Chasing Ray

Winter Blog Blast Tour update

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:37:32 -0800

Just a quick note - the Winter Blog Blast Tour will run next week. We have over two dozen interviews spread over ten blogs including Laini Taylor and Jim DiBartolo, Sy Montgomery, Megan Whalen Turner, Derek Landy, Alan DeNiro, Frances Hardinge and many many more. Look for the master schedule on Friday and don't forget it will be updated with direct urls and quotes throughout the week. As usual we have all worked hard on these interviews and hope you will enjoy hearing from authors (and illustrators) we love about books we can't forget.

And after an endless amount of errands today I will be back with thoughts on George Mallory or Tom Strong - not sure which post will be written first!

Quick links

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:17:00 -0800

As I finish up reviews for my December column and feature for curious readers, I have a couple of quick links of interest.

First, What a Girl Wants panelist and YA novelist extraordinaire Sara Ryan has a graphic novel deal. From PW:

Bob Mecoy at Creative Book Services sold a coming-of-age graphic novel called Bad Houses by artist Carla Speed McNeil and YA novelist Sara Ryan to Joan Hilty at DC’s Vertigo imprint. Hilty took world rights, and Mecoy brokered the deal with Ryan’s agent, Barry Goldblatt. McNeil, who will illustrate, is best known for her work on the self-published sci-fi Web comic Finder, which won the Ignatz for Outstanding Series in 2004 and 2005. Ryan wrote the 2001 LGBT novel Empress of the World (Viking) and its sequel, Rules for Hearts.

This will not be Sara's initial foray into comic books; check out her site for several stories. I highly recommend "Me and Edith Head" (a special treat to readers of her novel Empress of the World.)

Jenny D. linked recently to a review with a Columbia professor that really piqued my interest. Karl Kroeber recently passed away but his words still hold a lot of truth. A bit of the interview:

Why do you hate Disney?

Fundamentally, children can go on and do things, but they're always being controlled by adults, and with it goes this awful sentimentality which is a falsification. In some of the early [Disney] stuff, there was some skilful art.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote an article about Mickey Mouse. Trace the original Mickey Mouse from the 1920s when he was this tricky, rascally figure, right down to this bland, consumer-advocate. These people, they're not sympathetic to the children learning.

They're evil. If you want animated things, I'd take Miyazaki over Disney any time. Like Totoro.

What do you think makes for good children's literature?

Good children's literature is something that a child can enjoy, but an adult can too. All the good literature is of that kind.

And via twitter, Laurel Snyder (also a WAGW panelist) we have a hint of what she is working on: "My new book is about magic, divorce, seagulls, breadboxes, & Springsteen. Also, there's a cussword on page 1. You know, one of *those* books."

Springsteen and breadboxes - how could anyone resist??

Finally - what the hell was this teacher thinking? If my kid was in that class I would come unglued - and have some serious questions about just what he was trying to teach. (Via Bookslut who provides a graphic excerpt of the short story in question.) (I can't believe I was complaining about Thoreau yesterday. I guess I should be thanking Miss Waslewski for boring us to death if this is the alternative.) Poor kids. They could be reading so many other things that would help them grow up and be the people they hope to be. "Guts" is not it.

Not the Thoreau I met in the 10th grade

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:39:31 -0800

Like every other kid in America I learned about Thoreau and Walden in high school. I never really "got" him. So he went to the woods and he wrote about it. That was it. I can remember my tenth grade teacher going on and on for days about the beauty of his nature writing but it all went right past me. I was actually in nature, at the beach, constantly. Reading about someone else's view of nature was boring compared to being bumped by sharks and catching waves with the mullet jumping around you. (We did not however linger long when the mullet were jumping as that was when the bigger sharks usually showed up to eat them.) As to the civil disobedience bit about taxes - that didn't seem like much of anything compared to what Adams, Henry and the rest of the patriotic crew were willing to do for their principles. It was like Thoreau showed up to late for the Revolution and was ticked about it. He went looking for a battle and found a night in jail (and Emerson paid his fine). Not so dramatic when you think about it.

So, my name is Colleen, I'm an American and I've never been a big fan of Thoreau.

However, when it comes to Concord in the pre Civil War era there is one resident I adored: Miss Louisa May Alcott. Miss Waslewski (can you believe I remember that?) in the tenth grade did not tell us that Alcott lived near Thoreau and had a childhood crush on him - or that Laurie might very well have been based on an idealized version of him. She also did not tell us that Thoreau was half in love with Emerson's wife or that Emerson was big time in lust with Margaret Fuller (a more realistic version of Jo March then Louisa) and that Nathaniel Hawthorne also had the hots for Fuller (basing several books on versions of her including The Scarlet Letter) or that Bronson Alcott, Louisa's dad was a great big baby who talked big but did little.

Actually Miss Waslewski didn't say beans about Louisa May Alcott at all but that was not unusual - we never talked about a single female author in her class. What's pitiful is that it did not occur to me back then to be disappointed by this.

It is because of all these somewhat tawdry revelations that I found Susan Cheever's American Bloomsbury to be quite an easy read. All the marriages are bad in one way or another, there's lots of tragedy (Poor Emerson!) and the story of Louisa's mercury poisoning is epic. It's unreal and really makes you appreciate Little Women on a whole other level. That poor woman. And don't even get me started on Margaret Fuller. I can't believe I've never heard of her! Must read more about Margaret Fuller immediately.

A lot of people who go into the wilderness quote Thoreau however and feel a strong kinship to him and his decision to go to Walden. So I need to revisit Thoreau myself and reconsider him - or actually consider him for the first time since I spent most of Miss Waslewski's class writing angst-ridden poetry and turning in my brother's best friend's old papers to cover up the fact that I was bored out of my mind. What I have learned from Cheever and others is that Thoreau did indeed go into the woods, but those woods were less than two miles from Concord. He went back into the village at least every week, sometimes several days a week and he visited Emerson and his other friends and ate dinners with his family and pretty much had the same life he had always had - he just spent a chunk of it in the woods. This is not at all to minimize Walden, which is truly wonderful, but I think that a lot of people who read it think he was more in the wilderness then down the road. It's sort of like thinking Jack Kerouac hitchhiked cross country rather than drove or took the bus most of the time. (Again, not to minimize his multiple crossings.)

I just don't think Thoreau would have climbed a mountain in the winter without a coat, or wandered off a trail in the summer in New Mexico without water, or parked himself in a bus with a bag of rice. He wanted to observe nature but he wasn't antisocial. Thoreau was not a hermit intent on suffering for nature, he was a man who went into the local woods and spent a lot of time thinking and appreciating what was around him. Barry Lopez? Yes. On top of Everest with no clue how to get down? No. He was actually a really interesting guy when you stop considering him one of the most significant writers in American literature. He's even a guy I can identify with. So chalk one up for the local library - victory over Miss Waslewski has finally been achieved!

[Post pics of Henry David Thoreau; Margaret Fuller]

YA Column: Wars of the World

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:15:11 -0800

Every day the world gets a bit more complicated, especially when we consider just how many ongoing conflicts are currently underway. Here are several excellent recent titles on war around the world, both declared and not, that older teens in particular will find both compelling and engaging. I’ve also included some fiction on the subject for middle grade readers that impressed me and for good measure, a first class picture book on what war memorials are really all about.

In Marked for Death investigative journalist Terry Gould looks at the lives of seven journalists who were killed for following the story. Traveling from Columbia to the Philippines, Bangladesh, Russia and Iraq he reveals how desperately dangerous it is to pursue the truth in many countries. His coverage is deeply personal, including an overview of the lives of the deceased as well as detailed analysis of the stories they were following. He interviews their families and coworkers in an effort to understand why they stayed with the stories to their deaths -- even when they all knew death was trailing them. They are not perfect people; in fact Gould goes out of his way to make it clear that they were very human in their faults and foibles. And yet they didn’t walk away after threats and assassination attempts. They hung in there because they thought the truth was bigger than them and because, as Gould concludes, “They tried to defend the towns where they lived.” It is likely that most Americans will not know these journalists before reading Gould’s book, but you won’t forget them when finished.

Gould plunges into the environmental issues of Bangladesh, Russia’s war with Chechnya (and why that republic was not permitted to break away when others were) and the corruption which followed the privatization of state-run industry in the post Soviet shake-ups. He writes about rampant political corruption in the Philippines and devastating effects of Columbia’s centuries old class system (first established by the colonizing Spanish). Finally, he shares the sad story of Khalid Hassan, who worked to get the story from the ground in Iraq to his New York Times co-workers even though it made him a near continuous target. “He had a terrible life,” wrote one of his fellow journalists after his murder, “He was such a good guy, all he wanted was a normal life.”

Marked For Death is as much about life in America as it is about the countries Gould visited. By reading it we learn how lucky we are to live here, and how mindful we need to be of the struggles of so many others. We also learn the high value that should be placed on truth and why it must always be demanded in any circumstance. These are truly heroic figures on any scale and a world events class should be built around this book, for high school or college students.

When War Becomes Personal: Soldiers’ Accounts From the Civil War to Iraq is a collection from a variety of soldiers who served in a variety of wars but all of whom collectively can attest to the age-old truth that war is hell. There have been other similar anthologies published in the past, some of them directly aimed at teens, but I found When War Becomes Personal to be an outstanding entry. It is highly readable, offers multiple perspectives, deals with post-traumatic stress in a frank manner and also isn’t trying to be anything other than what it should. In other words, there are no overt lessons here or attempts to make war “literary.” While most of these authors have been published before and all are very good writers, that is not the point. Editor Donald Anderson just wants you read what they say and understand where they are coming from. After that, he lets you come to conclusions on your own.

Right off the bat I was surprised by an interview with poet and Vietnam veteran Joan Furey from the journal War, Literature and the Arts. Furey was a nurse for twelve months at the Seventy-first Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku during the height of the war. In her interview, she explains the unending nature of her post, and the negative effects “noncombat” medical personnel suffered after being exposed to trauma on a daily basis with no respite during their tours. From there Anderson presents several other Vietnam perspectives (my only complaint about the book would be that it is a bit heavy on Vietnam in comparison to other conflicts, particularly contemporary ones) including Joseph Cox’s “Notes from Ban Me Thuot” about missing death by a moment, John Wolfe’s harrowing tale of injury and recovery in “A Different Species of Time” and William Newmiller’s collection of memories from Vietnamese pilots trained in the U.S. who returned to fight for their country in the final days of the war. This in particular is the Vietnam we are least familiar with -- that of the actual Vietnamese. Finally, Wayne Karlin’s essay about returning the personal documents of a dead NVA soldier to his family is especially remarkable and the respect exhibited by everyone involved both inspiring and enormously sad.

Many other essays in the collection are equally stirring, from Isaac Clements’ Civil War memoir written in 1913 for his son and introduced here by his grandson -- after reading this you will wonder how any injured soldier returned home from that nightmare -- to Alfred Kern’s personal appeal to “Hang the Enola Gay” in the Smithsonian. But what stood out for me overall was the essay by B-2 bomber pilot Jason Armagost who wrote “Things to Pack for Baghdad” about serving as the lead aircraft in the first airstrikes on the city in the Second Gulf War. Framed around the 20,000 mile long flight to his target, Armagost writes about the books he brought to engage his mind as he takes turns flying, walking, eating and sleeping before the crucial 208 seconds over the city. The author is a thoughtful man and he has given his reading -- all much loved titles -- much consideration. “In the middle of the Atlantic,” he writes, “I won’t be interested in the cheap plot-twists of the latest bestseller. I’m in need of art -- recklessness, patience, wisdom, passion and largess. I rifle through the titles, grab five and return to the seat. We are over Ohio -- me, my books and the colonel.”

The books Armagost reads vary from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried to Rick Bass’s Winter: Notes From Montana. He reflects upon Admiral Jim Stockdale’s memoir and the seven and a half years he was held as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. He quotes Clausewitz’s On War and Ezra Pound, Socrates, Thucydides, Xenophon. Over the desert it is Antoine de Saint-Exupery he reaches for, and then later Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. The combination of flight and war, literature and history that Armagost blends together is stunning; each paragraph is a different trip to some other time or place. The essay is incredibly personal but through the words of others he makes it that much more reachable for readers -- he brings what he saw and what he did on the flight down to earth so that we may understand it a little bit and also understand him. It’s a gorgeous piece that will hopefully be part of a much larger book some day and a perfect ending to an anthology that has raised the bar on war writing. High school students -- male and female -- should consider this collection a private history course and seek it out immediately.

Journalist Matthew Green wades deep into the surreal reality that is contemporary Uganda in his travelogue/history The Wizard of the Nile. Green’s focus is Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord God Army and an active participant in the decades-long civil war that has been noteworthy in international circles by its heavy reliance on child soldiers. Green hopes to have an interview with the elusive Kony but soon finds himself lost in an endless race across the country pursuing one failed meet after another. Along the way he meets former soldiers from both sides and crosses over into Sudan, researching its murky reasons for supporting Kony. Green also learns that there are no clear cut answers to the Ugandan conflict and while the rebels are the obvious and often internationally recognized “bad guys”, the government is equally guilty of horrors which include arming children. In the end, he discovers that simply too many people have too much invested in the war to ever let it end. Kony is not so much a great leader as one who will keep fighting and that, quite simply, is what a lot of other people want for Uganda.

The long passages with former child soldiers make for very compelling reading here and certainly increases the book’s appeal to teens. The reality of a child’s life in Uganda is brutal, and Green does not shy away from the long term struggles the former soldiers face. He also details how there is a lot of talk about helping the children, but little action, even after they have rescued themselves. Mostly though, Green’s book is about what he thought was happening in Uganda (and as a reporter for Reuters he was more informed than most) and what he learned on his search. While he did not find out what kept Kony fighting, he did determine that “there was more to the war than one man’s madness.” Far more than anything else, it was this kernel of awareness that gave me pause. Even in Uganda, a place that seems to be so blatantly subjected to the whims of a madman, it was not so simple. Blame Joseph Kony if it makes you feel better, but the engine that keeps this war running is far larger than him, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

The Wizard of the Nile is an easy read on a complex subject and while Green did not achieve his goal of an interview with Kony (he is able to ask only one question), he created instead a book far worthier of the chaos through which he traveled. That makes the book more accessible for those who do not know the history of Uganda, as they will learn plenty from Green’s journey and be richer from the experience.

The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefevre and Frederic Lemercier (and translated by Alexis Siegel) is the kind of book that graphic novels were designed for. Lefevre’s story of his journey into the mountainous country during the Soviet/Afghan War accompanied by the photographs he took and Guibert’s later illustrations is shocking in its simplicity. Doctors Without Borders travels to distant locales to help the populace and Lefevre was assigned to cover their journey. He saw things he did not expect, most importantly a way of life that had adapted to constant war but remained deeply opposed to that war and the pain it brought. He photographed it, recorded his thoughts and then resolved to get out to Pakistan and back home to France, but naïve choices he made on the return journey very nearly killed him and the book thus became as much a personal survival tale as a humanitarian and political saga. Sebastian Junger blurbed The Photogapher as “A work of stunning originality and power” and he is right. You have literally never seen anything like this and you won’t soon forget it.

Designers are going to be impressed by the collage element at work here -- the photos and illustrations are placed side by side in panels so the story can continue even when Guibert did not have photographs of certain elements. There are also several sections where the photos tell the story, or vice versa with the illustrations. All of it is seamless and the format variation only increases interest in the story. As for what Guibert saw, well, it’s sad on every single level. Horses left to die from exhaustion on mountain passes, people in indescribable physical pain who have no hope of help, and children maimed and dying from an enemy they can’t even see, let alone hide from. Page after page of the horrors of war are present here and Guibert, who knew on some level this was coming, can hardly stand it. But he does his job because he knows how important that job is. And then he tries to get his film out and discovers just how physically difficult Afghanistan can be.

Although I cannot discount the significance of the war story here, I actually found the revelations about the country’s landscape to be the most compelling. Everyone who wonders why we just can’t “win” over there needs to see how hard it is to physically get anywhere. The complexity of travel in the mountains can not be overstated -- it’s hard living, hard moving and nearly impossible to wrap your head around. This is where Guibert’s photographs really become significant -- he writes how hard everything is and shows us as well. It makes for a narrative that cannot be ignored and for anyone curious about the Soviet war, or the American war, or the many wars in that country that preceded both of them, The Photographer is the place to start. (You will also become impressed as hell by Doctors Without Borders.)

As Islam has become such a flashpoint for discussions about Iraq or Afghanistan, I was quite pleased to receive the Pocket Timeline of Islamic Civilizations by Nicolas Badcott. Organized over thirty two pages with an additional twelve-page pull-out timeline, this small book is a very well done resource for understanding the history of the religion and the people who follow it. The author explains the ever significant Sunni/Shi’a split and Islamic influence across a broad swath of the Middle East, Europe and Asia, including such countries as Syria, Turkey, Spain, Palestine and India. Badcott addresses issues not only political but also arts, crafts and currency and provides dozens of photographs of people, places and objects. It’s a solid starting point on the subject and an obvious choice for teens doing research papers or wanting to know more for their own intellectual reasons. I found it to be immensely informative and very easy to read and look forward to more titles in this series.

Switching to fiction, middle grade readers have a couple of recent novels to choose from that both address the unique struggles of children in military families. Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes is reminiscent of E.L. Konigsberg’s View From Saturday as it shows a group of children coming together to accomplish a daunting goal. In this case, Bo, Gari and their classmates are all in the 6th grade at a broken down school located right outside the gates of an air force base. These are primarily kids used to living the military life and while some of them may have issues with it, they still buck up and carry on when necessary. When their new teacher, Miss Loupe, introduces improvisational theater techniques to her curriculum however, it throws them all for a loop. Slowly they begin to embrace the idea of asking questions and playing cooperative games to learn more about themselves and each other. Then something bad happens to Miss Loupe’s brother, who is stationed in Afghanistan. The kids realize if they don’t act she might lose her heart. So they pull together and do what they can, and when that isn’t enough they do what they must which results in a rousing tale of can-do attitude that makes you feel pretty darn good about yourself -- and about teachers and kids and helping the folks we care about.

Rosanne Parry’s Heart of a Shepherd is a more heartfelt story as it deals primarily with the impact of deployment on one family. “Brother” is the youngest of five boys being raised by a single father and grandparents on a ranch in eastern Oregon. When his father’s National Guard unit is activated the entire area is devastated -- it pulls out one hundred local men and women affecting homes, school and work. Brother finds the loss of his father especially difficult as his brothers are all away in college, boarding school (for high school -- there is no local option) or the military. The family hires a man to help and the grandparents are critical, but Brother feels the weight of his newfound responsibility very strongly. His brothers stay in touch and return home for the holidays but do not realize how difficult the situation is or how much Brother has had to grow up. In the end they nearly lose the house and sheep to a wildfire but the boy holds on through it all and keeps his head -- proving you can rise to any occasion if you must.

Shepherd is very much a book about growing up but it is also about family pulling together and surprisingly, a great deal is about religious faith. The grandfather is a Quaker and his pacifist feelings are eloquently expressed. However, he also understands the need to finance college for five boys -- all done through the military. The grandmother is Catholic and it is through weekly attendance at Mass that Brother has a personal breakthrough. The military is ever present in his conversations with others, however -- even the new priest. The combination of military, religion and family all make this an incredibly prescient title and one that taps far deeper into the lives of ordinary Americans than most.

Stylistically, Holmes takes a few more risks with Operation Yes, using a shifting point-of-view to encompass the thoughts of multiple students, although Bo and Gari remain the focus. Readers will not be confused but rather find themselves enjoying the mix of opinions the author blends together as the multiethnic group of classmates find a common cause. Gari and Bo’s personal stories remain the novel’s compass, but the thoughts and actions of everyone else help to propel them towards their very personal decisions. Ultimately, both books manage to be supportive of military families while writing about situations and emotions that any child could easily identify with. All you have to be is a kid who cares about their family and friends to enjoy these two, which makes them excellent choices for readers anywhere.

Finally, with war in Iraq and Afghanistan now so much a part of our daily conversation, younger children are often presented with information that might be difficult for them to understand. Jane Barclay tackles one part of explaining war to the very young with her picture book Proud as a Peacock, Brave as a Lion. Her protagonist is a young boy who is with his WWII vet grandfather on a memorial day. He listens as the older man explains how he felt first putting on his uniform, about the good friend who was with him, and the things (“the bad dream that woke him in the night”) he cannot forget. The book ends with a parade where everyone wears poppies for remembrance and a visit to a memorial where the grandfather lays a very personal wreath. With Renne Benoit’s understated, muted illustrations, Proud as a Peacock is a quiet book that tells a big story without ever wading into right or wrong, good or bad. Especially for groups of children who want to know what Veteran’s Day is all about, this title is an obvious choice.

Round-Up

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:35:20 -0800

Dave Itzkoff on the "No. 1 Omission from Top Ten Book List". Yep, it's where in the world are the women (and oh the irony that the NYT would be asking). I do have to confess that while I'm finding Shop Class as Soul Craft interesting reading, I'm perplexed as to how it's a top ten of the year. (He's no Tracy Kidder, that's for sure.) (Sometimes I feel like I'm reading a graduate thesis.) Hat tip to @Gwenda

Moving right along, Tanita on an overlooked Philip Pullman: "Nothing is reliable anymore when half-remembered wisps of things she thought were dreams are perhaps a real part of Ginny's history. Bewilderment, isolation, and suspicion push Ginny out of her safety zone and into the world to find out -- something. Not knowing who to trust, she must repair the broken bridges of her life in order to go on."

Little Willow on books being dated by pop culture references; she nails one big problem with this: "When a book references a Top 20 hit or right-now story/gossip/whatnot every few pages, that bothers me, because what's popular and "hot" when the book is in its first draft will change by the time it is published. That just-missed dating can be worse, in a way, than a few years/a decade removed. A perfect example would be a YA title which shall remain nameless that referenced a celebrity marriage which, by the time the book was published, had dissolved. Even if you, like me, do not care a whit about celebrity gossip, you must admit that it is, to some extent, unescapable when it's plastered all over the covers of magazines that line the aisles in the grocery store."

The November issue of Bookslut is up which includes my latest column: Wars of the World. I have several nonfiction titles on conflicts around the world, also two MG books on kids with parents fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and a wonderful picture book that is perfect Veteran's Day reading. Sometimes a column really clicks and this was one of those times. Jason Armogost's essay "Things to Pack for Baghdad" from the anthology When War Becomes Personal continues to stay with me. Here's a bit from my review:

But what stood out for me overall was the essay by B-2 bomber pilot Jason Armagost who wrote “Things to Pack for Baghdad” about serving as the lead aircraft in the first airstrikes on the city in the Second Gulf War. Framed around the 20,000 mile long flight to his target, Armagost writes about the books he brought to engage his mind as he takes turns flying, walking, eating and sleeping before the crucial 208 seconds over the city. The author is a thoughtful man and he has given his reading -- all much loved titles -- much consideration. “In the middle of the Atlantic,” he writes, “I won’t be interested in the cheap plot-twists of the latest bestseller. I’m in need of art -- recklessness, patience, wisdom, passion and largess. I rifle through the titles, grab five and return to the seat. We are over Ohio -- me, my books and the colonel.”

Somebody needs to give this guy a book deal; we're talking a 21st century James Salter when it comes to war writing for sure.

Also see Elizabeth Bachner's "Blowing Down Bleecker Street" in the new issue, which has made me rethink my relationship with Kerouac:

He went to Big Sur and wrote another real novel on a single scroll of paper. It took him ten days. I just watched a new documentary on this -- One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur -- and it made me cry. He went out to the ocean and reckoned with writing again, he reckoned with himself again, and seven years later he died of cirrhosis. When I sit in the White Horse Tavern, even when I’m sponge-eyed, when my soft little body is loaded to the gunwales, I’ve never seen Dylan Thomas’s ghost in there. But every time I walk down Bleecker, stone cold sober on a grey day just as it’s starting to get cold, there’s Jack Kerouac blowing all around me.

Mark Sarvas has a significant object (joining many others in this delightful series).

Sara Zarr is reclaiming physical objects, an activity I wholeheartedly endorse....Sara Ryan went to France and didn't exactly pack right (this is funny)...Fans of Whip It get ready for Down and Derby coming next spring from Soft Skull (I'm all over this one)...And finally, via The Morning News:

“The most damaging deficit with which poor and minority children must cope is their deficit of hope.”

—Dreams of Better Schools - The New York Review of Books

Yeah, it made me angry, sad and ready to take on the world too. Tomorrow's my birthday - here's hoping the next 12 months are as productive as the last.

What a Girl Wants #9: Maybe Winona Ryder got this one right

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:48:08 -0800

The topic today is mean girls, specifically mean girls in literature (and as an ancillary, in pop culture). From Nellie Olson to Cordelia Chase to a couple of YA novels that came across my radar lately (The Complete History of Why I Hate Her by Jennifer Richard Jacobson and Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook) it seems that for every faithful friend and all-round good girl there is some darn near demonically possessed mean girl out there determined to take her down.

The fact that demons never have anything to do with these scenarios is perhaps their most terrifying element.

What I had for the panel this go-round was a bit of a chicken and egg question, as in "did literature create the myth of mean girls or have the reality of mean girls created accompanying literature?" I channeled Heathers a bit while pondering this one as it remains the ultimate mean girls movie in some respects - and certainly the most disturbing. (Fun fact: apparently Heather Graham was supposed to play one of the Heathers but her mother wouldn't let her because the plot was too dark.)

I am still torn on my own response to the question, and not certain just what the answer should be. I know that I receive a ton of teen books and a I know a lot of them are about girls being mean to other girls. But I also remember my own tough moments in junior high and high school (which frankly paled in comparison to the office stabbing to come later) and I know how awful it felt back then to be the recipient of such meanness. Maybe it's not so bad in the grand scheme of things, but when you're in the middle of it, such cruelty can be downright devastating. It's something to think about, that's for sure. (ETA: I must credit Little Willow booklists for many of the titles pictured here - she is so on top of YA publishing, it is amazing!)

So, the questions: Does teen literature exaggerate the mean girl phenomena too much? If aliens landed on earth and read teen lit (oh my) would they expect to find mini Cordelias wreaking havoc on every high school across America? Are they so prevalent because it just easier to write about mean girls then nice ones? Is teen lit reflecting what is real in this instance or propagating an unfair female stereotype?

Beth Kephart: "I've had my share of brush ups with the world's mean girls—their whispers in the ears of others; their fingers pointed at me; their thievery of boys I loved (though what boy is ever an innocent in such a game?); the loud howl of a long ridicule; the laughter that was anything but funny; the stray ugly comment about a book (my favorite anonymous Amazon comment ever accused me of being something like a billion years old; I think that was mean). I can and do (I admit this!) watch a late-night rerun of The Housewives of New York City or Orange County with a tad too much eager fascination (Really? Women talk like that and men take it? Women scheme like that and survive not just the world but themselves?). And I introduced, as a minor character in my first YA novel, Undercover, a mean beauty named Lila; I introduced her because the book is autobiographical, and because I have found myself ruthlessly tangled up with the likes of such a one.

But I have never seen the world as lopsidedly mean; such girls are rare, in my experience, wounded in some deep fashion, and, in the end, in need of compassion. (I’m still trying to locate my bit of compassion for my personal Lila. Give me time. Please. Give me time.) That there are so many books placing mean girls at their centers says more about the perceived need for a certain kind of novelistic conflict, in my estimation, than about the actual distribution of female types. Mean girls versus good girls is black versus white. It’s anti-heroine versus heroine. It’s a game, and someone will win. Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s my age, but I grow increasingly interested, as I read and write, in the shades of gray, and what they teach us."

Lorie Ann Grover: "I'm not a sociologist, but I've read Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman and Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons. I believe the nonfiction conclusions that girls leverage power in a very different way than boys. Rather than plain facts and fists, girls use words and withhold them to manipulate.

I do remember certain mean girls throughout my school experience, and I've witnessed them in my teen daughters' as well. Anti-bully programs are popular in the public school system in our area. I'm assuming both sexes are addressed.

Maybe the subject is a fad right now, Colleen. And maybe we are looking more at the mean girl herself, rather than the victim who used to concern us most. Stephen King's Carrie flashes to mind. Is this new perspective giving the subject a fresh breath in teen lit? There's a fuller story of the mean girl herself, and there's even the exploration of a placid character turning into one: Tina Fey's Mean Girls.

Those are my thoughts. I'm not overly worried or concerned. The antagonist wears so many masks. Right now, she just happens to have a very nice complexion."

Zetta Elliott: "I have to admit that I haven’t read any “mean girl” teen lit, but I think there’s definite value in portraying girls as fully human—and that means showing the good, the bad, and the ugly. I think we’ve all encountered spiteful or malicious women throughout our lives, so that should certainly be reflected in literature. I think one of the limitations of some feminist movements and/or thinkers is the refusal to acknowledge that women aren’t monolithic; they don’t all share the same values or goals, and there’s no automatic instinct for female solidarity that kicks in whenever one of us is in trouble (women of color learned this very early on when dealing with white middle-class feminists; queer women know this about straight women, etc.). At the same time, we do need to make sure that “mean girls” aren’t represented in a disproportionate way—and I can immediately think of books I’ve read recently that stress solidarity among teenage girls (Shine, Coconut Moon; Down to the Bone); I think lots of books feature girls who are best friends, where loyalty, trust, and compassion are central. So long as we’ve got balance, I’m satisfied, though it would also help if writers examined WHY girls are sometimes vicious instead of heightening tension between girls just to create drama."

Laurel Snyder: "This is funny timing, because I've recently had three different friends ask me for advice on "good mean-girl books" for their struggling daughters. A month ago I think I might have suggested that the "mean girl" is an archetype, a literary figure of sorts. But suddenly I'm remembering the daily hell of the lunch table. The torture of wearing the wrong jeans.

And I know, I KNOW that most tortured awesome girls will go off into their adult lives and recover, and grow wings and leave the stupid mean girls in a cloud of dust. Most girls won't won't upturn the social order of the lunchroom, so much as they'll outgrow it. It WILL make them stronger in some cases, but slowly, quietly. Not by page 200. I'm not sure that the treatment of these situations is usually very realistic in YA (though I'm no expert, and will be curious to see what others say). I think mean-girl-itis tends to get "resolved" in most books, in ways that my own twisted high school experience didn't get resolved until college, where I realized that the mean girls had always been insecure morons.

Are there books like that? Where the picked-on kid goes home for the holidays at age 20, and only feels sorry for the dumb mean girl? I found that emotion really satisfying myself. Sympathy as vengeance."

Melissa Wyatt: "I don't know if the volume of mean girl teen lit correlates with actual mean girl statistics, but yeah, I know that the mean girl phenomena is very real. I have nieces and young girlfriends dealing with it firsthand. The scary thing, though, is that the mean girl has morphed since I was a teen. She doesn't limit herself to using her tongue to take down her prey. She's become physically violent, films her attacks and puts them on YouTube. If she was acting out of fear or insecurity before, needing to tear down other girls to make herself feel stronger, why does she now need to inflict physical pain?

It's interesting to consider if she's an unfair stereotype. I do think she sometimes gets talked about with wonder because it is still unexpected to think of girls being this aggressive. We expect it from boys, so even though mean boys abound, they don't generate as much surprise. And yet today, we encourage girls to BE more aggressive. And certainly, that's important in many ways. But are they getting the wrong message or taking it the wrong way? Or is there something else at work, driving the kind of social fear that leads to violence? Girls are under so much pressure to be so many things today, is it any wonder they're confused?

Anyway, I believe the mean girl is real and she's out there and she's going to be written about, especially in YA because it's such a perfect place to think about the "whys." And the small comfort that if you are her victim, you are not alone.

As for whether it's easier to write about mean girls than nice ones...Well, there really wouldn't be a story if everyone in it was nice! That's why people don't write them. Fascinating--and tough--question as always!"

Sara Ryan: "Girls who are mean definitely exist, and have always existed. (Are you thinking of one? I am.) But few if any girls are all mean, all the time. I think that Mean Girls(tm) can be enticing as characters because they create conflict by their very presence in a story. And once you've established that they're Mean Girls, no need to worry about their motivation -- they're just mean! (Unless, of course, they're publicly Mean but secretly Nice, in which case they will eventually repent.)

Also, since insults are the primary means by which Mean Girls(tm) communicate, they're an excuse to use all the best/worst lines you've been storing up over the years.

But a Mean Girl(tm) is also, by definition, two-dimensional; a type rather than a fully rounded character. It's more challenging, but ultimately more rewarding, to write about girls who sometimes act mean, like Julia and Miranda in Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, or worse than mean, like Leah in Jo Knowles' Lessons From A Dead Girl. Because the truth is that friendships are complicated, jealousy and resentment can coexist with affection and admiration, and there are times when we are all mean girls."

Kekla Magoon: "I can't comment knowledgeably about the mean girl phenomenon because I don't really understand it myself. These stories don't typically appeal to me, at least when they're glorifying the mean girls as heroines or role models. I connect with the stories that take the point of view of someone who falls on the outside of these sorts of cliques, and/or suffers on their margins. I do think the archetypal "mean girl" character reflects reality, but only a slice of it. So does the idea of popular girl cliques who step on others in the quest for...whatever it is they're truly after, be it popularity, the illusion of control over their lives, or the lives of others, or simply the heady assurance that they have something other people want. Where I see meanness, I see weakness, and those aren't characters I want to get close to, though they can serve a story in myriad ways.

One last point: I believe the battles "mean girls" wage are encouraged by our culture. Women are taught that we have to change ourselves to be accepted, be it through clothes or makeup or attitude, and while the desire to support each other is second-nature, we so often are pitted against each other in small ways--who's prettier, smarter, most likely to succeed--that lead to in-fighting, and a thirst to be on top, because not everybody can be. It makes me sad, but that's what I see. Only sometimes in real life, but always in mean girl characters."

Neesha Meminger: "This is a question I've often pondered myself. I think my main concern with the "mean girls" phenomenon is that they focus on inter-personal dynamics without also looking at the larger, social,
economic, and political constructs within which we all function. In the case of books, films, television shows, and other mean girls representations, certain isolated incidents are used to somehow prove that *everyone* can be abusive and that violence is a natural and intrinsic part of human nature; without any consideration of the power imbalances at play.

For instance, yes there are mean girls. Of course girls in high school (and middle school and grade school) can be horribly cruel to one another. Girls can absolutely be bullies. Girls beat one another up and can be downright
vicious to those who are perceived to be "different" or "weaker." Whenever this issue is raised, I am reminded of the 1996 case of Reena Virk, the Indian, Punjabi teen who was murdered by a gang of mostly girls in British
Columbia, Canada. She was viciously attacked by girls she had desperately wanted to be friends with.

The media responded to this horrific tragedy by labeling it as "girl violence" or the "rise of girl gangs." The whole focus was on the fact that the group of teens who beat Virk to death were mostly girls. There was no race analysis, no class analysis, and absolutely no mention of enforced hetero-normativity (for a great, non-mainstream analysis of that case, see Yasmin Jiwani's essays as well as Sheila Batacharya's).

It was *one* incident that now, somehow, proved that girls can be murderers, too. That girls can be just as vicious as boys, and violence has nothing to do with power structures; that it is really all about inter-personal dynamics.

Meanwhile, here are just a few stats from FREDA with some specifics to consider:

~ Of harassment incidents reported to police in 1994-95, 8 in 10 victims were female, and 9 in 10 of the accused were male (Kong 1996).
~ Most multiple-victim homicides and murder-suicides were family-related, and the vast majority of accused persons in these types of incidents were male" (Statistics Canada 2002)
~ Women constitute 98% of spousal violence victims of kidnapping/hostage-taking and sexual assault (Fitzgerald 1999)
~ Of persons charged: 98% of sexual assaults are by men and 86% of violent crimes are committed by men (Johnson 1996).

And the list goes on.

Young women and girls grow up in the same world young males do. They learn how to become victims or perpetrators in the same society, the same schools, and are bombarded with the same media representations. And the power structure, with its many imbalances, is the unseen scaffolding propping up all of our psychological, emotional, and spiritual development.

I don't mind reading books about mean girls, as long as they are placed within the context of the larger world and the power dynamics and complexities of that larger world. Otherwise, these stories come off as flat and cliched. They become re-creations of the old "victim meets bully, victim suffers, victim learns to fight back" story--which can be a wonderful, timeless, empowering story to be sure; not implying otherwise. But when the bullies/"mean girls" are young women and the victims are young women, there needs to be a deeper exploration of hidden power dynamics at play in addition to the complex psychological layers of the characters.

Those complexities in a story, as well as the Truth at its core, are what make any book an interesting, absorbing, powerful read.

Margo Rabb: "I'm writing this while 7+ months pregnant, and lately, I've been thinking a lot about how much being pregnant is like being an adolescent. The deluge of hormones, your body doing weird things, the confusion of your life changing dramatically...it reminds me of how incredibly hard it is to be a teenager, and how sensitive and vulnerable you are during those years. I think as adults we forget what that feels like--how an offhand criticism can make you bawl, or how your moods can change instantaneously, with depths and highs that are incomprehensible to most adults.

My point is that the mean girls are real--but what's also real is the sensitivity that teen girls have to the nuances of their mean-ness. As an adult, it's usually fairly easy to brush off criticisms and avoid people who you don't get along with. As a teen, the tiniest comment from an insensitive girl or boy can send you into a tailspin, and you may remember it for the rest of your life. Being a teen is so hard...the highs are higher, the lows are lower, and the mean girls are way, way meaner. At least I think that reading about those girls does make it a little bit easier to deal with them in real life. (At least I hope so.)"

[Final pic in Neesha's post is of Reena Virk; beaten by a pack of girls and murdered at age 14.]

ETA: Author Courtney Summers has an excellent post up on why she wrote about mean girls - great discussion in the comments.

New York's forgotten underground

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:02:12 -0800

I am working on a review of Martin Sandler's Secret Subway about plans and early construction of an 1860s subway system in NYC and while very cool on its own, it has gotten me thinking about underground cities in general and Julia Solis' New York Underground:The Anatomy of a City in particular.

Secret Subway is mostly about Alfred Ely Beach, one of those utterly brilliant and talented people who come up with amazing ideas that get thwarted by power-mad politicians (hello Boss Tweed) and others who are more interested in themselves then the greater good. (More about him here.) Beach's subway idea focused on pneumatics. His two block subway still exists, far beneath the streets (there are pictures in the book of the tunnels and waiting area unearthed in 1912) and he proved that his plan was conceivable - but like a lot of others who are overwhelmed by money and power (hello Nicola Tesla) his dream did not come to pass. The history is stirring enough - and certainly fodder for folks curious about inventors, engineering, New York and MYSTERIOUS UNDERGROUND CITIES!!! - but what intrigued me was that it is still down there, which of course made me think of everything else that is still down there and that led me back to Julia Solis.

Here's a bit about Solis from the publisher of her book of short stories, Scrub Station: Julia Solis conducts archaeological parlor games and investigates ruined urban spaces. As the proprietor of the website darkpassage.com it has been her pleasure to document deteriorating bathrooms, morgues and scrub stations in a variety of abandoned mental hospitals.

Solis is a photographer and New York Underground is full of awesome shots of the areas under Grand Central, the Old Croton Aqueduct and the old gang tunnels below Chinatown. She also has one of those job descriptions that I adore - basically she investigates "ruined urban spaces". There is so much romantic and dark and disturbing and appealing about that image, I can barely stand it. Things fall apart everyday and we barely notice. Solis notices, and she photographs and she writes and she remembers. The historian within me does back flips of joy over this very notion.

Here's a bit more from The Society of Creative Preservation which she founded:

Our aim is to instigate unique perceptions of New York's history by constructing narratives around the city's forgotten relics. Ars Subterranea encourages its audiences to interact with the city's neglected and ruinous locations by recreating obscure but fascinating aspects of its urban development. Our projects include art installations, history-based scavenger hunts, unusual preservation campaigns, and much more.

The tag line for the group is "We like to play inside ruins".

While I was reading Secret Subway I kept thinking of how many teens would read this book and be inspired and wonder about trying to find places like Beach's subway and I was so happy to know that at the very least they could go exploring on the internet. I can see this book being an opening to the kind of adventures Solis embraces (and yes - I know that trespassing is wrong and all that so don't trespass, yadda yadda, yadda). Mostly though I'm just happy to see Alfred Beach celebrated again and I'm very happy to know people like Julia Solis are out there looking, and not forgetting who we were and what we accomplished (or tried to) in the past.

Cities fascinate me.

[Post pics from Julia Solis and of Alfred Ely Beach.]

Draw me a life

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:07:42 -0800

Smithsonian has an excellent short article this month on artist Janice Lowry's illustrated diaries which has made me long again for some kind of artistic talent. Here's a bit:

From childhood on, Lowry filled small notebooks with daily musings and drawings. Then, in the mid-1970s, she moved to a larger format, 7 1/2- by 9 1/2-inch notebooks. For almost 40 years, Lowry—an artist best known for her intricate, three-foot-tall assemblages—filled the roomier notebooks with jottings and sketches. The pages contain everything from original drawings, collages and rubber-stamp images to observations about herself and the world, including the commonplace "to-do" lists many of us make: "pay bills/make plane res/get asthma med/Judi birthday gift."

One of the great disappointments of my life is that I can not draw a blasted thing. I tried when I was younger, I really really tried but it was clear from early on that without some serious instruction I was never going to get beyond the stick figure stage. (We were not people that had money for serious instruction, so you can imagine how I ended up.) Now collage though, well that is something I can do although I never really thought it was something serious or even artistic until I came across Dan Eldon's journals and pretty much had my mind blown in the best way possible.

I can't begin to wrap my head around what a loss his early death was to the world.

From Eldon I finally found out about Peter Beard (I know, I'm not proud of missing out on him for decades) and then I started seriously looking for illustrated books and journals and finding more and more wonderful writers and artists doing exactly what I wish I had always been able to do. (Oh Barbara Hodgson, how I especially adore you! And Bryan Talbot! And Ann Marie Fleming!) (More on Ann Marie Fleming by the way during the Winter Blog Blast Tour in two weeks.)

Anyway....Lowry's journals, minus the actual drawing, are accessible. And they present an excellent peek into her mind, both creative and mundane (we all have to go grocery shopping after all). I know a lot of authors who keep diaries and even "book diaries" where they keep ideas as they create their first draft. But I don't know a lot of authors who illustrate those diaries - even with collage.

Can I tell you a secret? I do that.

It's a lot of fun when you're paging through a magazine and suddenly see somebody or something that makes you think of a character. I didn't do this with the AK book but with the western one it has helped when I've come across a bit of setting in particular. And as for fiction - well, if nothing else it makes those guilty minutes with Vogue or Elle easier to justify. I don't know, maybe it all just appeals to that eternal fourth grader who lives in my head and dearly loved those moments with scissors and tape. And hell - if Louis Armstrong did it then it's good enough for the rest of us right?

Janice Lowry, totally one of my new heroines.

[Post pic of Lowry in 1983 at age 37 with some of her journals and an inset of one of her books.]

Three controversies; one bigger issue

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:19:35 -0800

Several controversies brewed around the lit blogosphere this past week and I started to see a larger connection that bugged me a lot. Let me know what you think.

First, Betsy had an indepth post yesterday on the Amazon VINE program. Essentially, Amazon receives ARCs from publishers and makes them available to a group of select reviewers, all of whom belong to the VINE program. They request the books they want to review from a prepared list and then are required to post reviews about them at Amazon (positive, negative, whatever but they have to review). The VINE reviews receive precedence on the page - they appear front and center while regular customer reviews will show up on the sidebar or behind the "read more" cut. Betsy raised some concerns about the whole program and process but the comments quickly devolved into "you're just jealous", and "I'm as good a reviewer as anyone else" and the ever popular "I'm just a mom and not a professional reviewer but busy parents can't read a professional review so mine is a good option".

Pause for brief rant:

Pretty much every ARC has a paper inside (or even a message printed on the book itself) which is addressed "Dear Reviewer". It is not sent to "Dear Stay-at-home-mom" or "Dear College Student" or "Dear Person who reads a lot". It is PR copy from the publisher and sent to a REVIEWER. If you receive an ARC from a publisher - whether sent to you direct or via Amazon - for the express purpose of reviewing said book THEN YOU ARE A REVIEWER. And if you are willing to accept the responsibility of writing an honest review of a book in a public place with the express purpose of swaying public opinion (i.e. letting folks know that you did or did not like it) then you should be doing this in the most professional manner possible. Suck it up and stop saying you just have a hobby. This isn't calling your mom and telling her you liked a book it is purposely writing something for thousands of people to see. Even if you aren't paid in cash, you are a professional reviewer, period.

End brief rant.

It should be noted that publishers send multiple copies of these books to Amazon for inclusion in the VINE program. (I can't help but think that money must change hands here - similar to funds paid to chain bookstores to get on the front tables.) Amazon then compiles the list for the VINE recipients to consider and review for Amazon's web site. Several commenters at Betsy's noted there were more than 250 books on the list - which I think is supposed to make everyone feel better but on the grand scale of books published each year it's a drop in the bucket. For a lot more on this though you need to read the comments to Betsy's post (50+ as I write this) and see how strongly folks feel about participating in it.

Moving on, the Walmart/Amazon book pricing war expanded to include Target last week as all three went after maximum sales and negative profit for ten big books over the holiday season. (Sears also jumped in offering store credit if you bought the books there.) Walmart started it, Amazon matched it and then a big tit for tat ensued with all three going lower and lower until we are looking at online presale figures of $8.99 for Sarah Palin's memoir, among others. Independents immediately saw this as a threat and possibly price fixing to boot and have asked the DOJ to look into it. For me what's problematic is that suddenly there are ten books - just ten - that everyone can get mighty cheap this year. These aren't books by unknowns either - it's Palin and Crichton and Grisham, etc. Big names. None of these sellers chose more obscure possibly breakout titles to push. They went with ones that were going to sell like gangbusters anyway trying to suck those customers in their direction plus other customers who might have thought twice about $25 for Palin. And just like that we get ten big BIG books for Christmas. And we lose the walk-in sales for brick and mortar stores who might have done incidental shopping like "maybe I'll get this for cousin Sally or Uncle Joe". Everyone's getting the big ten this year and that's it. Which is going to mean pubs will try really really really hard to court Walmart and co. in the future so they can get their book on the final ten for the next promo go-round. And to hell with hand selling the smart funny quirky book that maybe 1 million readers won't want but 25,000 would be quite happy with. We'll never even see that book because the dollars are all going into attracting one surefire blaze rather than a dozen literary slow fires.

And now controversy number three.

We all remember Scholastic Book Fairs from our childhoods. Personally I've never understood why Scholastic has a monopoly on the sell in the schools business and often wondered why local bookstores weren't just invited to come in once a year with a selection of all kinds of books, but whatever. Scholastic has done this forever. So they decided to include Lauren Myracle's tween title Luv Ya Bunches from Amulet and sent her editor a list of words to change in the text and this truly killer request:

The company sent a letter to Myracle's editor asking the author to omit certain words such as "geez," "crap," "sucks," and "God" (as in, "oh my God") and to alter its plotline to include a heterosexual couple. Myracle agreed to get rid of the offensive language "with the goal—as always—of making the book as available to as many readers as possible," but the deal breaker was changing Milla's two moms.

Scholastic defended what seems to be a mighty discriminatory request with this lovely bit of corporate double speak:

“Authors are often given the opportunity to make changes in the books to meet the norms of the various communities that host the fairs,” adds Kyle Good, a Scholastic spokeswoman, explaining that the title will, however, be available in the Scholastic Book Club catalog.

Yes, Kyle - blame the unnamed "communities" who might be upset. Don't go out on a limb and say it's your company making the call in the first place.

There was an eruption in the blogosphere over this one incorporating the GBLTQ and literary communities. (See two good posts at Lee Wind's and Little Willow's.) In just a couple of days an on-line petition was heating up and Scholastic suddenly had something more to say:

In an interview with School Library Journal, Scholastic stated that we are currently carrying Luv Ya Bunches by Lauren Myracle in our school book clubs. We also said we were still reviewing the book for possible inclusion in our book fairs. Having completed our review of Luv Ya Bunches, Scholastic Book Fairs will carry the title in our spring fairs for middle school.

Notice how they don't mention requesting Lauren to change her book in the first place? Nice attempt Scholastic but this is the internet century and the whole "we planned to do this all along" defense just doesn't work anymore. But good try, don't you think?

So, to recap: Amazon is highlighting certain books at publisher request, the biggest retailers in the country are pushing a small number of selected titles at exaggerated low prices and Scholastic - the only publisher to conduct book fairs in the schools - attempted to alienate the children of GBLTQ parents by pressuring an author into changing her book in exchange for the widened exposure she would receive through their fairs.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Cheap books won't do a thing to lure more readers if it's only ten generally accepted cheap books. And all the cries of "the more reviews the better" won't persuade me to embrace a program that highlights only certain titles as preselected by the publishers and bookseller in joint discussion. And as for Scholastic - well that's just so wrong I don't even know where to begin but I will point out that this likely is not the first time they have done something like this and one can only wonder what authors did change their text to get into the fairs in the past.

I wanted to point this all out to emphasize the many small ways in which book choice is constantly under attack. It's not just banning that is a problem, in some ways that is the least of our problems because at least it is obvious. We know who to fight and when. The removal of choice in places big and small is insidious however and it's easy to lose sight of but we need to be thinking about it and doing what we can to combat it all the time. That's what we have to watch out for. As an example, next month I have a column coming out on war around the world and it has eight books including fiction and non, a graphic novel and a picture book. They are set in multiple countries with protagonists of all ages and one is an anthology from a university press. In December's winter reading column I have seven books so far with two from Coach House Books, one from Unbridled, a memoir by an African American writer and director and Laurel Snyder's sweet middle grade adventure story as well. Both were months in the making and about as diverse as it gets character-wise. Diversity is key when reviewing I think - even if you are reviewing only one type of book (say Christian fiction) you can still be very diverse within that genre.

Diversity is key in reviewing and its key in book selling and its key in publishing. That's what we need to be thinking about, those of us who love books, and that is why these controversies matter a lot more than you might think. If we are all going to embrace the notion of "independent reviewing" then we have to step back and be independent. That means publishers do not choose, retailers do not choose and book fairs are not permitted to alter text to fit their vision of choice. It means we work harder at what we do so readers can choose from the largest possible selection of books.

No one chooses for me - and I hope that rule is the same for everybody else.

Books on the horizon

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:36:49 -0800

The new issue of Booklist arrived last week with many good books that sounded interesting. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. I recently reviewed The Fossil Hunter by Shelley Emling so I'm all about Mary Anning and quite excited to see what Chevalier can do with such an interesting subject. From the review: "The “remarkable creatures” of the title are both the fossils found on the rocky beaches of Lyme Regis in England during the 1800s and the fossil hunters, working-class Mary Anning and middle-class spinster Elizabeth Philpot, a London exile...When Mary finds an unusual skeleton unlike anything that has ever been discovered before, her work is brought to the attention of the scientific community, but what should be a heady achievement becomes a struggle for recognition from the male-dominated profession, one that ultimately pits the two women against each other."

Booklist gave Neverland: JM Barrie, the Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan a starred review, noting the many skeletons revealed about multiple famous people but Jessa pretty much found it impossible to read and linked to about the smartest and snarkiest takedown/review that I've read in a long time over at the NYT. So, I guess view this one as a sort of the Gawker version of literary biography and another example of why we can never read Peter Pan without recoiling in horror (apparently). I do love the cover though.

Louise Erdrich has a new one coming out, Shadow Tag. It was also starred, this time by my fabulous editor Donna Seaman: " The intensity of this exquisite, character-driven tale, its searing efficiency in encompassing the painful legacy of the Native American genocide, and its piercing insights into sex, family, and power are breathtaking. Irene America, of Ojibwe descent, hopes to complete her doctorate in history in spite of the demands of her volatile painter husband, Gil, and their three children: sons Florian, a secretive math prodigy, and gentle little Stoney, and daughter Riel, named after Louis Riel, a Metis resistance leader. Irene’s subject is the nineteenth-century artist George Catlin, whose portraits of Native Americans raise disturbing questions about exploitation. As do Gil’s erotic paintings of Irene, icons of violation born of his maniacal possessiveness, violent rage, and paranoia. Once Irene, who is drinking heavily, realizes that Gil is reading her diary, she begins writing entries calculated to push him to the brink. As their domestic civil war escalates, Irene remembers her mother’s stories about how a “soul can be captured through a shadow,” a vision with profound implications in this masterfully concentrated and gripping novel of image and conquest, autonomy and love, inheritance and loss."

A year ago I reviewed a great book on Catlin (Painting the Wild Frontier) who did some amazing portraits of Native Americans and the west. But this would be another perspective on him and Erdrich does write about crumbling families incredibly well. We shall see.

Total Oblivion by Alan De Niro. Now this sounds - well pretty amazing: "For 16-year-old Macy, the whole world has gone crazy, quite literally. Barbarians from antiquity have invaded America, while bizarre plagues and impossibly shifting landscapes ravage her Minnesota homeland. Together with her parents, sister, brother, and a possibly evil dog, Macy sets out down the Mississippi on an adventure that takes her into the smoldering ruins of St. Louis, aboard a wooden submarine that’s bigger on the inside than outside, and finally into the stone-skyscraper capital of Nueva Roma. All the while she dodges oil-men turned slavers, plague-instigating wasps, an albino bounty hunter, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, her scheming younger brother."

We will hopefully have an interview with Alan in the Winter Blog Blast Tour in mid-November.