Hermit Crabs for Nonfiction Monday

If you are looking for a picture book about hermit crabs, probably you will end up with A House for a Hermit Crab, by Eric Carle (Simon and Schuster, 1991). This is a fine book in many ways (I like it, my children like it, people all over the country like it) but as far as science goes, I can't help but thing that Carle has vaguely confused decorator crabs with hermit crabs--the titular crab wanders through a year, gathering both new companions and new living accouterments for his shell. Unlikely behaviour for a hermit crab (hence the name?). And although Carle's illustrations are artistically admirable, they aren't a reliable guide to real life creatures.

Here are two hermit crab picture books that do the subject more naturalistic justice.

The first is Old Shell, New Shell: a Coral Reef Tale, by Helen Ward (Millbrook Press, 2002).

"This crab was very small
but he had been smaller
and the shell he owned
and loved
was getting tight."

He was beginning to look obvious
though he tried hard not to."

So he sets out to look for a new shell, soliciting the help of passing sea creatures, none of whom are the least bit interested. His quest takes an anxious turn when he is knocked out of his old shell, and tumbles down into one that is much much to big. But all is resolved happily when he meets another hermit crab, larger than he is, who has outgrown her shell...

The illustrations are full of lovely lifelike detail, and there are lots of things to spot on every page. A very pleasing book.

But here is the book that I think is the Best Hermit Crab Book Ever-- Hermit Crab's Home: Safe In a Shell, by Janet Halfman, illustrated by Bob Dacey and Debra Bandelin (2007, Smithsonian Institution). In both the two books above, we start in medias res, with the outgrowing of the old shell. Hermit Crab's Home begins at the beginning, with the tiny egg of a Land Hermit Crab tossed onto seashore rocks. It follows the hermit crab through the adventures of life as a hermit crab on land, including the obligatory finding a new shell episode (in her case, it comes from a sandcastle). And it ends with the crab casting her own eggs into the water.

One reason I liked this book so much is that the pictures are up close and low down--the world as a crab might see it. The menacing ghost crab looming above is quite spooky, the sand castle quite magical. I found the straight forward narrative of the crab's life more interesting than the more stylized renditions of the other two authors. It's more a story. Maybe the book even appealed so much to me because the crab protagonist is female. But maybe not--it also appealed to my boys!

Here are more Nonfiction Monday reviews, at Picture Book of the Day.

How To Ditch Your Fairy

How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier (2008, Bloomsbury, 320pp).

In the future-ish city of New Avalon, just about everyone has their own fairy. 14 year old Charlie's is a parking fairy. Yep, whenever she's in a car, it will always find a prime parking spot, first try. But that sort of magic is not nice at all for a a girl who's not old enough to drive, and who hates the smell of gas and car exhaust. She longs to have a better fairy--a clothes fairy, like her friend Rochelle, or even an "every boy will like you fairy," like her non-friend, Fiorenze (her fairy has the coincidental side effect of having the opposite effect on girls). Seeing her new friend Steffi, just about the cutest guy she's ever known, falling under the spell of Fiorenze's fairy is enough to drive her over the edge.

So Charlie tries to starve her fairy off, by avoiding mechanical transportation, hoping for a better one to come replace it. She can feel her fairy getting fainter, but in the meantime, she's constantly running late, and raking up demerits at her ultra strict all sports school. And then she find herself kidnapped by the school's star water polo player, who needs her parking luck for his own possibly nefarious purposes.

Fiorenze isn't happy with her fairy either. The two desperate girls are both sure nothing could be worse than what they're stuck with, and so they hatch a plan....

This is a very fun read, with the surreal sports school setting (all sports all the time) providing a wacky background to the even greater wackiness of all the fairies. And the fairies in turn give a new and imaginative spin to the more mundane story at the heart of the book--the familier one of a teenage girl trying to cope with a hectic life, wanting to make the basketball team, wanting a cute boy to like her, and wanting her best friend's clothes fairy to work on her, too.

It seems to me, in a vague sort of way, that fairies started appearing on the little girls' book scene about 10 years or so ago, and are still going strong today. If I knew any middle grade girls who were fans of those pink books with winged thingies on their covers, who are now in 8th grade or so (the publisher suggests ages 12 and up), this is the book I'd give them as a present.

How To Ditch You Fairy is due out in October, but you can read reviews by other people who have been enjoying their Advance Reader Copies (thanks, Bloomsbury) at Teen Book Review, Lessons from the Tortoise, at Librarilly Blond, and at Imperial Purple. And then just for kicks you can head over to Justine Larbalestier's blog, to read about her reading the reviews of her readers...

off topic-- roses on my barn

We wanted a red rose climbing up the barn, and voila--there it is! It will be three years old next month. The barn is 108 years old.

For pictures of the gardens of other bloggers, visit A Wrung Sponge.

My husband adds: The Rosaerie in Maine seems to be able to get most roses to grow quite far north. This one has the rather mundane name Parkdirektor Riggers. Unfortunately the genes for "climber" and "red" outshove the gene for "scentiferous."

In For Winter, Out for Spring

Generally when I read books of poetry, I try to carefully consider the poems and the illustrations, and think about why, or why not, they work for me. This wasn't the case when I read In for Winter, Out for Spring, by Arnold Adoff, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (1991, Harcourt Brace and Co.). Instead I found myself thinking about the girl who is speaking the poems. I wanted to be little again myself, and to be her friend. The book is a verse story of her year, and I would like to play in the snow with her, dig the ground after the frost is over, pick mulberries, carve pumpkins, and so on, back to winter.

Which is not to say that I wasn't also appreciating the lovely poems as poems and the gorgeous illustrations, because I was. But the poems and pictures, with their focus on one little girl's experience of family, home, her garden, and the natural world, combine to paint a vivid picture of one very nice girl and her loving family that is more than the sum total of the parts.

Here's a poem I especially liked, but of course Blogger, bless its little heart, isn't letting me format it exactly the way it is in the book. Arggggh.

Aaron

My Older Brother
Once Told Me He
Was the Ruler Of This Hedge
Last
Year I had to Have Permission
To Pick Wild Violets For Mom

This Morning Aaron
Sits
In A
School
And I Am The New Boss
Of Hedge Trees
And Mole Holes
And Violets And Black Bugs
Under
Green
Moss

Thanks very much to Elaine, of Wild Rose Reader, from whom I received this book during her Poetry Month giveaways! It is truly lovely.

Poetry Friday is at A Wrung Sponge today!

The Owl Service available on DVD

I was pretty awestruck to see a comment by Alan Garner over at the Fidra blog, which I read regularly. Vanessa was talking about book banding in the UK, and Garner contributed his thoughts. My mental image of Garner is so tied his physical place--his home in Cheshire next to Alderley Edge,--that it's hard for me to imagine him as an online presence. Garner is the author of some truly excellent books for children, my favorite of which is The Owl Service.

So that led me to a google search, to see if a new book was forthcoming (no mention of one), and then on to the unofficial Alan Garner website, which has links galore to articles, interviews, and much more. Including a link to a newspaper article about a real life Owl Service event, headlined "Neighbor Killed by Owl, Not Husband."

Wandering around the Garner website, I found the perfect birthday present for my husband, who is a Garner devotee to the highest degree (the type who thinks Red Shift is a masterpiece, as opposed to those of us who think it is too depressing to even have in the same room as us let alone read), and who should now stop reading this if in fact he is.

Back in 1969, a television series was made of the Owl Service. It was filmed on location, in color, with Garner's active participation throughout the process. Here's a fascinating article about its production. Even though it was filmed in color, it was broadcast in black and white, but in February it was released as a dvd in color. With bonus features.

There are, of course, lots of movie adaptations of children's books flowing forth like, um, floodwaters or whatever, and most of them I have no particular interest in seeing. But the Owl Service, made with the creative involvement of the book's author, is one I look forward to watching.

And perhaps I shall also buy my husband another book for his Garner collection:

Timeslip Tuesday- Don't Know Where, Don't Know When

Charlotte Sometimes, The Ghosts, A String in the Harp, London Calling, The Time Garden, Moondial…all of these, and many more, are timeslip stories that I want to write about at some point. So I have decided that every Tuesday will be “Timeslip Tuesday” until I run out of books....

A timeslip story is simply one in which characters pass from one time to another, either forward or backward, generally without a mechanical device such as a time machine. I count ghost stories when the ghost characters are in fact characters traveling in time, and not just spooky special effects. If anyone reading this has a timeslip story they reviewed on their own blog, leave me a link, and I’ll make a list!

My first official Timeslip Tuesday Review is of a new book I just read for Mother Reader's 48 Hour Reading Challenge- Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When, by Annette Laing (2007, Confusion Press, 206 pages, for Middle Grade readers). It was a perfect choice—brisk story telling, likeable characters, and a great plot.

Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When throws three kids back in time from present day Snipesville, Georgia, into World War II England. Hannah, her brother Alex, and their friend Brandon are now war evacuees from London, struggling to figure out what is happening and why they have traveled through time. Then Brandon slips through time again to the England of World War I…and the mystery deepens. At its heart is the identity of George Braithwaite, the English child whose WW II identity card Brandon found in present day Georgia. Until George is found, there’s no going home.

I am very picky about books that talk about things I am knowledgeable about, in particular books that feature American kids coping with the alien life of the English, because I’ve been there and done that myself, and married as I am to someone from England, I am constantly confronted with Differences. And secondly, I am picky about books that involve time travel to periods that I know a lot about (even though in the case of WW I and II England, my knowledge comes from works of fiction). So I approached Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When in my naturally suspicious way. Not far into it, my attitude had changed—I was now rooting for the author. “Please don’t mess up!” I thought, because Laing was doing such a good job making me believe in her characters and their experience that I didn’t want any jarring mistakes to throw me out of the story. And there weren’t any to speak of—hooray!

Here’s another point that makes this book worth recommending—one of the kids, Brandon is black, and as far as I know this is the only book for kids published in America that addresses what it was like to be a black kid in WW II and WW I England. (The other two kids, Hannah and Alex, have a Portuguese last name, Dias, that gets Anglicized to Day in WW II, making this book the only work of fiction for kids that addresses the Portuguese-American Child's Experience of WW II Evacuation :) ).

This is the first book The Snipesville Chronicles; volume two (featuring the same kids, but in a different time and place) is being written. If you are looking for a new series for a kid who loved the Magic Tree House Books three or four years ago, this might well be it.



Over at Becky's Book Reviews are a great interveiw with Annette Laing, and Becky's review of this book.

Age Banding in Britain

The scheme to put age banding on children's books (7+, 8 + etc) in the UK has kicked up a storm of protest. Here's the "No to Age Banding" website where you can read a petition signed by UK authors and educators and illustrators and other book type people (including Alan Garner)...1215 when I last looked.

For more on the Author's Rebellion, here's an article that came out last Friday in the Bookseller, from which the following quote is taken:

In the statement the authors outline a number of reasons why age-ranging is damaging: it will discourage children from reading outside their age band; it is over-prescriptive; and it is unnecessary in that there are plenty of clues on books as to their target reader. "To tell a story as well and inclusively as possible, and then find someone at the door turning readers away, is contrary to everything we value about books, and reading, and literature itself," it says.

And here's an eloquent discussion of the issue from a children's book seller in Scotland, and a great post from Liz over at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Teacozy.

The whole concept of age banding seems so unnecessary to me. So Brave New World-ish. These generalizing assumptions about people based on their age could lead to societal disapproval (she bought her 7 year old a Nine!) to law (it is crime to allow children to read books above their age level. The Experts Know Best)....or children might have to start showing proof of age at the library....

And now I personally am filled with Doubt. Have I (shudder) read my own 7 books that are 8s, 9s, or even 10s? Yes. I think I have. That explains everything.

48 Hour Reading Challenge--my results

In conclusion: 2279 pages, 13 books read. Time spent blogging--negligible. Time spent reading--impossible to keep track of--my schedule was of the "reading while brushing teeth--2 minutes. Reading while kettle boiled 2.5 minutes" variety.

I'm a tad disappointed that I wasn't able to give myself to the challenge 100%--my sister and her two boys (4 and 3) are visiting, and what with my two boys, there was much screaming. But this year I chose my books much more wisely than last year, and enjoyed them much more.

THANKS MOTHER READER for organizing this! It was great fun!

My 48 Hours are up

Strangely, I didn't read all 71 (give or take) books in my to be read pile (I seriously doubt I'll ever read some of them). But I did read six more books in the 23 hours since my last update, and each of them was a pleasure (with one exception. Guess which).

Austenland, by Shannon Hale 194 pages

The Man without a Country by Edward Everett Hale. 66 pages. This fell off the shelf when I was pulling out Austenland, and I checked it out, thinking that perhaps I was Meant to read it. It is a patriotic screed written during the Civil War, propaganda for the Union side. Reading it did not make me feel much more patriotic. Possibly because I am from Virginia.

Terry's Best Term, by Evelyn Smith. 208 pages. Another pleasant school story.

Millicent Min, Girl Genius, by Lisa Yee. 248 pages. I was tickled to see that mine is not the only family that uses the term "reindeer games" to describe family fun.

Lush, by Natasha Friend 178 pages. A large part of this I read at a Monster Mini Golf Birthday Party to which my five year old was invited. We were both horrified by the loud noise and the crowds of people, had no interest in the golfing part, and ended up siting in a (relatively) quite corner for a while until it was polite to leave. Viz the book--although the "lush" of the title is the narrator's father, much is made of the fact that she is well endowed, breast wise, and I can't help wonder if Natasha Friend was consciously using lush in its other meaning to describe her as well, or if it's just a coincidence.

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, by Jeanne Birdsall. 308 pages. How can one not like a book whose characters read and reference one's own favorite books?

25 hours into the 48 hour reading challenge

Five more books read, with great enjoyment

The Opposite of Invisible, by Liz Gallagher 151 pages Teen Romance; a good read

Don't Know Where, Don't Know When, by Annette Laing 206 pages WW I and WW II timeslip story--I'll be getting back to this one for a real review.

The Little Betty Wilkinson, by Evelyn Smith 224 pages. Evelyn Smith is one of my favorite mid 20th century writers of English girl's school stories; although this is not her best work, I still enjoyed it lots.

Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos 196 pages. This was my first Joey Pigza book. Its frenetic energy matched my mood of reading frenzy.

Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell. 163 pages. A most excellent book- I wouldn't be surprised if it won, or at least was nominated for, Awards.

Now there's stuff I have to do outside before it gets too hot-- from the 60s yesterday to the nineties today. What's wrong with the 70s, I ask. Things could be better managed.

Turtle Island: Tales of the Algonquian Nations

48 Hour Reading Challenge Book Number 2:

Turtle Island: Tales of the Algonquian Nations by Jane Louise Curry, illustrated by James Watts. Work related. -Ish. But a co-worker did lend it do me. Jane Louise Curry tells a good story, and the stories in this book are good ones. But, in my opinion, she adds a European-ness to her telling that I found disconcerting. This is not in reference to specific post contact details (such as cows and buttons and bells)--Curry herself notes that these were in versions of stories told by Native story tellers. I don't think I'm enough of an expert to say anything much with any confidence about what makes a story Indian vs European, but I've read lots of stories closer to their original tellers, and these seem to have moved quite far from there. I do not think Jane Louise Curry actually talked to any Indian story tellers. And I find it annoying when authors say that certain tribes "vanished" and then base their own stories on stories told by members of those tribes (the particular example from this book being the vanished Mohegan, aka Mohecan).

THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE AWFUL! Cartoonish caricatures.

Minutes spent blogging: 10

145pp

48 Hour Reading Challenge Book 1

I am taking part in Mother Reader's 48 Hour Reading Challenge, despite the usual job related work, house guests, children, large out door projects, etc etc. I started at 8:45am.

And I am pleased to have read one book so far-- The Mystery Hill Story, by Mark Feldman (1977). The Mystery Hill site is a collection of enigmatic rock features and structures in New Hampshire. Feldman thinks it was built by a bunch of Iberian Bronze Age Celts. I don't.

Minutes spent blogging: 5

pages read: 99

Eleven, by Patricia Reilly Giff

Eleven, by Patricia Reilly Giff (2008, 165 pages, for middle grade readers).

It’s a common thing to wonder if your family really is your family, but what happens when you find a newspaper clipping that says that you were once a missing child? A few days before his eleventh birthday, Sam finds such a clipping in an old metal box in the attic, with a picture of himself when he was three, missing, and with a different name. He begins to remember strange and disturbing things from long ago, and starts to worry that doesn't belong with Mack, his beloved grandfather. Is he meant to be with the horrible woman he dimly remembers, or safe with Mack and the two other friends who share their little complex of shops and apartments—Anima, who has an Indian restaurant, and Onji, who runs a deli? And why is he so afraid of the number 11?

But Sam can’t read, and can’t figure out more than a few words in the old newspaper article. For Sam, “…the lines moved like black spiders, stretching their legs and waving their feelers across the pages.” So the next day at school, he must find a reader. He decides on the new girl, Caroline, and fate seals their partnership when they are assigned to build a model castle together. They become friends—a friendship made anxious and intense by Caroline’s imminent move away to another town and yet another new school, and their need to solve they mystery and build the castle before she goes.

Sam’s family, Mack, Anima, and Onji, are one of the most lovingly written, deeply real examples of what makes a home a safe warm place for a child I can think of. Little things—Sam’s routine stop at Onji’s deli every morning for his lunch sandwich, and the gummi bears Onji hides in the sandwich on Sam’s birthday. Big things, like helping Sam with his reading, leading to one of the best examples of an adult reading out loud to a kid I’ve ever encountered. Here’s just one passage:

“Sam has to know the world,” Anima had said. “If he can’t read yet, one thing we can do while we try to help him is to give him the world of books.”

Mack had nodded.

And Onji: “How?”

“I’ll read aloud every night.” So when things quieted in the restaurant, Anima read to all of them for at least an hour. And what she read! Long poems, the Bible, stories about a kid who dug holes, about a spider who saved a pig. Anima’s accent made her sound like an English queen.

Sometimes they loved what she read, and sometimes they didn’t. She’d shrug, reading about copper mining or sea routes. Onji would fall asleep, his snores almost drowning her out. And sometimes Mack put his head back, his eyes closed. But Sam never slept.

And Mack, Sam’s grandfather, teaches him wood working, a bond and skill and intuitive knowledge they share, which Sam in turn shares with Caroline as they build their castle together and figure out what happened the night when three year old Sam was missing.

This great love and safety embodied in Sam’s family is thrown into question by the newspaper clipping. Sam is a great kid in a tremendously anxious situation, and I felt so bad for him I cried.* I think the mystery aspects of the plot—two kids following a trail of clues-- might take center stage for the younger reader, but for an adult reader like me, with boys of my own, it is the people and their love for each other that make this book outstanding.

Patricia Reilly Giff is the author of Lily’s Crossing, and Pictures of Hollis Woods, both of which I liked a lot. But this one I love. If anyone has knows any actual children who have read it, I’d be curious to know what they thought.

*I read it a second time yesterday, to refresh my memory, and sniffed all over again.

The Missing Piece Meets the Big O

A while ago, I blogged about Shel Silverstein's story, The Missing Piece, and my feelings of betrayal, anger, and disappointment when the Missing Piece was left high and dry by the selfish other shape. This other shape, a circle missing a triangle wedge, had offered to share life with a triangle who fit (the missing piece), so that the two of them could role quickly through the world together, but then ditched it, without a word of regret, to go on its own way. (My post about this, incidentally, is one of the most frequently read things I've written, and my opinion of the book is not universally shared--see the comment. Also, just as a helpful tip for those who google for them, there aren't any poems in it).

I feel much better now, because apparently Silverstein also felt a bit anxious about the missing piece, and wrote a sequel--The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (1981). The missing piece (mp) can't move on its own, because it's a triangle. It tries to find another shape with whom it fits, but to no avail. Then it meets the Big O, who is (surprise!) a big o. The Big O tells the mp to just go for it on its own, and slowly, as mp flips itself over and over, its angles wear down and it becomes a circle too! Hurray! Off it goes...

I actually do feel better about it all now, even though, in my usual cynical way, I am tempted to reject the moral on principle. But in all fairness, this promotion of self-reliance is a moral I can live with...

My life as an archaeologist

When I tell people I'm an archaeologist, a common reaction is, "That's so exciting!" Sometimes it is, mostly it isn't.

But now I have reached the pinnacle of career related fame and honor. The invitation came in the mail yesterday. I seem to have been the only person at work invited.

On June 20, I have the opportunity to be at A NEW U-HAUL TRUCK UNVEILING!

They are putting a picture of the Newport Tower on some U-hauls, and seem to feel that having an archaeologist at the unveiling party would be a nice touch. But I think I'll pass--I don't want to drive 35 miles each way for what is almost certain to be an anticlimax (there were no free snacks mentioned in the invitation).

This is the tower: It actually should look rather nice on a U-haul...

The New Books I Read in May

I find it hard to believe that I am still keeping track of new books I've read this year--I never made it past January before. So here's the list of all the books I read in May that I had never read before:

Magic or Madness and Magic Lessons, by Justine Larbalestier. How nice it is to start a series after it's been around for a while, and the author has had a chance to write a few more books. I'm saving the third book, Magic's Child, for Mother Reader's 48 Hour Reading Challenge (which I am not going to loose sleep over because I will not have much time to read, what with house guests and an archaeological excavation at a the site of Roger William's trading post that I foolishly said I would be happy to do in my copious free time).

The Dead and Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer. This of course is the sequel to Life as We Knew It. Reading LAWKI, I kept wanting to make survival suggestions to the characters; perhaps because the Dead and Gone takes place in NY city, or perhaps because Pfeffer's world building was more successful (her world destroying was very good indeed in both books), I had an easier time suspending my disbelief.

What the Moon Saw, by Laura Resau and Leap of Faith by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. I read these two back to back, which made for an interesting combination. Both books required me to accompany their teenage narrators on journeys toward belief in things I don't believe in--in the first, Mayan spiritual beliefs, in the second, the tenants of Catholicism. But both writers were able to convince me that it was possible for the characters themselves to believe, which made for good reading.

A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth Bunce. I had high hopes for this book, but it didn't do it for me...I sometimes have a hard time reding books where too much goes wrong (on a daily basis, as opposed to catastrophes).

Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls. I read this one on Mother's Day, which maybe made things worse. I knew it would make me cry, but I'd heard it was a great book...It's a great book, and it made me cry. 11 year old boy with leukemia; right from the get go, we know that the doctors have given up and sent him home to die. Whah. But it's a great, loving, funny book, if you can see the words through your tears...

Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliassotti. In my opinion, this suspense/fantasy is an excellent airplane book--keeps your attention the whole trip, but if it gets left in the seat pocket, you won't be crushed.

Other:
Carver by Ruth Yaffe Radin
Return to Harken House by Joan Aiken
Tisha: The Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaska Wilderness by Robert Specht and Anne Prudy

Edwin Arlington Robinson for Poetry Friday

It seems to me that there's not that much attention being paid to poems for the 8th grade type kid (perhaps there is, and I am just missing something, which wouldn't surprise me). So here's my suggestion for that age group--the poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935).

When I was twelve, my mother read me some of his poems, and, that being the eighties, I was, like, wow. Even thought the punches that Robinson packs may be obvious to the adult, I think that for a 12 year old, it's a pretty powerful moment when the point of one of his poems is realized. And because the messages aren't wrapped in a lot of metaphor and literary allusion, getting the point is fairly straightforward.

Here's one of my favorites:

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

And perhaps as a reaction to my fascination with Dungeons and Dragons, my mother read me this one several times:

Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

Oh well. I still think the Medici are rather romantic...

For more great poems, visit today's edition of Poetry Friday at Wild Rose Reader!

Looking for, and finding, lost books

I spend a lot of time wandering around the house looking for whatever book I happen to be reading, but I am almost always successful (fallen behind radiators is a good bet. Or the top of the toaster, that being one of the few surfaces in the kitchen that is always free of clutter. Except when it has a book on top of it).

But that is not the sort of lost book I have in mind at the moment--I'm thinking of those books read once long ago, that your parents left behind when you moved and you have never seen again. Here is a most excellent website that organizes all the places you might go on line to find those books, and I can't think of anything to add to it.

But if anyone ever read a book about a boy with (I think) a club foot (or perhaps some other issue related to walking), who lives on an island and bird watches (with some sort of bird related triumphant conclusion), that ends with the boy riding the bus to the school on the mainland, please let me know. It could be an English book, because it was left behind in the Bahamas when I was eleven, along with all my Enid Blytons (not that I hold a grudge). Whereas for some reason all the hardback Nancy Drews were lovingly packed, and I have no desire to ever read them again, and this summer my mother wants them out of her attic. I vote we sell them, but then wonder if someday I will have a granddaughter who will spend a fortune buying them all over again....Fortunately I have been able to replace the majority of the Enid Blytons at a reasonable cost.

The Cat on the Mat is Flat

After leaving the Navy's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Fest (and a grand time it was) I wrested a living from the hostile earth (i.e. I planted my vegetables, which occupied much of the weekend), and then turned to the long neglected task of returning library books. Although it is true that I work very hard organizing book sales for the library, it is not a labor of love--I do it because I can't afford to pay the fines we rack up--sigh. I'm a bad patron.

Among the books that were overdue was this gem: The Cat on the Mat is Flat, by Andy Griffiths, illustrated by Terry Denton (9 chapters, 166 pages, Feiwel and Friends, 2006).
This book is a series of rhyming stories, illustrated with black and white cartoons. It is utterly perfect for the boy, aged 7-9, who is having a hard time with reading. It is not just that the stories are easy to read--if one wanted that, one could grab any number of books without a second thought. But almost all of them would look like baby books, whereas The Cat on the Mat is Flat looks like a Real Book that a Cool Boy might be carrying around. The front cover, with its scenes of cartoon violence, shows clearly that this is not a book for the very young and very sweet (although my boys often are; perhaps consistantly sweet is closer to what I mean).

Although the words are such as one might find in, say, an Usbourne book like Toad Makes a Road, the cartoons that accompany them and the slapsticky mayhem of the rhyming stories are very boy friendly (which is not, of course, to buy into gender stereotypes, but for whatever reason I truly believe that boys will find a cat being whacked with a baseball bat more amusing than girls will). For example:

Around and around and around the mat
the rat chased the cat with the baseball bat

until...

KERSPLAT!

Never again did that cat chase the rat--
the cat was much too flat for that.

If you, like me, want to see your 7 year old boy sitting reading by himself, try this book.

Andy Griffiths is the author of The Day My Butt Went Psycho, and other books for older kids.

Here are some other reactions to this book (and strangely they all seem to agree with my own opinion. Coincidence or conspiracy?) at BookBoy, at Pink Me, and atWhat You Want to Read.

(and incidentally, these are new blogs for me, and it felt rather adventurous to venture out into new territory. All three looked interesting, and I plan to go back, and explore them further. In my copious free time ha ha).

AUV Fest 08 drawing to a close...

I haven't been posting for these past days. Instead, I've been in Newport, wearing my Underwater Archaeologist hat, and having the socks knocked off me by the really cool autonomous underwater vehicles the Naval Research Center and NOAA have been testing. These robotic, free-swimming machines are, as a bonus to the tax payers, being tested on archaeological sites as well as looking for hidden underwater mines. To reiterate, they're really cool machines producing really cool information about our shipwrecks--it would probably make a good children's book (to drag this post on topic).

Anyway, today is media day, tomorrow is distinguished visitor day (which presents the same old fashion problem I've had for years--conveying out-doorsy Ocean Explorer while looking crisp and professional).

So I'll be back, d.v., posting about books on Friday.

In the meantime, here's the NOAA website that tells more about AUVFest 08.