. I didn't love the enigmatic end but I did very much enjoy the feel of the world and the central conflict of the story. I liked it so much, in fact, that I immediately found Gathering Blue and Messenger both of which were very good in their way, if not quite as enthralling as the first book. I'm still trying to track down Son so that I can finish out the set.

Rats of NIMH: Like most people in my generation, my first exposure to this series was the cartoon "The Secret of NIMH" that was released in 1982. In fact, I had no idea that it was an adaptation of a book until a few years ago when it came up in conversation with my husband. At this point, I don't really remember much about the cartoon, but my vague sense of it is vastly different than Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I enjoyed the book very much, but now I want to track down and rewatch the movie.

The Underland Chronicles: Before Suzanne Collins started in on the Hunger Games, she wrote this series for a somewhat younger age group. Goodreads kept recommending it to me but I had quite a hard time tracking down a copy in the used bookstores. Eventually I gave up and ordered off of thriftbooks.com . So far I've only read the first book in the series: Gregor the Overlander. It was a very quick read since it's aimed at a middle school audience and it's the only book I've ever read that got me to cry over the death of a cockroach. I'm looking forward to reading the four remaining books in the series.

Canongate Myth Series: I found this series by mistake. My coworker, Ali, handed me The Penelopiad assuring me that I'd love it. It's an alternate telling of "The Odyssey" but from Penelope's point of view in Ithaca. However, Penelope is telling the story to us from the underworld so there's a lot of moving back and forth in the narrative and a sort of wry humor interjected throughout. It's written by Margaret Atwood and it's clear she was having fun and flexing her writerly muscles. I particularly enjoyed the use of the 12 handmaids as a chorus. Anyway, it's very cool and as I was reading it I noticed the roman numeral 2 on the spine. So I go and ask Ali, "If this is the second book in the series, what's the first." Ali's eyes got huge and she said, "It's a series?" Anyway to make a long story short, it is a series where each book is written by a different author and is the retelling of a different myth. Many of them retell Greek myths but there is a healthy smattering of other traditions including Celtic, Chinese, and African. I'm excited; I ordered a whole bunch of them off thriftbooks.com and they just came in last week. I've already dived into Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth which is the oddball of the group because it's a nonfiction overview of mythology as a human experience. I might have skipped it except that I had to read her Islam: A Short History for my history of Islam class and was impressed by how readable I found it.

Thoughts for a New Year

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions as a rule. Everyone is big on making resolutions for the new year as though the date were somehow a mystical assurance of success. The beginnings of things and the ends of things carry significance and weight. So, when we want to make changes in our lives, we piggyback on those weighty moments. I think it makes our lives and our decisions feel more important. I don't think we need an occasion to make changes in our lives. If something is important, to steal a phrase overused to the point of triteness, "just do it."

That being said, there are some changes I want to make for this year. They say that becoming a mother changes things, and it's true in the sense that it puts things in perspective. There's no real good way to say it, over the last few years I've gotten lazy and I don't want to watch my life pass like that. So I guess, I have a couple "New Year's Resolutions."

Most of them are not worth sharing (clean out the basement).  I can't even claim to be particularly interesting (limit video games to 2 hours a week). I'm like any other woman with the same boring concerns (finally drop the baby weight). So don't expect to hear to much about them(blog every day).

However, there are a couple of changes that are important to me and that I do not mind sharing. First, I always identified myself as a reader. I tell people that I read between 100 and 200 books a year, and while that certainly has been true in the past, I've been averaging about 40 books a year over the last 5 years. While that's nothing to sneeze at, (28% of Americans haven't read a single book in the last year) it's still not where I used to be and where I want to be.

Second, I want to become a better teacher. I'm not saying that I'm bad now. Actually, in some ways, I'm very good. However, with the stress of the last few years and the stress of the population I teach, I've let myself get a little complacent. Enough of that. I want to inspire my students to love reading and I don't care if they love the canonical classroom lit. I just want them to read. I want them to write and have a voice that sounds like them. I want them to be able to find their own stories and find what's important to them to write about. More than anything, I want my students to be able to think through a problem or a question. I don't want them to have to rely on waiting for the "smart kid" to respond first. I want them to care and be comfortable with caring.

Third, and most important, I want to write more. It's too easy to blame it on teaching, or being a mother, or being busy, or whatever. If I found time for video games then there is time for writing. There just is. I have a friend who suggested 10 words a day in the blog. I suspect he was being sarcastic but he's right, I can do better.

So yes. Here I go: New Year - Let's do it. Even if I always could have decided to do these things, for once I'm going to try riding the wave with the rest of the "moment seekers."

Happy New Year Y'all