Sleep Depping

Back when we had chalkboards we used to say that we were so tired that the chalk was heavy. This was reserved for the type of sleep deprivation that occurs after entire sleepless nights or strings of nights with only a couple hours of sleep. Now that we have whiteboards, saying the expo marker is heavy, just doesn't quite convey the same level of exhaustion.

Today, the chalk is heavy.

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

This another book I found through the Printz Award. I didn't know much about it when I picked it up but, as I've mentioned before, I generally trust the Printz Award.

Maggot Moon seems to be set in an alternate version of England where the Nazi's won world war II. I'm not sure about that, but it seems to be the general feel of it. In this version the Motherland rigidly controls society and schooling. "Impurities" are weeded out at a young age and Standish, the protagonist, has two impurities. The obvious one is that he has one blue eye and one brown. The less obvious impurity is that he appears the be severely dyslexic.

Life is pretty rough for Standish until he meets Hector. Hector is about as different from Standish as possible. He's handsome and has smooth manners. He does well in school and the bullies don't bother him. He and his family moved in next to Standish and his grandfather. The two families quickly become friends and band together. Hector's family has a secret though and one day the family is taken. Taken usually means dead.

Soon, Standish gets wrapped up with the secret and the Motherland's efforts to land men on the moon. Only, it's not what everyone thinks and Standish wants everyone to know.

This was a rough read. It's playing with a lot of difficult themes. Primarily though it's about sacrifice. When people have nothing, they still have something to sacrifice if the reason is important enough. I'm not sure how I feel about ending, but there is no denying that it is a powerful book.

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

I cannot remember now where I heard of The Bone Season. Possibly, it was on that list I mentioned back in January of books that hadn't found their audience yet. Regardless of that, I placed it in my Thriftbooks wishlist and the price dropped under $4 at the beginning of February, so I bought it. I've been dropping a little behind in my non-YA and I was looking for something to catch up with so I picked it up.

One of the great delights of reading is discovering something new and wonderful. When I pick up a book that I've heard of or one from an author I know, I have certain expectations. I try to keep an open mind, but those expectations influence my reading. Usually, my expectations are met or exceeded and the experience is good but it's like talking to the friend of a friend. I don't know this book personally yet, but I've shared experiences already with it either through other people telling me about it or through other books written by the same author.

Picking up a book I've never properly heard of is a different experience. I don't know the author so I don't know what to expect from them. There's no trust there that the book is necessarily worth my time, but there's no preconception to live up to either. Every page is a discovery. When this works out well, it's the most exciting experience.

The Bone Season is a dystopian novel set in the near future of London. The monarchy really ended with Victoria and Edward VII was a madman who unleashed a plague of 'unnaturalness', or clairvoyance, on the world. At least that's the official party line of Scion, the totalitarian government bent on eliminating clairvoyants, also called just 'voyants.'  Being forced underground, the voyants turn to various types of crime and band together in criminal syndicates.

Enter Paige Mahoney. Paige is an unusual type of voyant called a dreamwalker. While most voyants can only interact with the aether (spirit realm) in superficial ways, Paige has the ability to send her spirit out of her body entirely. There are drawbacks, of course, like the tendency to stop breathing when her spirit is out of body, but it allows her to snoop around the minds of others. She is a valuable commodity in this world.

She is, however, until caught in a random check and snapped up by the authorities. She expects to die, but instead she's transported to a secret colony in Oxford where she learns that an alien race from the aether called the Rephaim has been gathering up voyants for centuries.

The world is reminiscent of "V for Vendetta" complete with underground plots and political intrigue. Paige is very relatable protagonist. While her anger could be distancing, her compassion makes her enticing. She doesn't act like the dashing hero, but more like a young but competent woman in a situation beyond her ability entirely comprehend.

The beginning was exposition heavy. While Shannon did a decent job interweaving the exposition with action, the first 25 to 50 pages were noticeably slower going than the rest of the book and require patience to slog through. There is a lot of jargon slung around and only half explained about various types of voyants that eventually blends into the flow of narrative. On the upside though, once past the initial investment of time, the narrative moves at a brisk pace. There is plenty of action as well as intrigue. All the characters are richly drawn and the setting is well nuanced with detail.

Oh, and it's the beginning of a series.

The Bone Season was not written with teens in mind, but would be appropriate for a teen well versed in dystopian literature.

Brain Suds

There are times when I wish I could take the top of my skull off, pull my brain out and wash it off in the sink before snapping it back into place. My mind is all cluttered and gunky. Most of that is a bunch of crappy luck. This is the end of two months where someone in the house has been sick at any given point. School and school logistics have been unusually challenging. This weekend was a toddler terror. My usually sweet natured snuggle bug treated us to his full repertoire of tantrum technique. As a result, nothing but tantrum maintenance and recovery happened this weekend

I need a mind scrub.

Toddler Logic

"I don't want to potty," says Thomas
"are you tired," asks mommy
"Yes."
"Do you want to go to bed?"
"Yes."
"Ok, then what do we do before bed?"
"Use the potty," he says
"Ok, then let's use the potty."
"I don't want to use the potty!"
"But Thomas, you have to use the potty before bed."
Round about this time, Daddy walks by.
"Hey Thomas, want to use the big potty?" says Daddy
"Yay! Big potty," says Thomas and trundles off down the hall.

I should note the that "big potty" is the toilet in master bathroom and is in all ways identical to the potty Thomas uses :-P

The Jewel of the Kalderash by Marie Rutkoski

Yay! Finishing out a series. I started this series last year when I picked it up randomly for having an interesting cover combined with an enticing back blurb.

The whole series is set in a fantasy version of Bohemia during the Hapsburg empire. In this version, many of the people have magical talents. The talents, however, tend to be fairly specific and each individual only gets one. So for example, a talent could be making magical objects out of glass or being able to see the future, but in the normal course of things a person could not have both.

Petra (who has a metal gift and mind magic!), Neel (who has ghostly spectral hands), and Tomik (who has a gift for glass) escaped the evil Hapsburg prince in book one and the enigmatic and half sinister English spymaster, John Dee, in book two. So book three opens with the three on route to the Vatra, or Romani homeland.

Neel quickly gets embroiled in local politics while Petra searches for a cure for her father who was turned into a monstrous gray man by one of the evil prince's lackeys. Poor Tomik is still hopelessly smitten with Petra. While nothing happens the way the three expect, Petra is soon executing a plan to track down a cure while Neel tries to avoid assassination.

A good end for a trilogy  brings back most of the characters and wraps the overarching conflicts. If it's a very good conclusion, it can stand on its own as a book and be enjoyable even if the preceding books haven't been read. This is a very good conclusion.

While I've mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of the "one girl must pick between two boys" motif that has been so common just lately, Rutkoski manages it about as elegantly as I've ever seen. All the characters reach a meaningful resolution and it's one of those bittersweet cases of a perfect ending. Wonderful ending, but there's no room for more in the series.

A brief update...

I'm working on a couple nonfiction books which is fine, but I've gotten used to the snappy pace of the YA's so it feels like a slog even when they are moving along just fine. The contrast is frustrating. Actually, it's just been a frustrating week for  a number of reasons.

In other news, Thomas has discovered "PJ Masks." He's been spending a lot of time with Grandpa and DeeDee because he's had a quick progression of illnesses. Currently, it's pink eye. So, anyway...he's gotten more tv time than usual and he's into the PJ Masks now. I'm not sure what I really think about it. Ryan calls it inoffensive and I agree with that.

Personally I think Luna Girl is way too cool to be a villain

Put Them To Bed

I was reviewing my digital bookshelf of read books today and realized that I've stalled out in a ridiculous number of series. It wasn't a conscious decision to drop the series. Deciding to abandon them is one thing, but to never finish them out of carelessness just feels wrong. Someday, I just know, someone is going to mention to me the end of one of these series and I'm going to look a fool because I can't remember if I finished them...or worse I think I have.

So as much as I am trying to avoid posting too many lists, here's a list of my orphans:

The School for Good and Evil Somen Chainini- Not really an orphan yet, but I don't want to stall out and forget about it either. There's one more book extant and no indication that Chianani is done...he's just gone off in spin off series

1. Quests for Glory

Discworld by Terry Pratchett- ok I've not dropped this one either. I've been faithfully chipping down the list of 40 odd books for almost three years, but I've hit a gap in the books I have on hand. I don't have Hogfather. I'll probably just go and buy it, but I always worry that I'll lose track if I leave it too long. So, here's what's left:

1. Hogfather
2. Jingo
3. The Last Continent
4. Carpe Jugulum
5. The Fifth Elephant
6. The Truth
7. Thief of Time
8. The Last Hero
9. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
10. Night Watch
11. The Wee Free Men
12. Monstrous Regiment
13. A Hat Full of Sky
14. Going Postal
15. Thud!
16. Wintersmith
17. Making Money
18. Unseen Academicals
19. I Shall Wear Midnight
20. Snuff
21. Raising Steam
22. The Shepherd's Crown

The Chemical Garden by Lauren DeStefano- I'm so close to dropping this series, but I've only one more book. It seems awful to give up now...

1. Sever

The Peeps by Scott Westerfeld -I actually didn't realize this was part of series until I was scanning through my read books and saw it marked that way. Since the latest publication date is 2006, it's a good bet that it's a closed duo, but I'll have to keep my eye on it in case more turn up. It's just such a cool world.

1. The Last Days

Lorien Legacies by Pittacus Lore- Left to my own devices I think I'd drop this series, but I feel oddly pressured by my students to finish reading it. Seems like every time I turn around there's a different student gushing about it. So, I'll finish it...I guess. On the upside I'll probably master the art of rolling my eyes while reading.

1. The Fall of Five
2. The Revenge of Seven
3. The Fate of Ten
4. United as One

Arc of a Scythe by Neil Shusterman- The danger with reading brand new published this year books is that you never know when you've just started another series. Sometimes the authors don't even know. It's like a minefield, any book can turn into a growing commitment of succeeding literature. This is a case in point. I turn my back for what feels like a second and suddenly there's a second book in print and a third announced:

1. Thunderhead
2. The Toll

Unwind Dystology by Neal Shusterman - It's Shusterman....he's to blame clearly.

1. UnWholly
2. UnSouled
3. UnDivided

The Kronos Chronicles by Marie Rutoski - Sometimes it just takes me a while to get my hands on the books. Mostly I shop for books passively by browsing though used bookstores. So filling in a specific gap is chancy. I finally gave up and ordered the last book through thriftbooks.com.

1. The Jewel of the Kalderash

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline- I'm not sure this one really is a a series yet. I picked up the first one because it was recommended to me to read. I seems like a stand alone to me, but goodreads has an untitled second book listed. If it exists someday, I want to read it.

1. ?

Peak by Roland Smith - Peak I found because I was looking for YA that featured either the wilderness or athletic pursuits. I'd never heard anything about the author and I didn't know the book, but a story about a teen climbing Everest seemed like exactly what I was looking for. It ended up being a really enthralling read. I love that it dealt with the politics of these feats instead of painting this glossy idea of the american athlete. Good book. I'm surprised that there are two more in the series; it didn't seem like there was room for a sequel. Surprised but pleased.

1. The Edge
2. Ascent

Skink by Carl Hiaasen - No matter how careful I am, occassionally I end up reading books out of sequence. In this case, I read the last book first. In my defense, I was looking for YA at the time and the rest of the books in the series are decidedly not YA. Oh well. Nothing for it but to read the series.

1. Double Whammy
2. Native Tongue
3. Stormy Weather
4. Sick Puppy
5. Skinny Dip
6. Star Island
7. Skink - No Surrender (Reread)

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare - Ok, so I dropped this series and now I'm reconsidering. I'm reconsidering because I slogged through all the massive tomes (500+ pages each) but the last one...which feels silly So, I should probably just read the thing and be done. (Then I can decide whether or not to pursue the spin off series, of which there are two)

1. City of Heavenly Fire

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker - I dropped the series because they are frankly intended for a younger age group than I teach, but they really make me smile so I'm going to read them anyway

1. Clementine (reread)
2. The Talented Clementine
3. Clementine's Letter
4. Clementine, Friend of the Week
5. Clementine and the Family Meeting
6. Clementine and the Spring Trip
7. Completely Clementine

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas - So here's a prime case of read it when it came out and lost track of the fact that the author was still writing books. Some of my girls really like the series so I'd like to catch back up with it, but I really should reread the first book since it's been a couple years.

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses (reread)
2. A Court of Mist and Fury
3. A Court of Wings and Ruin

Dumplin by Julie Murphy - I read the first book right after it was published, three years later there's a sequel slated for release. I'm game.

1. Puddin'

Remnants by Katherine Applegate - I read the first book in the series because it was packed with the first books to two other series. Initially, I thought it was the weakest of the three, but somehow it's really stuck with me. The characters are very memorable and certain images are still clear to me 2 and a half years later. Clearly, it's worth another look.

1. The Mayflower Project (reread)
2. Destination Unknown
3. Them
4. Nowhere Land
5. Mutation
6. Breakdown
7. Isolation
8. Mother, May I?
9. No Place Like HOme
10. Lost and Found
11. Dream Storm
12. Aftermath
13. Survival
14. Begin Again

Shades of Magic by V.E. Schwab - Ok, I admit it. I didn't lose track of this one. I ran out of books. Now that the third book is out, this is an excellent excuse to reread the first two.

1. A Darker Shade of Magic (reread)
2. A Gathering of Shadows (reread)
3. A Conjuring of Light 

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancy - This is literary serendipity. I read the first book because I was desperate for something to read and it was a free ebook at the time. I read it. It was ok. I don't think I was even properly aware that it was the beginning of a series but then the second and third books were donated to me by a former student. Seems like the universe would like me to read the series.

1. The 5th Wave (reread)
2. The Infinite Sea
3. The Last Star

Ender's Saga by Orson Scott Card - So, it's just weird that I haven't read all these but I keep getting bogged down. However, I made it through all of the Dune books and all of Foundation books. This really can't be harder

1. Ender's Game (reread)
2. Speaker for the Dead (reread)
3. Xenocide
4. Children of the Mind

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz - I'm not a Koontz fan, really. However I feel in love with the character of Odd Thomas from the movie. I get a little tired of the books if I read them back to back, but I'd still like to get through the series

1. Odd Thomas (reread)
2. Forever Odd (reread)
3. Brother Odd (reread)
4. Odd Hours
5. Odd Apocalypse
6. Deeply Odd
7. Saint Odd

There are here 20 series and dozens of books. It's quite the undertaking on its own, but I'd really like to close out some of these series and put them to bed.

If you could have a super power...

Yet another installment of "ye gods I gotta write a post, quick give me something to write about." This time my random prompt is "If you could have a superpower, what would it be?"

When I was a kid I used to think about this all the time. In fact, Young X-Men was always on the T.V. when I was supposed to be doing homework on Saturday mornings and I'd insist that I could do both. Of course, I couldn't but that's not the point. The point is I could spend part of Saturday imagining that I was a student at Xavier's School for Mutants. The trick is though that I had to have a power. I settled on a few favorites.

1. Long before Avatar the last Air Bender, I thought it would be cool to have elemental control except that I envisioned it as a little more personally confined. In my imagination I could turn my body into air and be invisible or burst into flame when threatened. Once it occurred to me that if I could control all elements that I could therefore combine elements and turn into Lava Lady, I was lost in daydreams for hours. It's too bad in a way that I wasn't still daydreaming when I hit Chemistry... If I had been, Chemistry might have captured my interest better.

2. In one of my recurring daydreams I could see multiple diverging timelines from the now. So it was sort of like a short range omniscience. I couldn't tell what was happening on the other side of the world or a month down the line, but I could see the immediate results of any given decision. I figured it would be great for sneaking about or knowing when someone was about to attack.

3. In one of my favorite scenarios, I channel the spirits of various animals and can call at times to have their abilities. So, for example, I could absorb the cheetah's quick turn of speed or a gazelle's vertical leap. Of course, in this one there was an elaborate procedure to 'befriend' the animal spirit. I later became acquainted with Animal Man and this shine wore off some but it's still a favorite daydream.

4. Now that I'm older, I think I'd like the power to do without sleep. It doesn't sound like much, but think what could be achieved if we didn't spend a third of our lives unconscious. Of course, I wouldn't get to dream either so there's a downside.

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett

The BBC has an excellent sense of how to turn a book into a movie, but even so, I wouldn't expect that a movie version of a Pratchett novel would go well.  There is just too much going on. Nevertheless, I love the movies. I have all three of them. So far they've done "The Color of Magic," "Hogfather" and "Going Postal."

I mention this because in "Going Postal," which I have not read yet, Corporal Angua shows up to arrest the protagonist Moist von Lipwig, and it is offhandedly mentioned that she's a werewolf which is an intriguing idea. Angua first shows up in Men at Arms but I got the sense that there had to be more about her somewhere. So I've been rather impatient in a vague way to read down the "City Watch" story line.

I finally found her again in Feet of Clay. In fact, she's one of the major characters and develops greatly over the course of the story. The story starts with the bludgeoning deaths of two old men and the poisoning of Lord Vetinari. Angua's lupine nature means that she's got a few very useful skills and an excellent sense of smell, but even she can't track this killer.

In the meantime Captain Vimes, otherwise known as Sir James, is adjusting to his new life as landed nobility. Part of that is getting his very own coat of arms. Except the college of Heralds won't give him one because his several times removed Great Grandfather killed the last king of Ankh-Morpork. It shouldn't matter to him, but somehow it gets right in under the skin.

This is a kind of anti-Sherlock Holmes mystery. Vimes hates cleverness and favors dogged persistence, but the mystery of how Vetinari is being continually poisoned under the noses of the watch just bothers him no end while the city's golems running amok just adds insult to injury. Of course, it all falls together in the end.

I loved this book. I usually enjoy Pratchett's novels, but I rarely get truly enthusiastic about them. This one really resonated. Possibly because it was new ground, but I think it's more that I really like the golems and I like Angua.

Enough said...

Sick toddler, 31 class comments written, 100-ish class comments edited, all while fighting a cold and losing sleep to said sick toddler.  This is all I got today.

Peace, y'all

My Heartbeat by Garret Freymann-Weyr

Printz award winners and honor books all tend to deal with an issue that they are trying to explore relevant to teens. Some of my favorite books in the last few years have been Printz books. These books tend to be well written with an engaging narrative voice, likable characters, and an unflinching eye for plot. Usually, they don't feel like transparent "issue books".

My Heartbeat is the story of Ellen, a fourteen year old girl iving in Manhattan. She is madly and deeply in love with her brother, Link's, best friend, James. All that goes about the way one expect until someone suggests to Ellen that maybe James and Link are a couple. This opens a discussion on sexual politics for the teenager set.

Link and James implode leaving Ellen to figure out what being gay is or isn't. I like that Freymann-Weyr avoided overly simple categories and embraced the idea that it's possible not to know for oneself the answer to the question, "are you gay?" Neither James nor Link really know if they are gay or not. Definitely they are more than just friends but past that definitions are fluid. James is comfortable with the ambiguity. Link is not.

Ultimately, James and Ellen end up together which further complicates things.

On another level, this is a story about a young woman figuring out what's important to her and defining her identity as separate from her parents.

Something about My Heartbeat felt a little transparent though. Freymann-Weyr is taking on teenage sexuality and sexual identity issues. Both are worthy topics. Her characters are all likeable and the premise is solid, I just came away feeling like it fell flat. For one thing, these characters all come from a very privileged world. I'm not sure that should make a difference but I have a hard time believing that these kids can do all they do in the book. For example, Ellen picks up drawing with no effort over what seems like a couple of weeks and is suddenly accomplished. James and Link perform similar feats. 

There are many things to like about this book, but I feel that it might very well alienate many teens who are living more normal and average lives.

The School for Good and Evil: The Last Ever After by Soman Chainani

Have you ever noticed that books in a series get longer as the series progresses? It's like editors get leery of criticizing an author's work, but I'm generally of the opinion that a good editor is worth their weight in gold. Creative types sometimes have a hard time seeing their work objectively and that's where a good editor comes in. It's their job to suggest where necessary cuts should be made and where scenes need more substance to aide the flow of narrative. Just think what an amazing book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix could have been if it had been 200 pages shorter and minus the puberty morass.

Anyway, I guess it's clear I think this the third tome in the series suffers from being too long. The Last Ever After weighs in at a whopping 655 pages and I'm generally of the opinion that that's too long for something billing itself as a YA novel. (I'm sure there are exceptions, but I can't come up with any.)

It would be one thing if the pacing was such that I didn't notice the length. That does happen sometimes, but there were several times during my read where I ended a session with a huge sigh and started flipping around to gauge the length of the section/chapter.

That all sounds pretty negative. Aside from its length and related pacing issues, this is a decent book.  At the end of the second book, Agatha has her kiss and chooses Tedros. Sophie has her kiss and chooses the evil school master. The Last Ever After picks up only a few weeks later with Agatha and Tedros trapped in the reader world and having severe relationship issues. In the meantime Sophie is in the school master's tower with a rejuvenated school master deeply questioning the wisdom of her choice.

Of course, the only choice is to reopen "The Story of Agatha and Sophie" yet again but with even higher stakes. I'm trying not to roll my eyes here, but yeah... heavy sarcasm on the word 'again'.

Right, so I think part of my frustration with the length is that the ending was telegraphed from the first book in the series. There were some nice moments along the way and some of the side characters really got developed and fleshed out in this third volume...but it's still quite the undertaking to read.

Something to write about...

I'm having an uninspired day so I asked Google to give me something to write about. It turns out that if you do that, you'll get link after link to articles and lists of topics to write on many of them geared at English majors. So, here's me picking the first doable one I saw: Dogs or Cats? Why?

The answer for me right now is Cats. They are small generally affectionate and moderately independent. Until the great feline revolution they need us to open cans, fill bowls, and operate faucets but other than that they can spend a day on their own if they have to without destroying the house or peeing everywhere. That isn't to say that they don't miss us when we are away more than they are used to, but the destruction tends to be less.

Beyond practical concerns though, I've always got on with cats. There's nothing better than cuddling up with a cat and a book. They'll cuddle up for hours. I love it when they mutter in their sleep or their paws twitch while they dream. Cats don't try to drag me outside to play or go for walk they a just happy to be near by.

Also, cats purr. There's nothing more comforting than a purring cat and dogs don't do anything like it.

I like dogs too though. Dogs just need more. They need to go outside a lot and they need us to be happy in a way cats don't. A dog is more responsibility. At this point in my life, I work long days and evenings and weekends are busy. I couldn't do right by a dog. May though, later in life when I'm home more, a dog might be nice. They need us more but I think sometimes they love us more too.

Happy Valentines Day

I'm not a big fan of Valentines. It's a holiday created by various commercial groups to induce sales of chocolate, jewelry, and greeting cards celebrating the most shallow aspects of something really quite wonderful: love. Some of my most awkward and uncomfortable memories from high school were on various Valentines Days.

However love itself is a pretty amazing thing and a common theme in a lot of literature I love. I'm not a big fan of reading straight up romance, but here are some of my favorite books from the last few years featuring a love story:

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz - Odd loves Stormy in a way that transcends death. Despite being a horror novel, it's the relationship between the two of them that initially drew me in.









The Marvels by Brian Selznick - Love is often known in literature through loss. Profound loss can drive a story like no other thing.









Looking for Alaska by John Green - Not all stories about love, see that love recognized by the object of that love. Alaska is a beautiful tortured girl and Miles loves her in an unapproachable almost worshipful way as do all the other boys around her. However, none of them can save her.

Girls Like Us by Gail Giles - Not all love is romantic, that doesn't make it less valuable. Romantic love has a bad tendency to maim as often as it heals. The love between friends can be a balm that restores wounded even if between two girls that most would discount.

Shadow of the Red Moon by Walter Dean Myers

I discovered Walter Dean Myers later than the usual reader. He'd been writing since the early 70's but I didn't discover him until after his death in 2014 when I picked up Monster on a whim. Monster blew me away but it also made it clear to me why I missed out on him when I was younger. Myers's books tend to have male teen-aged protagonists who are often African American. In short, I wasn't in the audience he was aiming for. It's a shame really, because Myers is an excellent writer who tackles difficult subjects with great compassion and sensitivity.

I can't recommend the guys books more. Really. Go read one of his books.

However, Myers is not known as a writer of genre fiction so when I ran across what looked like a fantasy story by him, I snapped it up.

Shadow of the Red Moon is set in a fantasy world after a meteoroid hit the planet sinking it into a ice age. After the ice age abates, the remaining people are hit by a plague. The Okalians are safe behind their crystal walls until they find themselves under siege by the Fen. With things looking dire, the Okalians send out a group of teenagers to try to find the Ancient Lands that their people apparently originally came from. Jon is a member of that group.

He quickly teams up with Lin and Kyra, two siblings on the same mission and they cross territory on foot accompanied by a black unicorn they name Shadow and avoiding groups of Fen. Jon soon finds himself questioning he's peoples cherished beliefs. Are the Okalians really the heroes of their story of exodus or did they run away? Are they better or just luckier? What is it that makes them better?

So, I guess there is a reason that Myers wasn't known for fantasy. This is, by far, not his best book. It's deeply philosophic but the sparse narrative doesn't allow much time or space to really get to know the world. The characters move from one disaster to another and meet other characters that quickly pass back out of the narrative without leaving much of an impression. In general, I just didn't feel very interested or invested in the characters, including the protagonist Jon.

The questions that Jon struggles with are interesting. He's wrestling with what his people believe and discovering that his people's interpretation of events isn't the only possible one. Myths, really. What do you do if the things you believe are true, end up under suspicion?

Despite the interesting philosophic questions, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Mind you, I wouldn't try to stop someone from reading it either. I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole experience

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Sometimes I think I should spend more time reading non-genre fiction. I don't know why I'm so drawn by fantasy and science fiction. Maybe it's the world that draws me in which is easier to convey in a back panel blurb. I just have a hard time getting the gumption up to start reading a mainstream novel. All the same, when I do manage to get into a mainstream narrative, I generally fall in love with them.

I've been working my way through all the Printz award winners and honor books, so I've been reading a lot more mainstream fiction albeit mainstream fiction for young adults. I found Laurie Halse Anderson that way and John Green too. I liked their books well enough that I'm in an extended project to read all of their books. Which brings me to I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. I've had this book out from the school library since last June. I kept picking it up, reading a few pages, and putting it back down. I had every intention of reading it and getting it back to the library with no one the wiser but I instead accidentally held it hostage for most of a year. (Bad English teacher, no treat for you)

Noah and Jude are twins. Their mother is a crazy free spirit art history professor. Their dad is a scientist who researches parasites. The siblings are both incredible artists: Noah draws and Jude sculpts. The twins are close as twins tend to be but something happens the year before entering high school that drives a wedge between the siblings that neither seems to be able remedy.

The story is told alternating between Noah and Jude as protagonists but Noah's sections are told from before the cataclysmic event when they are 13 or 14 and Jude's are all told from after the event when they are 16. Each twin is fully defined with their own host of difficulties. Noah sees everything in snapshots like paintings waiting to happen. Oh, and he's gay but not out yet and struggling with all of that. Jude thinks in terms of superstitions and arbitrary rules she creates to avoid disaster on a metaphysical level. It's clear that both teens are in crisis but how these crises fit together is the compelling mystery of the narrative.

As is usually the case, once I really started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I was supposed to be grading today, in fact. So much for that idea. I instead spent the day alternating between wanting to cry for these characters and laughing loudly and unabashedly. While, I figured out most of the plot twists early on, the delightful humor in the character voices and the characters kept me reading.

Excellent book for teens looking for a more challenging read. The chapters are very long (up to 100 pages) but there are sub breaks in the chapters that give plenty of places to pause.

The Upside of Being a Reader...

Bookworm. I wasn't always one. For a while my all consuming passion was drawing or TV. The shift was a gradual one and started sometime around middle school. It's that awkward phase when the body is doing all kinds of strange things and friends start acting weird. Of course, I didn't have a lot of friends but as mystifying as I thought people were in elementary, by middle school I was convinced that the world had gone crazy and anyone under the age of 20 had fallen victim to body snatchers.

I always felt on the outside, but it got worse in middle school. The more I felt left out, the more I found solace in books. They helped me in a way the T.V. and drawing didn't. Through books, I became enmeshed in other worlds where the awkward protagonist was eventually recognized and loved. Heady stuff when you are 12.

So people started calling me a bookworm. At first in an amused tone, but eventually it was pronounced with faint alarm from the adults in my life and derision from my peers. It took years for my love of books to grow into something other than escapism, but even when I was 12 and 13 I was picking up books like Wuthering Heights (which has the dubious honor of teaching me what it means to loath something) or Frankenstein in with my fluff reads of Dragonlance novels or Anne McCaffrey books.

I still don't understand people most of the time, but that's ok. I don't think most people really get humanity as a whole which is why we have so much conflict. When I get lost in a book though, it's because I'm seeing what another person might be like under all of the layers or maybe I'm seeing a situation I could never have insight into being played out. I think books are the closest we can come to really understanding what happens outside of the echo-chamber we call a brain.

I wish more people read. I think the world would be a better place if more people experienced a life outside their own heads.

The School for Good and Evil: A World Without Princes

I was enchanted enough with the first book, that I went ahead and picked up the second. Honestly, the story was so tied up at the end of the first book that I didn't really know where Chainani could go in the second book.

Apparently, when a reader does something strange in the fairy tale world school, it does strange things to the whole world. So, Sophie and Agatha got to go home, but once there they each find that they are unhappy for one reason or another. Sophie is still having a hard time with her father and wishes she could see her mother again. Agatha has moments of regretting her choice to go home with Sophie and wishes for Tedros. They are soon lured back to the fairy tale school but find that everything is different. The schools are no longer for good and evil but have instead becomes a school for girls and a school for boys. The sexes are at war, or nearly so because Agatha proved that a princess did not necessarily need a prince.

Of course, Sophie and Agatha are at the heart of the conflict and it just isn't clear what the right path is.

So good things: Tedros becomes something more than an annoying and self-righteous prick. I also like that the narrative puts Tedros and Sophie on even footing by having him echo things Sophie has said. The pacing issue in the first book is fixed in the second. I like the way the evil students and good students find common ground, even if it feels temporary.

And the bad things: The story is getting annoyingly moralizing. It seems like Chainani's world is punishing action over intention. Sophie often acts with good intention and she just keeps getting smacked down in a way that I'm finding annoying. I don't really like Sophie. I wouldn't hang out with her given a chance but it just seems like she's being bullied by the story and I hate bullies. Agatha seems more than usually powerless which I don't like but may also be temporary leading in to the third book.

All in all, there is stronger and smoother writing in the second book but the plot line is more confusing. Certainly, A World Without Princes was a more enjoyable read than the first book.

Ok...

This just wasn't my best week. Reboot starts tomorrow. Tonight sweet sweet sleep....or a very damp cat. Cat's choices. (I'm a wicked shot armed with a squirt bottle of lemon water)

Attack of the Plague Beasts

I'm not germ phobic as a rule, but every once and a while being a teacher makes me wince at the sound of a cough, shudder at a sneeze, attack surfaces with Clorox wipes at the first sign of a runny nose.

Mostly, I view the cold and flu season with a fair amount of bemused tolerance. People get sick, maybe I get sick. It's annoying but it only lasts a couple of days and then it's business as usual. In the mean time I'm treated to the almost daily lessons on proper mouth covering form, kids displaying symptoms with the skill of the an amateur dramatics society member, and the constant stench of hand sanitizer. Usually its a bunch of over reacting and I try desperately not to get caught rolling my eyes.

Every once and a while though, we have a really bad year. About a quarter of the student body was out sick today. Everyone is sniffling. We have kids who've spent time in the hospital and I've got one who's flu has turned to pneumonia. The school has had 5 confirmed cases of flu and most of them are kids I teach. I on the other hand feel almost suspiciously hale and hearty. I swear I can almost see a fog of germs coming to get me like some sort of sci-fi plague.

The irritating thing about it is that if I'm going to get sick, I've probably already got whatever it is in my system.  So, it's all just a waiting game anyway. Gotta say though....I might just lose it if just one more kid sneezes on me.

Fever by Lauren DeStefano

I have this pet theory. My theory states that in a trilogy, the middle book or movie is always the weakest. In most cases, the first book which covers the beginning of the over arching plot and the last book which covers the overarching climax and wrap up are better paced and written. Middles in narratives are notoriously difficult to write so the middle book in a trilogy often struggles a bit. Usually it's an issue of pacing and the individual climax of the book gets muted and lost in events that build the overall plot. Sometimes it is a big issue. Sometimes it is just a small matter of degree.

I go into all of this because it is rare for me to rate a middle book in a series higher than its predecessor. I rated Fever higher than Wither. I suspect now that source of my lackluster review for Wither  is sourced here. Something about it didn't quite pop. I'm not sure now what it was, but despite being a good premise, with a solid protagonist, and good writing, it just didn't quite come together.

Fever doesn't have that problem. In some ways it is a weaker storyline. However, DeStefano tackles a number of problems introduced in the first book. First, she spent so much time developing the sister-wives and characters in the mansion that it felt strange to discard them all for the rest of the series. From the beginning of fever, I was on the lookout for Rhine's return to the mansion in Florida. Frankly, I kind of dreaded it because her escape was such a goal in Wither. The only way I could see her going back was another kidnapping and that gets old. Thankfully that isn't what happens.

Second, this whole twin business. We know that Rhine has a twin in the first book but we never meet him. However, he does provide a rather compelling reason for her to be despite to escape such a pleasant captivity. At least on the surface. In Wither, Rowen, the twin, is a kind of non character. He is defined almost entirely by Rhine's desire to get back to him. Which is fine if he never shows up in the narrative. The moment Rhine escapes, it becomes clear the Rowen is going to be a focus in Fever and will need better development. While still mainly in his absence, Rowen's character gains depth over the course of the novel and it's not entirely sunny.

Third, DeStefano toys with the idea of an unreliable narrator when Rhine gets severely ill. It can be annoying when a character spends a third of the book half-delirious. DeStefano pulls it off though and mainly because Rhine never becomes truly unreliable and holds on to a sense of what is real. All of this serves to deepen the idea of Vaughn, the house master, as a villain. He goes from sinister in Wither to downright vile in Fever. In the process, the lack of apparent surveillance in Wither is explained even though it's never even raised as a question in the first novel.

On the negative, Rhine's relationship with Gabriel is a bit of a mystery to me. I never really buy it in Wither and it gets more seemingly ambivalent in Fever. This doesn't present too much of a problem but it tears down any sort of apparent love angle. It really seems more like a relationship of mutual reliance. If anything, it almost seems like Rhine loves Linden after all.

Over all, a better read with excellent pacing but extremely grim.

The Joys of Teaching

So, I teach this young man who struggles in school, not because he can't do the work, but more because sometimes life is a little hard to face outside of a pillow and blanket. He misses a lot of school and as a consequence gets behind in his school work.

However, when he is at school, he does very well. I particularly enjoy talking books with him. For a teenager, he has odd taste in books. So far this year, he's read the collected works of Lovecraft, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex by Owen Chase, and assorted Forgotten Realms novels. He likes the language in the older works but at this point he's mainly rereading the same classics that he's read many times before. It has been one of my goals this year to get him started on some new authors. I tried him on the works of the Brontes and Hiassen. No go.

Finally, I talked to my dad about it and he suggested A. Merritt. Well that worked. In fact, I keep catching him reading it when he should be doing my work.

*Sigh* I'm going to have to start using novels as bribes.

Daily Blog Flaw

One of the big issues with having a daily blog is having something to write every day. Every. Single. Day. I'm actually surprised it doesn't come up more often, but when I'm on a reading jag, there are plenty of books to write about and filling in the gaps is no real problem. It only really comes up at times like this when I've decided to take a break.

Incidentally, these small breaks are also what tend to derail the blog altogether.

I'm determined this time around, to find a way to take a break from reading without also taking a break from blogging. It's tough though, I end up sitting her forlornly staring at a blank page and feeling utterly devoid of interesting thought. This, I think, must be what my students feel when I ask them to journal without giving them a topic. They sit there, almost panicked, watching the minutes tick away. And so do I.

Of course, the trick is to just write. . . anything. Anything at all. I could start transcribing the lyrics to "I'm the very model of a modern major general," and that would do the trick because writing is, on some level, only a really elaborate free association exercise. I could follow the modern major general to the Despicable Me 3 movie where the minions sing a version in minionese and that my son absolutely loves. The writing becomes a post about Thomas and being a parent. I could also follow the same modern major general to a memory of meeting my husband who tells the story of being cast as a copper in "Pirates of Penzance" despite his long piratey hair because he's a baritone. Suddenly, I'm writing a post about my husband. Or I could follow it to the time I saw it with my father as a kid...I think we were at Stratford, Ontario's Shakespeare festival. A post about my childhood.

See, free association. Our brains are such neat places.

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

It's an odd thing. Sometimes I read a book and I don't end up with much to say. Even if I like the book too. I suspect it's a sign for me to take a small break in reading. No matter how much I love books, I can get saturated.

Wither is a good book. It is another dystopian set up. In this near future version of the world mankind has conquered most disease and genetic engineering. In fact, so successful that about 70 years before the beginning of the book, there was a whole generation of babies that were artificially conceived. That whole generation - the first generation - was completely healthy. However, 50 years after, or so, it turns out that the children of the first generation are all susceptible to a mysterious virus that kills all the men at age 25 and all the women at 20. There are no survivors and the virus works like clockwork.

This of course all has a rather immediate effect on society. There are large numbers of orphans floating around. Women are stolen from their families to become part of polygamous marriages for the wealthy with the hope of producing more offspring. Rhine is one such young woman. She might be stolen and married off, but she has no intention of idly accepting her fate and immediately starts to plot an escape.

There is a large cast of characters including Rhine's two sister-wives, her husband and her husband's father, and all the servants and attendants. The interesting thing is that the vast majority of the characters are likable and that includes the husband, Linden. As much as this is sci fi, it's the psychological aspects of the narrative are the most interesting. One gets the sense that it's really the world that is pushing events more that it is evil acts. Mind you, the bad guy is super creepy.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the narrative develops in the second book.

A Day Like Today...

Some days need to be returned to the temporal factory as defective. Today was such a day. Pragmatically, I know that it is a result of the unusually long marking interval. The kids were squirrely and just cantankerous. I kept walking around the corner into situations that I had to deal with. I wrote a total of three pink slips (our highest level disciplinary documentation for the teaching staff). That's a lot for me.

Additionally, I alerted on two more situations that ended up in the kids going home with their parents. I'm not sure if they ended up in suspension or not, but it's not a good sign by any stretch.

All I want to do now is hide under my blankets until the sun comes fully up tomorrow which means sleeping in two hours.

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

This book has started a small controversy at my school. In August, one of my seniors chose Milk and Honey as her independent reading book. Coincidentally, a different student requested our media center specialist buy a copy for the school. Since, it was a best seller and appeared on several lists, she bought a copy without thinking much about it.

My student, when she realized that she would have to do a book talk on it, alerted me to some concerns about how to present on it appropriately. I flipped through her copy and immediately saw the issue, but she and I talked it through and she successfully (and appropriately) presented it to the class. Less than a day later, the media center specialist called me over to ask about the book. In the way these things tend to happen, the book had first been delivered to the middle school by mistake. So by the time it made it up to the high school, both principals at the middle school had flipped through it and had grave concerns. These concerns were shared with the High School principal and the media center specialist. At this point, it was time to ask the resident bibliovore for an opinion and that's me.

Milk and Honey is a collection of diary style poetry and prose having to do with the Kaur's first 21 years. She had a rough time of it. She experienced abuse and pain, but she also experienced love and healing. There are many references to sex and some of the line drawings are a bit suggestive. In several places Kaur expresses her experiences graphically.

There's nothing wrong with this book. It's memoir. These poems are this woman's experiences. It might make me wince in places but it didn't feel like shock value to me, just the expression of a woman who refuses to feel shame for what happened to her. In terms of theme, this is an excellent book for young women to read as it is very much a book about healing and finding strength in experience.

The problem, as far as I can tell, is that there is a sizable group of people out there that insist this is a YA title. It isn't. Just because the author was of the same age as the YA set while going through the events of the memoir doesn't mean that it's aimed at the YA audience. Conversely, that also doesn't mean young adults in their late teens and up shouldn't read it either. There is value in texts like this in that it models response to horrible situations and provides insight. We could all do with more insight.

I am uncomfortable with the idea of censorship which is why I worked with my student so that she could present Milk and Honey to the class. Censorship empowers the thing that is censored. If an idea is seen as dangerous that makes it more appealing to most people. That is just human nature. I'd rather face such things head on and talk them through. I am however sensitive to the position of parents and school administrators.

Our media center serves both the high school and middle school. A book like this is not appropriate for younger audiences, and I support the decision to keep it off the media center shelves. However, as a compromise she gave the book to me for my classroom collection. My collection is something that I have more control over. I have a collection of books that I keep separate from my main collection that I give to students if they ask for them and I think they are mature enough. In some cases, I call home and explain the book to the parents and ask them to decide if they want their child to read it.

In the case of Milk and Honey, I admit to some ambivalence. I will happily support a student's desire to read difficult material even if the ideas make me uncomfortable. There is a lot of buzz about Milk and Honey and it keeps coming up in my conversations with my students because it was a recent best seller. It'll take time for the buzz to die, and until it does, it is best that we have a copy so that we know what is floating around the student body. On the other hand, I don't relish the conversations with the parents. While I believe there is nothing wrong with the book, I also don't think it's some sort of transcendental reading experience.

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

The thing about a series is that if you enjoy it, once you finish one book, there is a strong impulse to dive into the next one. Additionally, I'm now well past the Discworld books that I've read in the past, so it is all new territory.

Maskerade is one of the less zany of the Discworld books. Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax are back making it part of the witches subseries even if Magrat is off being a queen. In fact, the book opens with Nanny and Granny needing a third witch for their little gatherings. Nanny is particularly worried that Granny will become unhinged and either wander off and die or become one of the bad ones.

The best candidate for a new witch is Agnes Nitt, only she's gone off to Ankh-Morpork to become an opera singer. She's got an amazing voice too. The problem she finds is that she is built on rather more Wagnerian lines and her ample figure isn't what they are looking for in their stars these days. In fact, there are many in the opera-house who feel that the values of good music above all other consideration are being compromised. And it doesn't help that their patron ghost has started killing people.

This is an unusual book for Discworld series. It is really a murder mystery. Someone is killing people and Agnes, Nanny, and Granny are trying to find out who: basic mystery plot. The identity of the Ghost is the lynch pin of course.

Maskerade was a fun read but it took a long time. The pacing was very different. As with all the Discworld books, there were no chapter breaks which will always be a struggle for younger readers. Additionally, a lot of the jokes assumed at least a passing understanding of opera. Pratchett particularly pokes at some of the notoriously ridiculous plots. I spotted references to La Traviatta, The Magic Flute, The Barber of Seville, and Die Fledermaus. Wagner's entire opus is sort of generally referenced. Additionally, the Ghost in the book is an obvious reference to The Phantom of the Opera, and there is a passing reference to Cats, The Pirates of Penzance, Les Mis, Evita, and Miss Saigon. Given that I'm not a big Opera or Musical Theater fan, I am sure that I missed a lot on this one.