Columbus Library

Recently I read two new, excellent novels that each had a character who was, or would be, dead.  These books seem appropriate for my final blog in the Great Reads Blog experiment.

Heft by Liz Moore has a main character who is 550 pounds and hasn't left his house since Sept. 11, 2001.  He has enough money to order whatever he needs, and lives well inside his nice Brooklyn home.  When he was  younger he taught at a community college in the city.  There he met Charlene, a young, naive girl from Yonkers, just out of high school and hoping for an exciting life.  She was not very smart and went to see Arthur Opp during office hours.  They became friends and eventually dated a little, when Arthur thought she was no longer a student.  But it came to the attention of the school that she was still enrolled, and Arthur lost his job.  Over the next twenty years, the two exchanged letters. When he received a letter with a picture of a teenager, Charlene's son, he was shocked.  She had never mentioned marriage or children in her letters.  She said her son would need help with college application letters, and would he help?  But when  he calls he knows something is wrong with Charlene.  Kel Keller, her son, is trying to keep things together at home and at school and is hoping to play baseball after high school.  With no support system, and the expectations of a prep school where he doesn't feel he fits in, this 17 year old boy has a very stressful life.  How these two sad men finally meet is what drives this absorbing novel.

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer is about mid-life and what happens when your spouse dies.  Edward Schuyler is a 62 year old science teacher at a nice school in New York.  He married late, to a woman who already had two children.  Bee was the love of his life and he finds it hard to imagine finding another mate.  His step-daughter and daughter-in-law think he should start dating, so they placed an ad in the New York Review of Books which brought many replies.  Edward is amazed at the way single women throw themselves at him.  He finally decides to have dinner with a few of the women who wrote to him.  One of them turns out to be his first love, a former French teacher from the school where they both taught. They were to be married, but she never showed up at the church for the wedding.  Although at first he is enraged, they do become an a couple again.  But something is missing. This book is full of love for the family that Edward created with Bee, including wise advise from her ancient mother.  Sad and happy, this is a wonderful story about how life goes on.

My life will go on, too, just not in a blog.  If you need me, I can be reached at the Northside Branch where I have been for the last 23 years.

Henry's Heart by Charise Mericle Harper.

It’s February, so naturally everything is coming up hearts. And we’re not just talking about Valentine’s here. After all, by presidential proclamation, February is American Heart Month. So people are talking about heart health as well. It’s never too early to share heart healthy habits with young children. If you want to have fun while you learn, check out Charise Mericle Harper's latest picture book, Henry’s Heart. It's an entertaining mash-up of physical and emotional heart information all wrapped up in a sweet story about a young boy who falls in love with a puppy.
We meet Henry’s heart on page two where we learn the details of Henry’s anatomy, including basic information about circulation, without too much technical jargon to overwhelm young readers. Henry’s heart has a personality all its own and humorous side comments made by the heart, Henry's loving family, and his friends throughout the story will give older readers an extra laugh.
Harper also explores the emotions we assign to the heart-and how those emotions can directly affect our body. So, when Henry goes for some much needed exercise with his Dad and meets the puppy of his dreams, his heart beats quickly.  When Dad says the puppy has to stay at the pet store, Henry is so sad that he becomes sluggish and lethargic. Luckily for Henry, Dr. Art Terry’s  prescription for his sagging state is right on target and Henry’s heart is treated to love and lots of exercise when the puppy comes home to stay.

I think I'll borrow my friend Heidi's dog and go for a walk...

For me, the best biographies are a window into a time, a place and a person. I'm not especially enchanted by stories of famous people nor do I want to read about a life outlined in excruciating detail. I prefer unique stories with a brisk narrative flow.  Alexandra Fuller meets my criteria in spades.

In her debut, Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight, Fuller chronicles her childhood in Africa and creates a scathing yet sympathetic portrait of her parents--heavy drinking, racist, white settlers trying to hang onto white rule in Kenya, Rhodesia and Zambia.  "Curfews and war, mosquitoes, land mines, ambushes and an 'abundance of leopards' are the stuff of this childhood" (Publishers Weekly). Alexandra's childhood is thrilling and frightening in equal measure and made absolutely extraordinary in her telling.

In the sequel, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, Fuller again explores her family and her love of Africa. We come to admire how her parents persevered through personal tragedy and political upheaval.  Fuller paints a more complete picture of her parents, especially her mother  Nicola who laughingly and repeatedly refers to her daughter's first book as "that Awful Book."  Alexandra sees her parents clearly (warts and all) but also with great affection.  Fuller writes like a dream. She is witty and insightful with a gift for creating vivid imagery that lingers long after the books are read.

To see photographs of Fuller and her family visit her website.

So I have Loren to thank for a totally enjoyable Monday lunch hour.  She handed me the hilarious Christian Lander book, Stuff White People Like.  And, between the two of us, we totally *liked* the entire book.
If a couple of the headings have me smugly saying, “Nope, not me, I don’t do micro beers”, well, that’s because I Am Old.  All I had to do with this book was insert my kids, and hoowee!  Between the three of ‘em,  like Jack Sprat and his wife, they Liked Each and Every One of those shake-your-head  entries (even if only ironically, because Irony is entry 50).
Here’s a sampling: 

13:  Tea (“But do not remind them about the role of colonialism in tea, it will make them feel sad.”) 
25:  David Sedaris:  “Let me say that again:  (white people) will pay big money to see someone read from a book they have already read.”
28:  Not Having a TV:  “The number-one reason white people like not having a TV is so that they can tell you that they don’t have a TV” 
60:  Toyota Prius and    61:  Bicycles:  “A good place to find white people on a Saturday is at a bike shop.  Bike shops are almost entirely staffed and patronized by white people!”
Filled with B&W photos, this is a great book to have on a night when friends come over (before you get out the Apples to Apples). 
If you enjoy Stuff White People Like, be sure to check out Lander’s sophomore effort, Whiter Shades of Pale.  In WSofP,  Lander breaks down—geographically—what white people in major cities are  like.  Here’s his Brooklyn entry:  Overview: …can be identified by their amazingly expensive bicycle, their disdain for Manhattan, and their unwavering belief that living in Brooklyn makes them a part of an ethnic community.   Strengths:  Knows a lot about music, bicycles, food and art.  Weaknesses:  same.
And  if you really want to wow at your next get together, add this title:  Look at This F*cking Hipster by Joe Mande.  You get the idea.  Lots of photos and charmingly-named chapters such as, “Ironic Facial Hair” and “Yasser Arafat Scarves” .  Unsure as to what, exactly, defines a hipster?  Well, this book will tell you, as chapter 1 is titled “What is a Hipster?” and Chapter 2 reads, “What Makes a Hipster a Hipster?”  Obviously, the title tells us something important we need to know, that this is one for the PG-13 and over crowd, so don’t leave it around the little ones.  There’s also a fun pop quiz chapter with several photos asking, “Is this a hipster?”  Admission:  I’ve never had so much fun flunking a test…

          One of the many advantages of working in a library is access to the collection.  It is part of my job to do what we call collection maintenance which causes me to handle a lot of books over time.  It is usually during this process that I find a title or cover that piques my interest and causes me to add it to the pile of other books I am reading.  This time it was The Long Hitch by Michael Zimmer.
          According to Publisher’s Weekly, this is a “carefully  drawn, historically accurate portrayal of the lives of crusty mule skinners and the perils of the western freight wagon business…brawls, a wicked good bullwhip fight¸ harsh terrain, shifting alliances, mutiny, kidnapping…and Zimmer has put together a believable, gritty, and action-packed tale of the real Old West”. 
          I think they are correct.  There is also romance, a race that would determine the future of the freight industry as they knew it, intrigue, murder, mystery, adventure and more twists than a series of switchbacks. This is a read to the very end and don’t think you have it figured out type of book.  If you think you know what’s going on, guess again. If there were any shortcomings I’d say the lack of a glossary would be at the top of the list.  This is one (of many titles) I wish I’d had on my Kindle so that I could have looked up terms as I went along instead of thinking I knew what they meant.  For instance, I really did not know that mule skinners did not skin mules – they drove them.  It was written as if Zimmer assumed his readers were as up on mule trains and freight hauling history as he is.  Otherwise, this was a really good read.  I was immediately equating Jock Kavanaugh to John Wayne and Mase Campbell to James Arness (Gun Smoke).  I’m not sure who Buck McCready is although a young Clint Eastwood comes to mind.
As it reads, it appears as if Zimmer is done with these characters.  I hope not.  By the time I got to the end of the book I was caught up in the characters.  I wondered what happened when Dulce returned home.  I also wondered whether Buck ever…….
 

The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis.

Today is the release date for the new Christopher Paul Curtis novel , The Mighty Miss Malone, and already the reviewers are singing its praises. I am anxiously awaiting my copy so I can re-enter the world so vividly created by Curtis in his Newbery and Coretta Scott King Award-winning book, Bud, Not Buddy.  Given today’s economic outlook-you wouldn’t think I would be too excited to immerse myself in the Depression all over again. But Curtis’s characters are so charming, and his voice and humor so warm, that I can’t help myself.
Dezza, a minor character in the Bud, Not Buddy story, is a bright student with a loving family who remains hopeful despite the poverty and racism that surrounds her. But when her father leaves town to find work, and then her mother also loses her job, Dezza and her mother and brother wind up in a Hooverville near Flint, Michigan where hope is a much tougher thing to hold on to. Of course, I haven't read the ending so I can't give it away. But just one look at the gorgeous cover art gives me the impression that somehow Dezza is going to come out on top.
Readers who have been asking Curtis for a female main character will be thrilled.

The Buddha in the Attic is Julie Otsuka's second novel, but this book stops where the first one, When the Emperor was Divine, starts.  Both books deal with the Japanese people in the United States.  In The Buddha in the Attic the lives of the "picture brides" are described.  These women, some very young, where married in Japan to men they had never met who were already in the United States. The book is told in a collective voice with sentences using the words "some of us" or "many of us" instead of individual names. They tell of their ocean voyage, their first nights as married women, the hard work they had to do, childbirth and how quickly their children become assimilated to the new culture.  At the end of this book, WWII has started, and fear of Japanese people causes them to be sent to internment camps.  This is where When the Emperor was Divine begins.  This short novel follows one family from Berkeley that is forced to leave their home and most of their possessions behind when they are sent to a camp.  The father of the family had been taken earlier, in only his robe and slippers, to be questioned and kept at another facility.  Although they can exchange letters, the separation is hard on his wife, teenaged daughter and young son. The characters are not given names, but are called "mother", "father", "girl" and "boy". In this way their story becomes the story of every Japanese family forced to endure the hardship of the camps, with their poor living quarters, mess hall style food and fenced compound.  They have no idea when, if ever, they will be freed.

These two books are well written, and offer another view of the terrible things done to American citizens because of a difference in culture and nationality.

It was the cover of Just Kids that made me blurt out—without thinking—“Coney Island!” when my son asked what I most wanted to see when I visited him in New York City a couple of months ago.  “Why Coney Island?” he asked.  “I don’t know, it just seems kind of seedy, and frozen in time, and I saw it on the cover of the Patti Smith book.” 
My son knows me well.  That was good enough reason for me to go there, and it proved a favorite adventure in this magnificent city.  I didn’t know  what to expect of Coney Island,  but the old run-down amusement park with its faded museum and neon-fabulous Nathan’s Hot Dog restaurant was layered and tawdry, and fascinating, more complex that I could’ve imagined. 
So I have Patti Smith to thank for my-favorite-memory-of-NYC.  And also for one of my top three favorite reads this past year.  Like Coney Island, Smith’s book provided a memorable adventure.
Just Kids is Patti’s story of her long and loving relationship with the famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.  They meet in 1967, both recent arrivals in NYC, and quickly become best friends and lovers.  Smith details their time together, telling stories on herself of shoplifting food and art supplies so the more-sensitive Mapplethorpe wouldn’t be stressed.  She describes the small day-to-day joys of living at the Chelsea Hotel, and of their unwavering determination to become recognized as artists.  Then, as Mapplethorpe gradually discovers that he is gay, they still remain soul mates and friends, until his death in 1989. 
Work hard.  Play harder.  Love much.  This sums up Patti Smith.  Aside from her unstintingly honest writing, there is just so much goodness in her.  She, I am sure, would deny that claim, yet since reading this lovely paean to Mapplethorpe, I’ve heard her in an NPR interview, and she presents the same aw-shucks, down- to-earth manner, which, combined with an off-kilter brilliance, proves captivating. 
Smith’s writing is just gorgeous, which is one of several reasons that Just Kids won the National Book Award.  No pretensions, no ego, just a knack for telling wonderful tales with beautiful words.   She surely has an eidetic memory, and here’s the story of how her memoir was named:  “We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us.  Robert enjoyed being noticed, and he affectionately squeezed my hand.  “’Oh, take their picture,” said the woman to her bemused husband, “’I think they’re artists'"”  “’Oh, go on,’”  he shrugged.  “’They’re just kids.’”

Youth Services staff here at CML attends a plethora of meetings throughout the year, but it’s a rare occasion that we sit around and simply talk about books. So, everyone looks forward to the December meeting, which traditionally is set aside for a mock Newbery or Caldecott discussion. We read as many books as we can from our assigned tables, enthusiastically book talk our favorites to the group, and take a very official straw poll using three colors of poker chips!  I wish I had some statistics to tell you how often our choice is the winner, but I get the feeling  we are surprised more often than not.

If you are looking for a last minute gift idea for your favorite middle school reader, or you just want to read up and be ready for the award announcements from the ALA Mid-Winter meeting in January, here are a few of the biggest vote-getters from our recent Mock Newbery meeting to get you rolling:
Staff pick for the Newbery Winner:

True, Sort Of by Katherine Hannigan. Eleven year old Delly Pattison is always finding herself in trouble-whether she means to cause it or not. But just when she is about to be sent to a school for trouble makers, into her life walks Ferris Boyd. In the midst of her own struggles, Delly is about to be touched by someone's else's life, and she will never be the same.

Here are a few of the popular runners up-in no particular order...

The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell. Clara, a girl confined indoors because of a mysterious heart ailment, discovers at the end of the kind old woman's life a cache of dark family secrets about the long-ago deaths of her children.

The Apothecary by Maile Meloy. Meeting fearless Benjamin Burrows when she moves to London in 1952, 14-year-old Janie Scott helps Benjamin on a quest to rescue his kidnapped father while protecting a sacred apothecary tome from dangerous Russian spies.

Bird in a Box by Andrea Davis Pinkney. In 1936, three children meet at the Mercy Home for Negro Orphans in New York State. They are all dealing with grief and loss which together, along with the help of a sympathetic staff member and the boxing matches of Joe Louis, they manage to overcome.

Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt. As Doug struggles to be more than the skinny thug that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicer, a fiery young lady who smelled like daisies would smell if they were growing in a big field under a clearing sky after a rain. In Lil, Doug finds the strength to endure an abusive father, the suspicions of a whole town, and the return of his oldest brother, forever scarred, from Vietnam.

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. The Vietnam War has reached her home and HÀ and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls. They board a ship headed toward hope. In America, HÀ discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of her very own family.