Rumination

I've been thinking a lot lately about life and lifespan. That time will eventually run out and there will be things left undone. I have plenty of time in front of me still, but still the sense that there are things that I will not manage to do gives me the screaming fidgets. This is not uncommon for me. I've been acutely aware of my own mortality as long as I can remember. My impression is that most people aren't bothered by these ideas until their mid-30s or even later. I was worrying over it when I was 10, or possibly even earlier.

So, life will end, as it does, sometime in the future. What bothers me, more than that is the ever present feeling that I should be doing something with my time. The feeling that I'm letting it all slip by somehow.

Which is ridiculous.

I'm a teacher, which regardless of official remuneration, most people would agree is a job that matters. I spend my days helping kids who have difficulty learning to succeed in a classroom which often changes their futures for the better. So what I do matters, and I know that.

I'm not sure, exactly what it is my hind-brain thinks I should be doing. I wish I did. I always come back to the idea of writing and it still appeals, but realistically, unless I'm both very good and very lucky, I'm going to affect more people teaching.

Also, why is it so important to my silly little back brain that I affect people?

Any way, I'm currently struggling with all this which is causing this pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction. It's affecting a lot of things. This blog for instance. Who cares if anyone reads it if it makes me happy to write it, which it does at times. Yet still, it bothers me.

Insecure

I disappeared for a while, I know. I have been considering closing the blog down. On the one hand, I do like having the structure of writing each day and the book posts help me keep all my reading straight. On the other, I've been feeling lately like most of what I have to say is inane and that most people (who read me at all) skip the posts that I am most proud of i.e. the book posts. I mean people should do what they want, and life is too short to read things that don't interest, but it is pretty discouraging.

On top of that, it's embarrassing that there are so many grammar and spelling errors in my posts. Now, that's because I'm usually writing when I'm at my most tired and the grind of churning out posts every day doesn't help. It's not that I can't produce perfect copy, I just don't.

So, yeah.

I haven't really made a decision yet, but I have begun to wonder what the point of it is. If it is just for me, than it doesn't need to be online. If the point is to connect to other readers....it's not working.

*shrug*

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

Susan brought this title into library and I pounced. I even retro-added it to the August list so I could dive right in. It took me about two days to plow through it. Jason Reynolds is a good writer. I first became aware of him at a NCTE conference where I saw him talk about his book All American Boys. He's a tall man and soft spoken. When he talked, it was clear how much he cared about the story. I was impressed.

The Boy In the Black Suit is about grief primarily. Matt's mother has died and his dad is in the process of climbing into a bottle. Matt's a mess. He's trying to finish school and he needs to find a job for his co-op. So he goes to the local fast food restaurant to apply. Only he ends up taking a job with the local funeral director, Mr Ray, instead.

Working with Mr. Ray, Matt has the opportunity to observe how others grieve and so he begins to heal.

I've read books about grief before or at least where the major theme was a grieving character. It's surprising to read a book like this that is so overwhelmingly upbeat. There is a love story wrapped up in it all, but that's not what makes it upbeat. It's the characters. Each has experienced loss. Each is at a different stage of the grieving process, and it's like they help each other along.

This isn't the kind of book I would ever reread, but it was an excellent book and I would recommend it to my students.

Book Abandonment

I have to abandon a book. Jodi Picoult's book Small Great Things looks like it is probably a great book, but I just can't do it right now. I have, for no particular reason and with no sense of purpose, been reading a lot of books lately on a similar theme, and it is beginning to wear on me.

Books like this are important, socially. We all need to be, regardless of background, more aware of those deep rooted prejudices that we are subject to and fight against. However, reading book after book after book on the theme has left me feeling pretty cruddy. I don't think of myself as racist, but read enough books where characters continually insist that all white people are in some way and I start to internalize it. I'm sure that I have been guilty of racially insensitive from time to time but I've been on the receiving end of that too. People have an unfortunate tendency to categorize and make assumptions and it always feels bad to get caught in that.

So, I'm taking a break. I'm pretty sure I will come back to the book, but it's a difficult theme and I need to process what I've already read. That will take some time.

Big Hero 6 - the animated series

When my students told me about "Big Hero 6" a few years ago, I thought it was the dumbest idea. I mean come on, it's a healthcare robot turned super hero. It's an odd idea, but in practice it ends up being a really fun and the movie is really more about a young man processing his grief after the death of his brother.  It's the kind of movie that basically screams for a sequel.

No luck on the sequel. Instead, they launched an animated T.V. series. We bought the first season and it's about what I expected. The animation quality is less, and the writing is...different. Many of the character nuances are preserved and it's still a lot of fun.

We'll see how it goes.

(I can't believe they brought back Yama.)

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

I found this while browsing the new book shelf at one of my local libraries. It has been years since I though about Tracy Chevalier's books. I was still working at the library last time I read one. However, it's a familiar name and interesting subject matter. It's also been years since I read "Othello," so reading a retelling of the story appealed.

Chevalier recast the story as a 1970's playground drama with 11 and 12 year old characters. Osei (Othello) is the son of a Ghanaian diplomat who has just moved to a suburb of Washington D.C. and is starting at a new school at the end of the school year. He is the only black face in an otherwise homogeneously white school. Dee (Desdemona) is something of a good girl teacher's pet who is asked to help Osei adjust on his first day. The attraction is instantaneous in the way of elementary school romances.

Ian (Iago) is the self styled king of the playground and sees Osei as a threat to his dominance. He then manipulates his sort of girlfriend Mimi (Emilia) into helping him convince Osei that Dee is two timing him with Casper (Casio). Mimi, of course, doesn't realize what it is she is helping set up, but is desperate to be free of Ian.

It's a pretty faithful retelling.

Of course it ends horribly; it is "Othello" after all. Transposing it to a playground made it somehow more chilling but I wasn't convinced by how calculating Ian was and the sexual overtones that come directly from the play seemed out of place with 11 year olds. The final moment of the novel is spare in its delivery and ends with the act. Shakespeare also left us with little denouement, but there is at least a sense that Iago will be punished. As tragic as Shakespeare's Othello is, placing it on a playground with little kids just makes it even more awful.

Nagging

Days like this, I understand my students's lack of motivation. If I could think of a topic, I could write about it, I'm sure. It just feels like my creative centers are all shut down.

It's exhaustion I know. Ashley woke me up at 1 AM. I just need more sleep.

Darn cats.

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

Have I ever expressed how frustrating I find reading a book and then having to wait for the next one to be written? Darn you Shusterman! (rending of hair and clothes will now commence)

Not really.

However, he really kicked over the hornet's nest at the end of this one and, dash it all, I want to know what happens. I have to wait for book three to come out: The Toll. I'm not even sure there is a release date yet. I hate waiting.

Alright, so, I got into the series as part of my larger mission to read all the Printz prize books. Scythe won a Printz honor. Then I found out that it was the beginning of a series and here we are. The thing is, it is probably worth the suspense. Shusterman has a knack for creating interesting worlds and working through interesting philosophical questions.

In the Arc of the Scythe series, Shusterman is working through two philosophical questions. 1. What would humanity be like if individuals did not face death? 2. What would a benevolent AI be like? In Thunderhead, he seems to be working on the character of the world controlling AI, Thunderhead. The AI only barely shows up in the first book.

In Thunderhead it becomes clear that the AI is, in its way, trying to do its best to protect humanity. However, because it is constrained by rules and because it is a computer and must follow its rules, it comes into conflict. This causes it to play an elaborate game of chess for high stakes and its pawns aren't generally aware they are being played.

This was a disturbingly good read. The interplay between the narratives for Citra, Rowan, and Greyson (new character) contrasts well with the snippets of editorial from the Thunderhead's point of view. Shusterman does an excellent job balancing the multiple view points and plot lines.

Worth the read.

exhaustion

There is something about the beginning of school that is always exhausting. Exhaustion isn't just tired, in fact one might not be physically strained at all. Exhaustion can, and often is, purely mental in nature. Exhaustion is the state when all of one's energy, whether it be mental or physical, is used up as well as all the reserves. Or to put it another way, puts one on the brink of collapse.

The first couple weeks of class always knock me over. Partly it's the activity level. Teachers move around a lot, they are constantly moving and shifting between tasks. It's one of the things I like about the job. However, there just isn't as much going on during my summers so readjusting in August is always a strain physically.

More so than the physical activity, teaching is a mental pursuit for me. Every student is a puzzle, particularly with the LD population. So, the beginning of every year is like being presented with a bunch of puzzles that all have to be worked on post haste. It's glorious. It's exhausting.

I'm so tired right now.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Sometimes I find our language severely lacking. I need a word that means - the knowledge that a book is good without ever wanting to talk about it. In the case of Annihilation I don't want to talk about it because it is seriously creepy and mind bendy. Some books are simply designed to make the reader uncomfortable. Goal achieved Mr. Vandermeer.

That said, I intend to read the rest of the trilogy. Creepiness aside, it was an intriguing read. The premise is that we are reading the field journal of a biologist who is investigating the mysterious Area X with a team of scientists and other professionals. This is the twelfth such mission. All the previous mission have either ended with deaths, disappearances, or with members mysteriously showing up at there homes.

The biologist is something of an odd one. She seems both intelligent and emotionally closed off. The intelligence draws the reader in, but the emotional distance is off putting.There is some suggestion that she may be an unreliable narrator early on which adds to the tension as things start to go wrong. The linguist doesn't make it over the border into Area X and it is all down hill from there. As things devolve, more of the mystery is revealed. By the end of the book I wasn't any more sure things than I was in the beginning.

I really want to know what's going on, therefore I will read the next book.

Incidentally, there might not be a word in English that meets my needs, but we have borrowed plenty of words from other languages with specialized meanings. My favorite is tsundoku borrowed from Japanese that means, roughly, the process of buying books and not reading them; or letting books pile up unread.

Great word.

In the Interest of Sanity...

I'm going to a faux post. School starts tomorrow and even as a teacher I still get first day jitters. I'm always convinced I've forgotten something critical. So instead of stressing the blog I'm going to post a comic, drink some sleepy time tea, and go to bed....hopefully early.

mmmmmmm tea.

He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander

I'm a fan of Kwame Alexander, not for myself and my own reading, but as a teacher. A significant proportion of my students are struggling readers. Their struggles come from many places. Some are dyslexic, some have issues with generalized language processing, some just struggle so much with ADHD that they have difficulty tracking a story. Occasionally, I have kids who's eyes don't work in a standard way. Whatever the reason, reading is a chore for them. So, imagine asking a kid who views reading as torture to pick a book for independent reading that they'll enjoy.

Yeah.

It doesn't go over well.

In these cases, I need to help them find a book that is both interesting to them and something that won't push them past the point of frustration. I have about ten books that I tend to turn to first in these situations, Kwame Alexander wrote two of them. Crossover and Booked both feature young men who are athletes who are dealing with difficult situations in their lives. Both books are novels in verse. The subject matter makes it relevant to my students and the format makes it less intimidating for the struggling reader. I think all that white space makes them feel like it's less work to read...even though interpreting poetry is generally a higher order skill than interpreting prose. (I don't tell them that though.)

When I become a fan of an author I tend to follow them and try to read all of their books which is how I picked up He Said, She Said. I was expecting another novel in verse...actually I was expecting a lot of things based on the other two books of his I've read. This is not a novel in verse and it is not told from a solely male perspective. He Said, She Said is told from alternating points of view between a boy named Omar (or T-Diddy) and a girl named Claudia. The book is also prose studded with phone texts and Facebook posts.

Omar is his high school's star quarterback. He's starts out a stereotype of the popular jock type. He's frivolous in his affect and he treats women as interchangeable bed partners. Claudia, on the other hand, has no time for that. She's Harvard bound and socially motivated - she writes for the school newspaper.

In the beginning Omar is trying to get Claudia into bed (she's in no way interested.) However, things begin to shift when the school cuts funding for the arts programs, all of the arts programs. Omar masterminds a protest to impress Claudia, but it soon becomes something more.

I am impressed by this book. Many of Alexander's books are about protagonists dealing with deeply personal issues. Omar and Claudia have personal issues going on but this is as much about the impact of non-violent protest. It's an excellent book for teens to read.

Artemis by Andy Weir

I was late on the Andy Weir bandwagon. I somehow missed all the initial fuss over The Martian and didn't get around to reading it until the movie was just about out. I still haven't seen the movie. They followed the movie with an announcement for his new book: Artemis. Then I had to wait. I hate waiting mainly because I have a tendency to lose track of things. I forgot about it until last June when I put a request on in in the library. It took a month for my turn to come up, but eventually the time was mine.

Artemis is another sci-fi of the old school focused on the science and its possibilities, or maybe more exactly it's a crime caper set in a classic sci-fi story. This one is set on a moon base in the nearish future. A small community lives there full time in a city called Artemis. This city is separated into several interconnected domes that represent a full social diversity from the rich rich and all the way down to the impoverished. Jazz, our protagonist, is pretty far down the social chain. She's a porter, a delivery girl, and a small time smuggler on the side.

Weir spent a lot of time getting the science right, or at least feasible. Oxygen is produced on site as a by-product of the aluminum smelting industry. The process is a little mysterious, but the theory sounds possible. Jazz gets involved in it when one of her clients asks her to do a little sabotage to break the monopoly that the Aluminun Smelters have.

Of course, Jazz doesn't have the whole story and quickly finds out that she's one tiny cog in interlocking plots of corporate espionage. She's in over head and learning to doggy paddle.

Jazz is an interesting character. She's angry at the world and brilliant. Her ability to improvise and plan is insane and her ability to teach herself everything from metallurgy to chemistry makes her a near genius. In fact, her blatant intelligence occasionally broke my ability to believe the story. I'm a teacher... an ability to learn like that is rare if not impossible. It strained my willing suspension of disbelief. However, as a whole she's pretty likable.

As a final assessment, Artemis is reminiscent of the literature of the golden age of sci fi in both the positive and negative ways. On the positive, the science is interesting and probably mostly feasible. The one place I noticed Weir fudging was in the aluminum smelting process. The rest of it all seemed very well researched and explained and that includes architecture, the specifics of living surrounded by a vacuum, and specific concerns of living on a moon base. On the negative, the characters are a little cartooney and have a broader base of expertise than is really possible. All in all, a lot of fun.

Lists, lists, and more lists

As it turns out, Goodreads sponsors a YA week every year. I tend to miss it because it's right when everything is gearing up for school. Life gets hectic and I miss things. This year I managed to catch it. It isn't like there is a festival or anything, but they do put together several interesting lists.

I have a love hate thing going with reading lists. They can be a great way to find new literature and authors. In fact, I've found some amazing reads through lists of one sort or another.  As a downside though, I tend to be a completionist. I always want to complete things whether it is a feasible goal or not. With books that can be a problem. Appreciating a book can come down to many factors. There are many books that I've had to start several times before getting a successful read going. They were good books too, I just had to be ready for them.

When it comes to YA, it isn't just about my personal reading. It's about my students, so the lists are helpful.

I just have to resist start a new completion project

New Month, New List

Ahhhhh, school. Summer reading is over (almost) and it's time to get back into routines. I've stayed on track for overall number of books but I'm falling behind for non-YA by about 8 titles. By the end of August I should be at 33 non YA, and I'm currently at 22. So it is time to dig in and work on reading those more mature selections. Naturally I need to get through my library books first but otherwise I'm going to try to get through at least six non-YA this month. I'm honestly not sure if it's possible or pragmatic for me to do that. I just can't blast through Non-YA as fast as YA. We'll see.

Non YA

1. New Boy by Tracy Chevalier (finished 8/11/2018))
2. Reading Reasons by Kelly Gallagher
3. Alice by Christina Henry
4. The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn
5. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
6. Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
7. Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
8. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
9. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (8/5/2018)
10. Artemis by Andy Weir (8/2/2018)
11. The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

YA

1. Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (Borrowed from a student)
2. He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander  (8/4/2018)
3. The Boy in the Black Suit by Kwame Alexander (8/14/2018)
4. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
5. The Selection by Kiera Cass (8/22/2018)
6. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
7. Tiger's Curse by Coleen Houck
8. Legend by Marie Lu
9. Prodigy by Marie Lu
10. Champion by Marie Lu
11. Grip of the Shadow Plague by Brandon Mull
12. Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary by Brandon Mull
13. Keys to the Demon Prison by Brandon Mull
14. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
15. A List of Cages by Robin Roe
16. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
17. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
18. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
19. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
20. Thunderhead by Neil Shusterman (read 8/8/2018)
21. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
22. I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak