2016 books - part 4
Lumberjanes Vol 3 by Noelle Stevenson and others.
Still fun, and a very important title in terms of being suitable for kids. Different artists for this collection which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. First story is all the girls and Jen telling ghost stories, which used different artists for those sequences. That was fine. But the artist who took the last two issues... I think she went too off-model and it just felt wrong.
Buy Lumberjanes to share with your kids, buy Rat Queens to keep for your adult self!
The Language of Goldfish by Zibby Oneal RE-READ
This is one of the titles from my middle school years that I re-read a number of times. It may have been the first novel I read that dealt with mental illness.
Carrie is in 8th grade and, to her parents and older sister, she is floating behind the rest of her class, not engaging in the right activities (they are a wealthy fmaily and the girls attend private school). The right activities being a fluttering group of friends, dances, and interest in boys. She tries to pull her sister back into their childhood world of whistling to the goldfish in the pond, but has negative results. She begins to experience what seem to be disassociative fugues or fugue states, particularly when reminded of sex.
She attempts to overdose during a busy party her parents are having, and spends about a month in the hospital. Her parents have told everyone she has bronchitis, which Carrie doesn't like. As she leaves the hospital she seems to have snapped into a calmer state and tries to get her family to accept that while she doesn't want this to happen again, she also doesn't want to bury it. It is part of her. She sees a psychiatrist every day and begins to work on coping mechanisms. One of the strong points is that Carrie just wants her family to accept that something IS happening to her, and accept that she is feeling literally crazy (and her dad is a doctor, COME ON).
It's not too dated a book (originally published in 1980), but I think it's a bit more than a stretch to suggest that simply not wanting to grow up could lead to disassociative states. Also, usually children that age (13-14) who are resisting moving into "normal" adolescent activities have a reason for that, if there IS a reason beyond "different people have different interests, get over it." If published today it might be assumed that Carrie is on the autism spectrum and her fugue states brought on by a sensory overload.
I was pretty bothered by the end where Carrie goes to a dance and then bequeaths the goldfish language to a little girl next door, telling her to pass it on when she outgrows it (reiterating that of course the girl will outgrow it when that's met with protest). The book also treats disinterest in dating as abnormal, which isn't a great lesson. Asexuality is one of a number of normal ranges of human sexuality, one that comes in many shades (asexual vs aromantic vs demi-sexual etc...). It may not be the most common sexual identity, but it is a normal piece of human diversity.
Alternative title: Affluenza Causes Parents to Ignore Cries for Help Over Fear of What the Neighbors Will Think.
Blackout by Connie Willis RE-READ
A very satisfying re-read of the first part of Willis' long WWII-based time travel book. Loved it just as much the second time, maybe even a little more actually. Just a brilliant read, with great commentary on history and how we study it (and how we reduce it down to so little when we shouldn't).
I need to read more of her books. I've only read the Oxford time travel ones and her novella Bellwether (which I also loved). STILL LOVE IT
America's Hidden History by Kenneth C. Davis
This is a small work of Colonial and early US history by the author of the "Don't Know Much About *insert subject*" series. They're supposed to be relatively unknown stories, and probably aren't in any of your kids history textbooks, but the scope is very limited and if you do much US history reading you'll know at least half of the material already.
Because the scope is SO narrow, I don't think I can recommend it. Go with Lies My Teacher Told Me or The People's History of the United States instead. You middle school/high school age children might enjoy using the material to contradict their teachers or put them on the spot, or just randomly impress them (if they have a good teacher).
Though for that last one you could also just give them Walt Kelly's Pogo comics (great for mid-century politics!), Rocky and Bullwinkle, and folk songs. The 10,000 Year Old Man song made my American Studies teacher do a triple-take when he asked us to name Civil War generals and I came up with General Hooker. MEH
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Lewis Herman
A serious look at the effects of trauma and how people recover. I would say the focus is a little heavier on child abuse, but it's relatively well-rounded. Herman discusses why one approach won't work for everyone and instances were received wisdom about how to treat trauma goes wrong.
Very good book, though a heavy read. If you're close to anyone who's only recently begun dealing with fallout from trauma I recommend this to get a better understanding.
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum RE-READ
My second favorite Oz book (my favorite being Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, the fourth Oz novel). Dorothy is on her way to Australia with Uncle Henry to help him recover his health. During a storm she is tossed overboard, clinging to a chicken cage. After the storm she finds one chicken has joined her and can talk, making Dorothy realize she must be in a fairy country.
This book introduces Tik-Tok, a mechanical man, the Wheelers, Princes Langwiidere who has 17 heads which she wears in turn, the Hungry Tiger, the Nome King, and of course Ozma who Dorothy meets for the first time. They're on a mission to free the royal family of Ev from the Nome King, one of my favorite characters.
Still feel sad that so many kids never read of the Oz books or only read the first one. STILL FAB
Under an English Heaven: Being a true recital of the events leading up to and down from the British invasion of Anguilla on March 19th, 1969, in which nobody was killed but many people were embarrassed by Donald E. Westlake
This was a fascinating and brilliant book, written by one of my favorite authors of comic novels. Perfect subject matter for him, as the events and actions within were frequently ridiculous and nonsensical. I'm just going to paste part of the dustjacket summary and some quotes for you, because that will best describe it.
For reference, this was published in 1972, and Westlake personally spoke to many involved and before memories had faded. Alternating italics just to help separate all this text I'm flinging at you.
“Life is real! Life is earnest!” said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but of course he had never been to Anguilla, a quiet Caribbean island so far off the beaten track it doesn't even run television commercials describing how isolated it is.
But Longfellow isn't the only famous person never to have visited Anguilla in the nearly 400 years the island has been a British colony. Charles Dickens, William Gladstone, Twiggy, Lord Thomson of Fleet, and Anastasia are just a few of the great names of history who have never had anything to do with the place. Even Christopher Columbus, who originated the Caribbean cruise, passed Anguilla by.
And yet, on March 19, 1969, this obscure island was invaded by Great Britain in a pre-dawn exercise involving over 300 paratroopers and Marines, plus two frigates, several helicopters and 50 London policemen. The invasion, under the code name Operation Sheepskin (which permitted a hostile MP to call Prime Minister Harold Wilson “a sheep in sheep's clothing”), secured the island with no resistance and no casualties, and was declared by the British to have been a famous vistory. But was it?
Donald E. Westlake, a comic novelist who had been content to invent his own absurdities, took a proprietary interest in the Anguillan affair, since he considered the British action in flagrant an unwarranted competition with his own comic fiction. After a study of the matter, he came to the conclusion that the actual winner of the Battle of Anguilla was Anguilla; only now are the British coming to understand the magnitude of their defeat.
“After a summer as jam-packed with incident as Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, the fall and winter of 1967 passed with placid serenity on the island of Anguilla, as free from action as a Saul Bellow novel.”
As Nigel Fisher said before leaving, "Our job is to try to find ways of reuniting Anguilla with St. Kitts.” Of course, immediately after that remark he also said, “We have no intention of being seen to be taking sides."
"What the Trinidad Guardian had in 1967 called “the most empty diplomatic threat in history” had now become a reality. Two months after British economic aid to Anguilla had stopped because of the end of the Interim Agreement, the British decided to stop all economic aid."
Anthony Rushford, the legal Counsellor with the Whitlock group, described it in this way: “It was like handing out oranges at a children's party. Mr. Whitlock's private secretary stood up and tried to scatter them {pamphlets} over the crowd in a perfectly good-humored way. They came down like great snowflakes. There was something quite comic about it. Nothing derogatory.”
Nothing derogatory. Handing out oranges at a children's party; nothing derogatory. Something quite comic, but nothing derogatory. … There was also nothing derogatory about Whitlock's refusal to ride in the cars Ronald Webster had had polished and spruced up, nor in his refusal to have lunch with Webster. SUPER GREAT
F*ck Feelings: One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing All Life's Impossible Problems by Michael Bennett and Sarah Bennett
This is a pretty good basic psychology book which largely focuses on managing expectations in order to have a less frustrating life. It's liberally dosed with profanity, which worked for me. It includes specific and general issues. The sections detailing unhelpful vs helpful responses to specific situations was very well done, I think.
The book does, however, fall into very lazy and pointless sexism which frequently spoiled my reading of it (women are 'crazy,' men are 'difficult'). I think he also largely ignores sexism and misogyny as a factor within relationships and society too, which makes the book less useful, and I believe his attitude about borderline personality disorder is outdated. I forget what exactly in the book made me think about this comic, but I felt he needed to read it: on the 'crazy' ex stories.
A Tangle of Gold by Jaclyn Moriarty
The final book in Moriarty's first totally-fantasy YA trilogy. After the second book I was very impatient for this one. Luckily I didn't have long to wait.
Moriarty gives us our regular, non-fantastical world, and a different existential plane ruled by flailing monarchy, with wandering weather patterns, and color attacks. The books make frequent use of a reference to the works of Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Lord Byron, and other greats. Moriarty is a tricksy author, and I think her books largely have a good balance of things the reader can predict and things we can't.
I will say the audio edition for this book was rather a fail, despite employing the same readers as in the first two books. In those books our main character groups are quite separate, they're not having true dialogue with each other. In this one, however, they get mixed up and one reader is suddenly having to do very different additional accents (mix of US and UK generally). While I'm not usually a fan of multi-cast recordings (when it comes to dialogue) I think that really should have been employed here. Also I think they changed the pronunciation of one character's name in this book which seriously grated on me.
Very good conclusion to the trilogy though. Moriarty is excellent as usual, and has a real skill for writing teenagers. The pure humor in Feeling Sorry for Celia and The Year of Secret Assignments do still trump all her other books for me though. SOLID
Still fun, and a very important title in terms of being suitable for kids. Different artists for this collection which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. First story is all the girls and Jen telling ghost stories, which used different artists for those sequences. That was fine. But the artist who took the last two issues... I think she went too off-model and it just felt wrong.
Buy Lumberjanes to share with your kids, buy Rat Queens to keep for your adult self!
The Language of Goldfish by Zibby Oneal RE-READ
This is one of the titles from my middle school years that I re-read a number of times. It may have been the first novel I read that dealt with mental illness.
Carrie is in 8th grade and, to her parents and older sister, she is floating behind the rest of her class, not engaging in the right activities (they are a wealthy fmaily and the girls attend private school). The right activities being a fluttering group of friends, dances, and interest in boys. She tries to pull her sister back into their childhood world of whistling to the goldfish in the pond, but has negative results. She begins to experience what seem to be disassociative fugues or fugue states, particularly when reminded of sex.
She attempts to overdose during a busy party her parents are having, and spends about a month in the hospital. Her parents have told everyone she has bronchitis, which Carrie doesn't like. As she leaves the hospital she seems to have snapped into a calmer state and tries to get her family to accept that while she doesn't want this to happen again, she also doesn't want to bury it. It is part of her. She sees a psychiatrist every day and begins to work on coping mechanisms. One of the strong points is that Carrie just wants her family to accept that something IS happening to her, and accept that she is feeling literally crazy (and her dad is a doctor, COME ON).
It's not too dated a book (originally published in 1980), but I think it's a bit more than a stretch to suggest that simply not wanting to grow up could lead to disassociative states. Also, usually children that age (13-14) who are resisting moving into "normal" adolescent activities have a reason for that, if there IS a reason beyond "different people have different interests, get over it." If published today it might be assumed that Carrie is on the autism spectrum and her fugue states brought on by a sensory overload.
I was pretty bothered by the end where Carrie goes to a dance and then bequeaths the goldfish language to a little girl next door, telling her to pass it on when she outgrows it (reiterating that of course the girl will outgrow it when that's met with protest). The book also treats disinterest in dating as abnormal, which isn't a great lesson. Asexuality is one of a number of normal ranges of human sexuality, one that comes in many shades (asexual vs aromantic vs demi-sexual etc...). It may not be the most common sexual identity, but it is a normal piece of human diversity.
Alternative title: Affluenza Causes Parents to Ignore Cries for Help Over Fear of What the Neighbors Will Think.
Blackout by Connie Willis RE-READ
A very satisfying re-read of the first part of Willis' long WWII-based time travel book. Loved it just as much the second time, maybe even a little more actually. Just a brilliant read, with great commentary on history and how we study it (and how we reduce it down to so little when we shouldn't).
I need to read more of her books. I've only read the Oxford time travel ones and her novella Bellwether (which I also loved). STILL LOVE IT
America's Hidden History by Kenneth C. Davis
This is a small work of Colonial and early US history by the author of the "Don't Know Much About *insert subject*" series. They're supposed to be relatively unknown stories, and probably aren't in any of your kids history textbooks, but the scope is very limited and if you do much US history reading you'll know at least half of the material already.
Because the scope is SO narrow, I don't think I can recommend it. Go with Lies My Teacher Told Me or The People's History of the United States instead. You middle school/high school age children might enjoy using the material to contradict their teachers or put them on the spot, or just randomly impress them (if they have a good teacher).
Though for that last one you could also just give them Walt Kelly's Pogo comics (great for mid-century politics!), Rocky and Bullwinkle, and folk songs. The 10,000 Year Old Man song made my American Studies teacher do a triple-take when he asked us to name Civil War generals and I came up with General Hooker. MEH
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Lewis Herman
A serious look at the effects of trauma and how people recover. I would say the focus is a little heavier on child abuse, but it's relatively well-rounded. Herman discusses why one approach won't work for everyone and instances were received wisdom about how to treat trauma goes wrong.
Very good book, though a heavy read. If you're close to anyone who's only recently begun dealing with fallout from trauma I recommend this to get a better understanding.
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum RE-READ
My second favorite Oz book (my favorite being Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, the fourth Oz novel). Dorothy is on her way to Australia with Uncle Henry to help him recover his health. During a storm she is tossed overboard, clinging to a chicken cage. After the storm she finds one chicken has joined her and can talk, making Dorothy realize she must be in a fairy country.
This book introduces Tik-Tok, a mechanical man, the Wheelers, Princes Langwiidere who has 17 heads which she wears in turn, the Hungry Tiger, the Nome King, and of course Ozma who Dorothy meets for the first time. They're on a mission to free the royal family of Ev from the Nome King, one of my favorite characters.
Still feel sad that so many kids never read of the Oz books or only read the first one. STILL FAB
Under an English Heaven: Being a true recital of the events leading up to and down from the British invasion of Anguilla on March 19th, 1969, in which nobody was killed but many people were embarrassed by Donald E. Westlake
This was a fascinating and brilliant book, written by one of my favorite authors of comic novels. Perfect subject matter for him, as the events and actions within were frequently ridiculous and nonsensical. I'm just going to paste part of the dustjacket summary and some quotes for you, because that will best describe it.
For reference, this was published in 1972, and Westlake personally spoke to many involved and before memories had faded. Alternating italics just to help separate all this text I'm flinging at you.
“Life is real! Life is earnest!” said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but of course he had never been to Anguilla, a quiet Caribbean island so far off the beaten track it doesn't even run television commercials describing how isolated it is.
But Longfellow isn't the only famous person never to have visited Anguilla in the nearly 400 years the island has been a British colony. Charles Dickens, William Gladstone, Twiggy, Lord Thomson of Fleet, and Anastasia are just a few of the great names of history who have never had anything to do with the place. Even Christopher Columbus, who originated the Caribbean cruise, passed Anguilla by.
And yet, on March 19, 1969, this obscure island was invaded by Great Britain in a pre-dawn exercise involving over 300 paratroopers and Marines, plus two frigates, several helicopters and 50 London policemen. The invasion, under the code name Operation Sheepskin (which permitted a hostile MP to call Prime Minister Harold Wilson “a sheep in sheep's clothing”), secured the island with no resistance and no casualties, and was declared by the British to have been a famous vistory. But was it?
Donald E. Westlake, a comic novelist who had been content to invent his own absurdities, took a proprietary interest in the Anguillan affair, since he considered the British action in flagrant an unwarranted competition with his own comic fiction. After a study of the matter, he came to the conclusion that the actual winner of the Battle of Anguilla was Anguilla; only now are the British coming to understand the magnitude of their defeat.
“After a summer as jam-packed with incident as Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, the fall and winter of 1967 passed with placid serenity on the island of Anguilla, as free from action as a Saul Bellow novel.”
As Nigel Fisher said before leaving, "Our job is to try to find ways of reuniting Anguilla with St. Kitts.” Of course, immediately after that remark he also said, “We have no intention of being seen to be taking sides."
"What the Trinidad Guardian had in 1967 called “the most empty diplomatic threat in history” had now become a reality. Two months after British economic aid to Anguilla had stopped because of the end of the Interim Agreement, the British decided to stop all economic aid."
Anthony Rushford, the legal Counsellor with the Whitlock group, described it in this way: “It was like handing out oranges at a children's party. Mr. Whitlock's private secretary stood up and tried to scatter them {pamphlets} over the crowd in a perfectly good-humored way. They came down like great snowflakes. There was something quite comic about it. Nothing derogatory.”
Nothing derogatory. Handing out oranges at a children's party; nothing derogatory. Something quite comic, but nothing derogatory. … There was also nothing derogatory about Whitlock's refusal to ride in the cars Ronald Webster had had polished and spruced up, nor in his refusal to have lunch with Webster. SUPER GREAT
F*ck Feelings: One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing All Life's Impossible Problems by Michael Bennett and Sarah Bennett
This is a pretty good basic psychology book which largely focuses on managing expectations in order to have a less frustrating life. It's liberally dosed with profanity, which worked for me. It includes specific and general issues. The sections detailing unhelpful vs helpful responses to specific situations was very well done, I think.
The book does, however, fall into very lazy and pointless sexism which frequently spoiled my reading of it (women are 'crazy,' men are 'difficult'). I think he also largely ignores sexism and misogyny as a factor within relationships and society too, which makes the book less useful, and I believe his attitude about borderline personality disorder is outdated. I forget what exactly in the book made me think about this comic, but I felt he needed to read it: on the 'crazy' ex stories.
A Tangle of Gold by Jaclyn Moriarty
The final book in Moriarty's first totally-fantasy YA trilogy. After the second book I was very impatient for this one. Luckily I didn't have long to wait.
Moriarty gives us our regular, non-fantastical world, and a different existential plane ruled by flailing monarchy, with wandering weather patterns, and color attacks. The books make frequent use of a reference to the works of Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Lord Byron, and other greats. Moriarty is a tricksy author, and I think her books largely have a good balance of things the reader can predict and things we can't.
I will say the audio edition for this book was rather a fail, despite employing the same readers as in the first two books. In those books our main character groups are quite separate, they're not having true dialogue with each other. In this one, however, they get mixed up and one reader is suddenly having to do very different additional accents (mix of US and UK generally). While I'm not usually a fan of multi-cast recordings (when it comes to dialogue) I think that really should have been employed here. Also I think they changed the pronunciation of one character's name in this book which seriously grated on me.
Very good conclusion to the trilogy though. Moriarty is excellent as usual, and has a real skill for writing teenagers. The pure humor in Feeling Sorry for Celia and The Year of Secret Assignments do still trump all her other books for me though. SOLID