Westlin Winds

It's my tenth wedding anniversary today, so this poem by Robert Burns is in honor of my husband (even though the poem is not seasonally appropriate). One of the (many) nice things about my husband is that he came with a lot of great music, including a cd by the great Scottish singer, Dick Gaughan (Handful of Earth) that has a most lovely setting of this poem. When the words meet the music, it becomes one of the most beautiful songs I know (and makes me weep every time).

Westlin Winds

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn's pleasant weather
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Among the blooming heather
Now waving grain, wild o'er the plain
Delights the weary farmer
And the moon shines bright as I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer

The partridge loves the fruitful fells
The plover loves the mountain
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells
The soaring hern the fountain
Through lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnet

Thus every kind their pleasure find
The savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander
Avaunt! Away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion
The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering, gory pinion

But Peggy dear the evening's clear
Thick flies the skimming swallow
The sky is blue, the fields in view
All fading green and yellow
Come let us stray our gladsome way
And view the charms of nature
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And every happy creature

We'll gently walk and sweetly talk
Till the silent moon shines clearly
I'll grasp thy waist and, fondly pressed,
Swear how I love thee dearly
Not vernal showers to budding flowers
Not autumn to the farmer
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, my lovely charmer.

There's a bit of the song at Dick Gaughan's website--the music really does make it much more so.

The Poetry Friday roundup is here at Writer2be today!

Teenagers reading-

"It's now cool for teenagers to read"

Here's the link to a rather cheering story from today's Providence Journal, about a book club formed last year at Hope High School. Hope is an urban, largely minority school that was in such a bad way a few years ago that the state intervened. It's better now, thanks in large part to dedicated teachers like those who founded the book club-- Jodi Timpani and Laura Almagno.

Rather annoyingly, the article only mentions two specific books the club members have read--Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America (Linda Furiya) and Wicked.

Updated:

Here's what the Hope teenagers have read so far:

The Memory of Running
My Sister's Keeper
19 minutes
Change of Heart
The Pact
World War Z
Water for Elephants

I have read none of them...always there are more books landing on the to be read pile!!:)

Jock Meets Nessie, also spelling, writing on computers and becoming a reader

My 7 year old son asked me to post here a story he wrote for school (see below). He wrote a short, laborious, and unreadable first draft by hand--unreadable not because his handwriting is so bad, but because his spelling so often does not result in recognizable words. Then he re-wrote it on the computer (with a bit of typing help from me), and did the spell checking himself. The result is something that he can read back to himself, which I assume gives him confidence that he is a reader as well as a writer, and is thus a Good Thing. Gratifying, but I wonder if, like his Mama (who can't even blame computers), he will ever learn to spell on his own.

Having gotten this self-consciously trying to make my kid's story relevant to a larger readership interested in children's literacy section out of the way,

here is

JOCK MEETS NESSIE

Once there was a man named Jock (he was Scottish). He went to Loch Ness to fish. But he wanted to see Nessie because when he was a little boy he'd found a magical compass on the bank of Loch Ness. Engraved in old English runes were the words “Give this to Nessie!” He had kept it all the years since, hoping to give it to Nessie. “I would love to see her,” whispered Jock to himself. He thought that Nessie was a plesiosaur.

It was early in the morning. Jock ran down the slope to the dock. He got to his boat and untied it. He started to row into the lake. Looking around and enjoying the sweet summer air, he spied bubbles rising in a ring. Jock decided to go to the ring of bubbles.

Jock got to the bubbling water and leaned over the side of his boat to see if Nessie was there. He saw Nessie’s head, but he thought it was a fish. “It isn’t Nessie, but it looks like a big fish!” Jock prepared his line and tossed it in. Nessie bit the bait and tugged hard. Jock suddenly realized that it wasn’t a fish! He screamed out, “If you’re Nessie, show yourself!”

Nessie rose out of the water. She looked like a plesiosaur alright! She snorted and swam around Jock and his boat. Jock felt so happy that he could give Nessie the compass. He tossed it over the side of the boat and Nessie caught it her jaws. He was relieved because finally he had seen Nessie and given her the compass.

Nessie dove down and put the compass inside a secret cave. Then she came back up to the surface and snorted twice and dove back down. She came up again with two fish in her mouth. She tossed them into Jock’s boat.

Jock wondered if she would use the compass find her way back to the ocean. Nessie had not left Jock and his boat. Then the strangest thing happened. Nessie started to speak. “Thank you, Jock,” said Nessie. “ It was very kind of you to give that to me. Now I have done my thanks, so I will return to my ocean home. I’ve been a prisoner in Loch Ness for all these years, and I’m so glad you gave me that compass so I can be free.”

She disappeared back under the water, and a piece of paper floated up from below. Jock took his net and fished it out of the water. It said, “We’ll have other adventures.” And it was signed, Nessie.

The End.

Books I read in April

I broke no records for new books read in April--for much of the month I was poorly and my husband was off playing Irish music in Japan, so I did a lot of comfort re-reading. But here are the new to me books I read:

Persepolis by Marjane Satrape I have now painlessly acquired a much clearer understand of 20th century Iranian history.

Best Foot Forward by Joan Bauer (my review)

Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey (my review, which is really more a whine)

Eleven by Patricia Reily Giff (review pending)

Project Mulberry by Linda Sue Park (my review)

Captain Peggy Angela Brazil, picked up for $2 in a used book store. Angela Brazil is one of the Big Names of the early 20th century girl's boarding school genre, and although I wouldn't spend much more than $2 on one of her books, it was quite a good read. I won't spoil it for you, but Peggy's quick thinking when she saved the bus load of school girls at the end was truly admirable!

Winterbound by Margery Bianco A very happy find at the same book store. I learned of this book here, at the blog Collecting Children's Books, and although it didn't really do it for Peter, I thought it was great! But then, I am a huge sucker for books where girls have to make a home for younger siblings under difficult circumstances, particularly out in the country. If any fan of Gwendoline Courtney* should read this (unlikely), you will definitely like this book.

Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin and Margaret M. Sceriano Fascinating.


*Gwendoline Courtney was a mid 20th century English writer of books for girls--several of her stories (Sally's Family, The Farm on the Downs, The Girls of Friar's Rise) are about families in relatively isolated, difficult circumstances...I particularly recommend Sally's Family (which I shall someday review in full...d.v.)

Good Enough, by Paula Yoo

Good Enough, by Paula Yoo (2008, Harper Teen) is imperfectly titled. It is much more than good enough; in fact, it is very good indeed.

It tells of Patti, a high school student whose Korean parents expect nothing less than the best from her--anything less, no matter how good, isn't enough, and might keep her from HARVARDYALEPRINCTON. Patti and the kids in her Korean American youth group want to make their parents happy, but sometimes it's all a bit much. And sometimes, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, even if it means ditching Youth Group to run off to a Night Club (shock horror) with a Boy (greater horror)...

But before Patti gets to this point, she practices violin, takes practice SAT tests compulsively, starts to believe the Boy maybe likes her, and shares very funny tips on how to make your Korean American parents happy.

Maybe this doesn't sound like the stuff of which a great read is made, but Patti is so likeable and believable that it works. There aren't any great conflicts here, or great triumphs or failures. Instead, there's a funny and compassionate take on how to balance being true to yourself (and finding out who "yourself" is) with loving your parents and understanding their point of view.

Here's a great interview with Paula Yoo over at the Ya Ya Yas. And here's Paula's own website. Then check out this great project, Fusion Stories, that's promoting 10 new books for young readers about Asian Americans that "aren’t traditional tales set in Asia nor stories about coming to America for the first time."

ps: my only gripe with this book is that Bryn Mawr, my college, shares the number 12space with Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Wellesley on the Korean Parents list of preferred colleges, with the following note: "This is only for pretty girls like Tiffany Chung, whose parents will feel better if she attends an all-female Seven Sisters college because dating is wrong and evil." I realize that this is the opinion of the Korean Parents, but hmph to that :) !

For Poetry Friday --- What's Left

What’s Left
(for Peter Hennessy)

I used to wait for the flowers,

my pleasure reposed on them.

Now I like plants before they get to the blossom.

Leafy ones - foxgloves, comfrey, delphiniums -

fleshy tiers of strong leaves pushing up

into air grown daily lighter and more sheened

with bright dust like the eyeshadow

that tall young woman in the bookshop wears,

its shimmer and crumble on her white lids.

The washing sways on the line, the sparrows pull

at the heaps of drying weeds that I’ve left around.

Perhaps this is middle age. Untidy, unfinished,

knowing there’ll never be time now to finish,

liking the plants - their strong lives -

not caring about flowers, sitting in weeds

to write things down, look at things,

watching the sway of shirts on the line,

the cloth filtering light.

I know more or less

how to live through my life now.

But I want to know how to live what’s left

with my eyes open and my hands open;

I want to stand at the door in the rain

listening, sniffing, gaping.

Fearful and joyous,

like an idiot before God.

Kerry Hardiein, from Being Alive, ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Books 2004

I think this poem will have more meaning for me in a few more years (I don't feel middle aged just yet, and I am not quite ready to be unmoved by the blooming delphiniums) but much of it resonates for me even now. Especially the heaps of weeds lying around! :).

As a critical note--I don't think the woman in the bookstore adds one single thing to the poem. Agree? Disagree?

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Big A little a today!

Rabbit and Squirrel: A Tale of War and Peas

So I am watching my peas grow (go peas!) and thought that it would be a nice time to take a look at a pea related book that arrived recently--Rabbit and Squirrel: A Tale of War and Peas, by Kara LaReau and Scott Magoon (2008, Harcourt).

Um, this isn't a happy gardening book for kids. This is Picture Book Noir, one I think snarky adults will appreciate lots and lots more! The Rabbit and the Squirrel are scary looking, the colors somber, and the plot fearsome and rather pessimistic.

It's not my cup of tea, but here are two other reviews, from Three Silly Chicks and Fuse #8, who liked it lots. I guess I'm just so anxious about my precious baby garden right now that I have no vegetable sense of humor at the moment. Probably in September, when I am sick of the whole wretched thing and tomatoes are dripping down around me and the crabgrass has won (again), I will appreciate it more.

Best Foot Forward

About this time last year, I read Rules of the Road, by Joan Bauer (2000) (here's my review). I thought it was great fun taking a road trip through the world of shoe sales with its heroine, Jenna, and the grand dame of the show world, Mrs. Gladstone, whose chauffeur she became for a summer. So I was most pleased last week to find on the shelf of my very own library its sequel, Best Foot Forward (2005).

Jenna is back in school, and back in the shoe store, and it is the business of shoe selling that is uppermost in her mind. For the quality and customer service that her chain of stores stands for is under threat, and Jenna must unravel a chain of corporate greed and third world exploitation to protect both the chain and Mrs. Gladstone. And there's the matter of Tanner Cobb, a new employee in the store with a dodgy past, and uncertain future, and a nack for shoe sales, not to mention the nice doughnut store guy...

Without the road trip to carry it along, this must have been a tougher book to write, and as a stand alone, I'm not sure how well it works. But I truly enjoy the shoeish details with which Baur packs her story, and I like Jenna a lot (I'm one of those weak readers who likes to like the main character). I'm not sure I believe in her exactly, because her life and competence in the Shoe World is rather incredible, and her non-shoe world is very shadowy, but I do enjoy her!

Joan Bauer has a new book, Peeled, coming out tomorrow (May 1)! Here are a few reviews--at Bookshelves of Doom, at And Another Book Read and Look Books.

My backyard--isn't Spring just the prettiest little old thing (even more so in real life)

Environmental Disasters

Environmental Disasters, by Michael Woods and Mary B. Woods (Lerner 2008, 64pp). Part of the Disasters Up Close series, writen for Grade 5 and up.

This isn't cheerful reading, but it is darned interesting. Chemical leaks, killer smog, a vanishing sea, and the explosion of a nuclear reactor (among other disasters) are presented here in an utterly engrossing, horrifying, riveting way. The subject matter in itself is fascinating, but the authors have given the material a human touch that makes it unputdownable by bringing real people into it. Here's seven year old Barry Linton, for instance, talking about the Killer Smog that killed over 4,000 people in London in December, 1953- "Even in our...living room, it was misty and choky," Linton remembered. "And every time I blew my nose, it looked like soot in my hanky" (page 23). Aziza Sultan recalled the 1984 gas leak in Bhopal thus - "The room was filled with a white cloud....Each breath [seemed] as if I was breathing in fire" (page 29).

These oral testimonies of hellish situations are coupled with very clear descriptive prose, explaining with copious examples what environmental disasters are, what causes them, where they happen, and how their effects are measured. And it ends with a vague hope that we are, perhaps, learning enough from our mistakes that we will not all be doomed...

There are copious (and fascinating) illustrations, a list of safety tips, a timeline (I didn't know that Edward I made the first air pollution law in 1272 to reduce smog in London), a glossary, a list of Disaster Sites to visit (fun for the whole family?), source notes, and further resources.

This wasn't a book I felt I wanted to read to my children--they are still too young to know the horror that people can unleash, through carelessness, greed, and stupidity. But as a curious reader, I found this book a true page turner (and I bet a lot of kids will too). I think the Woods should write a book on the same subject for grownups, who need the lessons contained in these stories spelled out to them much more than today's children do, brought up as they are with Earth Day and Recycling.

This book was reviewed a few weeks ago by Diane Chen over at the School Library Journal, who was also taken with the Edward I trivia tidbit. It's already been featured at the Nonfiction Monday roundup, but certainly deserves another go!

Fantasy

When I was a young reader, but getting older, I had little desire to leave the warmth and safety of the children's room, and move on to the Young Adult section (this was the Arlington, VA, Central Library in the 1970s/80s, btw). The YA section had many fewer books and it was open on three sides--not pleasant (poor teenagers never seem to get sheltered nook-like areas in libraries, I guess for fear of what they would get up to, but this could be a reason why teen library use drops off?). When I did try books from the YA section, they didn't seem my cup of tea--not escapist enough (the only one I remember specifically was Cobbler's Dream, by Monica Dickens, about a blind horse and some unhappy teenagers). So I turned to fantasy.

To this day, it is fantasy books that I expect the most from (which makes it all the more pleasant when a down-to-earth book, like The Wednesday Wars, knocks my socks off). And it is only for fantasy books by authors that I love and trust that I will shell out my own real money on release day (although I gaily spend Friends of the Library money hither and yon).

The point of this is that I've just seen the cover of Chalice, by Robin McKinley, coming on the 18th of September (happy sigh:)

And if you weren't reading Robin McKinley's blog last fall, here is a link to a great post in which she describes its genesis in depth.

I am also looking forward to The House of Many Ways, by Diana Wynne Jones (10 June) and The Bell at Sealey Head, by Patricia McKillip (2 Sept). So comforting.

But there is no new Ricky Ricotta book (Dav Pilkey) coming out. This is something else I would go out and buy on the release day, because it would make my son blissfully happy. Judging by the number of people doing google searches to find out about it, my son is not alone, and if anyone knows anything about what has happened or is going to happen, let us know. Apparently there is going to be a new Captain Underpants book this year, but that is nothing to me....

Eeyore's Poem

I read the last story of the House at Pooh Corner (AA Milne) to my children a few weeks ago—the story that Milne wrote on purpose so as to put an end to it all. I distrusted this particular story as a child (it’s very different from all the others), and I don’t like reading it now because it is about Christopher Robin growing up and that sort of thing makes me sniff.

But anyway, there is a Poem in this chapter, one written by Eeyore. And my children though it was just the funniest poem they had ever heard in all their lives. I had to read it through 5 times in a row that day, and several times on the days that followed, and my seven year old memorized it for that week’s poem memorizing homework. So here it is, with a bit of Narrative Context:

"Don't Bustle me," said Eeyore, getting up slowly. "Don't now-then me." He took a piece of paper from behind his ear, and unfolded it. "Nobody knows anything about this," he went on. "This is a Surprise." He coughed in an important way, and began again: "What-nots and Etceteras, before I begin, or perhaps I should say, before I end, I have a piece of Poetry to read to you. Hitherto--hitherto--a long word meaning--well, you'll see what it means directly--hitherto, as I was saying, all the Poetry in the Forest has been written by Pooh, a Bear with a Pleasing Manner but a Positively Startling Lack of Brain. The Poem which I am now about to read to you was written by Eeyore, or Myself, in a Quiet Moment. If somebody will take Roo's bull's-eye away from him, and wake up Owl, we shall all be able to enjoy it. I call it--POEM." This was it:

Christopher Robin is going.
At least I think he is.
Where?
Nobody knows.
But he is going -
I mean he goes
(To rhyme with "knows")
Do we care?
(To rhyme with "where")
We do
Very much.
(I haven't got a rhyme for that "is" in the second line yet.
Bother).
(Now I haven't got a rhyme for bother. Bother)
Those two bothers will have to rhyme with each other
Buther.
The fact is this is more difficult
than I thought,
I ought -
(Very good indeed)
I ought
to begin again,
But it is easier
To stop.
Christopher Robin, good-bye,
I
(Good)
I
And all your friends
Sends -
I mean all your friend
Send -
(Very awkward this, it keeps going wrong.)
Well, anyhow, we send
Our love
END.

"If anybody wants to clap," said Eeyore when he had read this, "now is the time to do it."
They all clapped.
"Thank you," said Eeyore. "Unexpected and gratifying, if a little lacking in Smack."
"It's much better than mine," said Pooh admiringly, and he really thought it was.
"Well," explained Eeyore modestly, "it was meant to be."

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at The Miss Rumphius Effect today!

Disturbing anti-introvert sentiments in recent books

I just read the new Scaredy Squirrel book--Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach (Melanie Watt, 2008). It has upset me. What has happened to that lovely neurotic introvert Squirrel of Book 1 -- Scaredy Squirrel, who is still there in Book 2 --Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend (you can of course be an introvert and still have a friend or two)? What is with the crowd of gnomes at the end????? I can't believe it.


Then there's this book, which I haven't read, but which Susan over at Chicken Spaghetti just did, and liked: A Visitor for Bear, a new picture book written by Bonny Becker and illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton. She says it "is about a grouchy bear, with a "No Visitors Allowed" sign on his door, and a mouse intent on dropping in. It's one of the best books I've read in eons" and that "In the end, Bear and the mouse become friends, and Bear tears up his off-putting sign." Yoiks, I think. What a pushy mouse! Poor Bear! :)


I am an introvert, and I am not sure I will ever read this book to my children. Will it send them the message that you have to keep open house in order to be a good person? Upon reading it, will the children ask me, in their trusting little child voices, "Mama, why doesn't anyone come over to our house?" And Mama will give them the two truthful reasons why people shouldn't come over to our house uninvited:

Reason 1: "Because we have no floor on which visitors can walk because of your legos and other assorted debris."
Reason 2: "Well, you know that sign of Bear's? Mama feels a bit the same way, especially in Spring, when all she wants to do is work in the garden..."

But I will happily read and reread that nice book about the rabbit who lives all by himself and never says a word to anyone.




Athough A Visitor for Bear actually does look like a lovely book too.

More Exciting News--a new Elinor Lyon Book!

So there's this series of books by this Scottish author, Elinor Lyon, which were published in the mid-20th century, about some children who run around wild in Scotland having adventures, and they are rather good. Many American libraries stocked them, but have since gotten rid of them, and they are pretty hard to find (my own little library, bless it, didn't get rid of anything for years and years, and still has a few, which is how I know they are good. Check your library--maybe they still have some too; if you live in Rhode Island, you are in luck, except that annoyingly no-one has the first few books of the series). Fidra Books, a relatively new Scottish publishing venture, has reprinted the first three of this series, with more to come. Which is nice, but not the exciting part.

The exciting part is that Fidra is going to be publishing The Shores of Darkness, a never before seen book! (It's set in Wales, which is always a plus in my mind. I desperately wanted to be Welsh when I was young).

Here's the Fidra blog entry that tells all.

It's always so comforting to know that there will be books one can ask for as future birthday presents that one will really want.

Sue Barton has been republished!

I just got an email from a friend with the following announcement:

Image Cascade Publishing is proud to announce the release of:

The Sue Barton Series by Helen Dore Boylston! The seven book series includes:

Sue Barton, Student Nurse
Sue Barton, Senior Nurse
Sue Barton, Visiting Nurse
Sue Barton, Rural Nurse
Sue Barton, Superintendent of Nurses
Sue Barton, Neighborhood Nurse
Sue Barton, Staff Nurse

Please join us in welcoming this iconic series back into print! For the past nine years, this series has been at the top of the list of series requested by our customers. We know that Sue Barton fans, Helen Dore Boylston fans, and readers of nostalgic works will revel in reading and re-reading this captivating series with its lively, bantering dialogue; true-to-life characters; and realistic, descriptive scenes of a thriving nurse's life and career. In these fresh new softcover editions, we have recreated the original cover art and text of the series. The cover art for the first five volumes is the rarely seen work of Forrest Orr. The final two volumes boast the lovely, colorful Major Felten covers. Ms. Dore Boylston's heirs have approved these editions with resounding support and enthusiastically applaud the re-release of this popular series.

This is great news! I have them all, but some are ratty paperbacks from my youth that won't stand much more re-reading.

If you haven't read these, they are wonderful. They are funny, with wonderful characterization, and it is amazing how undated they seem (which is actually potentially a problem :) because children like me will accept 1930s medicine, social work in New York, and rural health issues uncritically--I was surprised when I realized, quite late in life, that ether was no longer being used routinely).

Image Cascade Publishing are the same great folks who brought back Beany Malone and others. I hope Sue does well for them! And then perhaps they will reprint Boylston's Carol books, about the theatre, which far fewer people have had a chance to read.

Project Mulberry

Things are calmer now, although Global Warming has kicked in with a vengeance, and the unseasonable warmth means that my gardening has taken on a certain desperation. Generally April is cool and peaceful, but not this April. Already there are many weeds...

But in the meantime, I just had the pleasure of reading two fine books. They are the sort of book that, upon finishing them, I thought, "Darn. Would that I had put these in the pile for Mother Reader's 48 Reading Challenge." For they are both books that absorb the reader, engage without engulfing, with a lightness of narrative voice that leaves the reader refreshed and ready to read more. The first is Project Mulberry, by Linda Sue Park (Clarion, 2005, middle grade, 225 pages), the second will have to wait till tomorrow.

Project Mulberry is told by Julia, whose parents are from Korea. Her best friend is Patrick, whose parents aren't. Patrick has no clue why doing a silkworm farming project for the State Fair might not rock Julia's boat (she wants a nice American project), but she can't come right out and say it. So silkworms it is. Their quest for blue ribbons, and their immediate need for mulberry leaves, leads them to the garden of of a very pleasant old man, Mr. Dixon, and a little subplot-- "Mr. Dixon was black. My mom didn't like black people." And in the meantime Julia is learning Korean embroidery, to add interest to the silkworms by doing something with the silk, she and Patrick are becoming better friends, and she is even starting to loathe her little brother less.

As the quote above shows, Ms. Park doesn't go for subtlety here--her discussions about ethnicity are matter-of-fact, which I think serves well the reality that racism, and thoughts about race that aren't racist, are everyday things that shouldn't be taboo topics. And in an interesting authorial choice that I very much enjoyed, Julia is so matter-of-fact about her identity (as a fictional character) that she talks to the author:

Me [Julia]: Do you want my opinion? I am not happy with the way things are going here. I hate the project idea [...]
Ms. Park: Actually, no--I don't want your opinion. In fact, I have to admit, this is weird for me. I've written other books, and only once has a character ever talked to me. You talk to me all the time, and I'm finding that hard to get used to.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these little conversations. They make the book very friendly, and since the author is just as unreal to me, the reader, as the characters are, it didn't force my brain to switch modes of being.

Other things I liked:
--learning about silkworms and Korean embroidery. I do so like thick description of real activities.
--references to other books I like. Mr. Dixon reminds Julia and Patrick of Mr. Titus, from Then There Were Five, by Elizabeth Enright (I love that book).
--and I have to like a book where the characters carefully carry their silkworm poop back to feed the tree that fed them (even though they are motivated by their desire for a Better Project). (The gentle environmentalism of the book also makes it a good one for an Earth Day review, which gives me a pleasant feeling of accomplishment).

just because

.
Someday (like maybe tomorrow, now that I've paid the taxes etc) I will have time to write thoughtful, well-constructed things that might be called reviews. In the meantime, I offer this metaphoric representation of my life last week (I am not the T Rex):



from the diverting blog Tatting my Doilies. Apparently there are lots of people out there knitting squid.

Skin Hunger, by Kathleen Duey

Skin Hunger: a Resurrection of Magic, Vol. 1 (2007, Simon & Schuster/Atheneum) is a great book--memorable characters (both male and female), memorable settings, memorable magic, and an interesting look at the power of words(it was shortlisted for the best YA science fiction/fantasy Cybils Award, with reason.

But don't be in any rush to read it (if you haven't already). You will be setting yourself up for disappointment, because

THE SEQUEL DOESN'T COME OUT UNTIL APRIL 2009!
Wah.

There are so many reviews on line I can't link to them all. Here are a few:

Robynettely
Writermorphosis
Wands and Worlds

Doubtful Willow Buds and thoughts on back story

If my husband weren't off on a musical tour of Japan, or if I had the necessary organizational and financial wherewith all to plan for evening childcare, I could head over to the Providence Athenaeum tonight, for a celebration of the 100th birthday of The Wind in the Willows, at which Mary Jane Begin will chat about her new book, Willow Buds, the Tale of Toad and Badger.

Here's the publisher's blurb:

Discover the world before The Wind in the Willows, the beloved classic by Kenneth Grahame--when the childhood adventures of best buds Ratty, Toady, Badger and Mole were just beginning! In this first tale, Archibald Toad the Third is used to having everything he wants to himself. So he's in for an unpleasant surprise when the new nanny brings her gentle son, Badger, to share in all that Toad Hall has to offer. Though Toady and Badger get off to a rocky start, they soon learn that having a true friend is worth a whole lot more than having all the toys in the world.

I haven't read the book, and I haven't even seen it, so I have no opinion as to its merits as an illustrated story. But I am doubtful.

My first doubt: I love The Wind in the Willows, in no small measure because of Ernest Shepard's illustrations. Ms. Begin, whose version of the Wind in the Willows came out in 2002, is a very talented artist, but why gild the lily?

My second doubt: Badger and Toad can't be kids together because they aren't the same age. Surely Badger is much older! And now I shall have to comb the book for textual support for my position....And Mole met everyone for the first time as a grown up, not as a child, which the blurb implies.

My third doubt (this one is weaker): Personality-wise, Badger and Toad are so different that it is hard to imagine them as childhood friends. But that's debatable, and possibly the book manages to make this convincing.

My fourth doubt: Badger's mother has supposedly been hired by Toad's family as a nanny. But Badger's family has its very large and comfortable ancestral set in the woods, and Badger seems prosperous and self-sufficient. I don't see why Mrs. Badger would have to go out to work.

My fifth, not really a doubt, but a feeling of unease: Badger has a mother ??!! I can only remember two female characters in W. in W. -- the jailer's daughter and the washerwoman. It is hard to imagine Badger in particular having much to do with a female character...

And finally, not a doubt at all but a strong feeling of unease: if a story is strong enough to be a good story, it does not need to be built on the scaffolding of a beloved childhood classic. I don't like, in general, spin-offs from the books I love, and I don't much care for fan fiction. And anyway, I have never felt that the back story of W. in W. was an aching gap. Maybe others have. But I prefer to have things get all misty around the edges of the known text, allowing every reader to imagine their own way (if they want to) from where the author left off (at least, when it's a book from my childhood that I love).

And now I am trying to thing of examples where other people coming in and writing back story was a good thing that resulted in books I like. With the possible exception of some sci. fi., I am not coming up with anything...

I am, however, coming up with good ideas for other books--I think someone has done the picture books of Black Beauty's childhood, but for older readers, how about the graphic novel about what really happened to Ginger after she and Black Beauty were parted...or perhaps picture books from the perspective of Heidi's goats (one could tie this in to a discussion of global warming and the vanishing alpine glaciers).

Elfrida Vipont

I just (30 minutes ago) had a very nice find at a library booksale--a lovely copy of The Pavilion, by Elfida Vipont, for fifty cents. Vipont is best know for The Elephant and the Bad Baby (if you've never read it to your small children, do):

but she also wrote excellent family/school stories, published in the late 1940s/1950s. The Lark in the Morn and Lark on the Wing tell the story of Kit Haverard, a motherless Quaker girl determined to become a singer (Lark in the Morn is mainly about young Kit at boarding school; Lark on the Wing is about Kit's training as a singer, and growing up, and a little romance).

These were in most US library systems until fairly recently (they were published in American editions in 1970--)--if your library still has them, check them out now! They are great (I am not the only who thinks so. Lark on the Wing won the Carnegie Medal). Because they were reprinted both in England and here, and were in many libraries, it's possible to find copies at reasonable prices.

There are three other books about Kit's family--The Pavilion, Spring of the Year, and Flowering Spring. The first is about the efforts of various Haverard cousins to save a old building that's part of their family's history, the other two are about Kit's niece, who hopes to be an actress (these two books are set in the most lovely English village imaginable). I just checked to see what The Pavilion is going for (to see if I can quit my day job; I can't). There are still some affordable copies. However, Flowering Spring and Spring of the Year are very rare, so if you see one in any condition selling cheaply, grab it.

Vipont also wrote about another family, in The Family at Dowbiggins and More About Dowbiggins (aka A Win for Henry Connors). These have almost a Noel Streatfeildian feel to them, but also quite a bit of gardening, which I like. They are also hardish to fine for reasonable prices. She wrote a few other fictional books, but they are disappointing, so I shall say no more.

It can be rather frustrating collecting English books here in the states--I hear many stories from friends in England and South Africa of the masses of wonderful books they find at car book sales and charity shops. So when I find a book like I did today, it is a very nice thing indeed. We go to England quite often, as my husband's family is there, but somehow never seem to find the right car book sales. However, my boys are saving up to go to Egypt (only a few thousand more dollars to go); I will be travelling with them as their chaperon, and since I read about the Cairo used book market, I feel much more enthusiastic. There were, I hope, many British ex pats who had large collections of girls' books which are now for sale and that no one else is buying.


I would also very much like to go to the British Virgin Islands, and other, more obscure, Outposts of Empire. A girl can dream...