Your Own, Sylvia: a Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

Sylvia Plath poetry needs to be spoken out loud and listened to.
Her words are sharp as diamonds – a dark necklace that sparkles and cuts at the same time. It is not for the faint of heart.
In 1973, the year I was 20, I was introduced to her work through The Bell Jar.  I read it out loud while traveling with a friend from Kamloops to Vancouver. We were both hooked. I couldn’t stop coming back for more. I read everything of hers I could get my hands on.

This book about her life came to my attention as a runner up for the Michael Printz award (an award for best young adult novels - if you read nothing else, read the books on this list)  
Your Own Sylvia has been around for a while, but I recently found it as an audio book and got it.

I just finished it.

I loved it.
 Hemphill tells Sylvia’s life story in verse. While it is fiction, it is based on real events and real characters. The reader (or in my case) listener gets to know her through the different poetry and different voices of these many characters.  Like Sylvia's life, this book will take you on an emotional roller coaster.  
I was completely enthralled.  
I loved for her.
I hated for her.  
I wept for her. 
Most of all, 
I feared for her.

I loved it.
I learned much more about Sylvia Plath’s life, but at the same time came away wanting to know more.
I was introduced to different categories of poetry. I want to go back and reread Plath’s work to find them. 
I came to understand more profoundly what it meant to be a woman - an incredibly brilliant women during the 40's 50's and 60's.  If she were alive, she would be a year older than my mother.  I am left full of questions to ask my mother about her experiences growing up in those times.

This is a truly glorious book. But alas, not one I will get for our elementary school library. I will however be getting one for my own bookshelf.
I loved it.

Celebrating Freedom To Read

Because it's Freedom to Read Week, here are some of my favorite banned or challenged books.

As parents with small children I don’t know what we would have done without Maurice Sendak. My boys loved Where The Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen. That meant that my partner and I read them over and over again. The first is the story of a boy who gets angry with his mother and imagines running away to land where the wild things are. In the Night Kitchen is the charming story of a boy visiting a bakery in the middle of the night.


Another glorious picture book is Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola. All the Strega books are delightful tales of an Italian witch. In this one, Big Anthony, her assistant, gets into trouble with her magic pasta pot.

Crow Boy by Taro Yashima is the story of a boy who overcomes the prejudices of his classmates when they discover his special abilities.

A large number of what we now call classics continue to be challenged – titles like Charlotte’s Web by EB White. This story of friendship between Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider, is truly exquisitely written. When I was in grade 5, my teacher read it to us at school. It is the first (and almost only) recollection I have of any teacher reading a book out loud.




Katherine Paterson, who isn’t afraid to tackle difficult subjects, has at least two books on the list.  Bridge to Terabithia is the story of two friends who create a magical world and then one of them dies in a tragic accident. The Great Gilly Hopkins is the powerful story of a girl in foster care. My nephew’s teacher read it to his class. He came home at the end of each day and told his mom all about it. It was the book that got him excited about reading novels.



Lois Lowry has quite a few books on the list as well. I love all the Anastasia books and managed to get a number of girls hooked on books with her adventures. Two of them, Anastasia Krupnik and Anastasia at Your Service are on the list. Anastasia is the kind of daughter I would have loved and been proud of. Another book by Lowry is The Giver, a dystopian novel about a young man who comes to realize the dark underbelly of his society.



Jerry Spinelli is another of my favorite writers who has some great reads on the list. Maniac Magee is the story of boy who becomes a legend in his own time. It reads like poetry. Frindle and Loser are also there.

One of my all time favorite books, The Watsons go to Birmingham – 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis,is on the list. It is the story of a black family from Flint Michigan who go to visit their grandmother in Birmingham at a time when white people were bombing black churches. It is the story of how their lives are forever changed from the events of that summer.

Most of the characters in these novels cope with real issues and problems. They are the kinds of books that foster creative and critical thinking.They also happen to win awards

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

WOW!
Ship Breaker hooked me in the first paragraph. I remained horrifically spellbound throughout. Now that I am finished, it still won’t let me go.
It is dark, depressing, and desperate, forewarning an all too plausible future. Even more distressing, it is one that exists, even now, in places on our planet.
The futuristic world of the novel is set in the Gulf of Mexico, a landscape reconfigured by the ravages of global warming. It is a world run by feuding corporate clans, a world where the divide between rich and poor has become catastrophic. The 99% live in abject poverty across the globe. Oil tankers have been replaced with more efficient, environmentally friendly hydrogen powered clipper ships. It is a world where human beings have been modified using the genetics of other animals to create a breed of half men.
Nailer, the main character, lives with his abusive father, Richard Lopez, in a shack on the beach. Nailer and his crew work to salvage copper wires from the abandoned ships. They work in dirty, dangerous conditions for little pay. If their existence is bleak, their future is bleaker still.
Nailer survives a near fatal accident and betrayal by a fellow crew member. Then a ‘city killer storm’ hits the community. In its wake Nailer and his friend, Pima, discover their ‘lucky strike’ - the wreck of a clipper ship. In the process of removing enough wealth to keep them rich forever, they come upon a survivor, Nita. Nita is ‘swank’ - a member of the wealthy clan that controls their lives. Caught up in a power struggle between rival clans, her ship was chased into the ‘city killer storm’ to escape her father’s enemies. Pima and Nailer rescue her, but before the three young people manage to get themselves to safety, are discovered by a crew of scavengers led by Nailer’s evil, drug-addled father.
Pima’s mother, Sadna, and her crew, rescue them. In an attempt to escape from Richard Lopez and enemies of Nita's father; Nailer, Nita and the half man, Tool, jump a moving train and set out to ‘Orleans’ in search of a ship still loyal to Nita’s shipping clan.
Don’t fret, there is much more before the story comes to a realistic and satisfying conclusion.
Ship Breaker is written from a guy’s perspective, but it won’t deter girls from complete engagement. It is a fabulous adventure full of ample action and suspense. But it is so much more. It is a book that creates situations where the reader is forced to contemplate deeper existential dilemmas. It engages us in the struggle to do what is morally right in spite of great temptation. It examines what constitutes family and loyalty. It scrutinizes organ donation and environmental degradation. It seduces us into exploring what it means to be human.
Ultimately, it may well be a terrifying harbinger of what is on the way for much of humanity.
Fans of Little Brother, The Hunger Games and The Maze will surely enjoy it. Because of the violence, I wouldn’t recommend it for students younger than 11 or 12.
I'm ready for The Drowned Cities, the sequel to this one.

The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

This book has been in the library for some time, but the cover turned me off. I should have known better since I loved Dust, one of Arthur Slade’s earlier works. It‘s my increasing fascination for steam punk that made me decide to give this book a try.

I was not disappointed.

Rumors of an extraordinary creature sent Mr. Socrates to a Gypsy freak show where he discovered a malformed, grotesque infant inside a cage. Disappointed, he was turning to leave when the child managed to shape shift his features to make himself look less hideous.

Mr. Socrates purchased the child and brought him to England were he was raised to be a secret agent. Two caretakers, his nanny, Mrs. Finchley, and Tharpa, his martial arts instructor, accepted him as he is. By the age of 14 Modo, can transform his body and facial features for periods of time.

He is tested by being dropped of in the center of London with nothing but the clothes on his back. It is the first time Modo has been out of his house, never mind such a large city, yet he survived and created employment for himself as a finder.

Then a young woman asks him to find out what her brother is up to when he goes out at night. Modo follows the young man to a house but in his attempt to infiltrate the group, is exposed. Following a brief encounter with strange steam powered super men and the evil Miss Hakkandottir and her robotic hand, he is chained to a wall and left to die in a burning building.

He barely escapes and manages to make it back to his room. When he tracks down the young woman who sent him on the quest it turns out that she is also one of Mr. Socrates secret agents.

Octvia and Modo are caught up in the middle of a struggle between Mr. Socrates and his Permanent Association, and The Clockwork Guild run by Mrs. Hakkandottir and an evil genius scientist, Dr Hyde.

Children all over London have gone missing - kidnapped by Dr. Hyde to be used as experiments for his nefarious purposes.

Then Mr. Socrates and Tharper go missing and it is left for the two children to save the day.

I was drawn into the book from the first  because of the air of mystery. What I ended up really enjoying was how well Modo and Octavia are developed as characters. I also loved the adventure, the suspense, and of course the hint of romance.

Can’t wait to get my hands on The Dark Deep, the next one in the series.

If you want to find out more, check out the website where you can read and or listen to parts of the book and or watch videos.

http://www.hunchbackassignments.com/

Organizing the Book Shelves.....

Just for fun....

Thanks to Maryanne for sending me the link to this video.

We won't be doing this at Dickens' library any  time soon!

Icefall by Matthew J Kirby

Icefall by Matthew J Kirby

I didn’t love it, but I liked it a lot. It was indeed a fine read.

It is about betrayal. It is about telling stories. It is about becoming who you are meant to be. It is about looking below the surface to find people as they really are. It is a suspenseful mystery.
There, that sounds good doesn’t it?
It is beautifully written. Viking history and sense of place in time are elegantly portrayed.
“The fjord is freezing over. I watch it from the cliff near our hall, and each day the ice claims more of the narrow winding of ocean. It squeezes out the waves and the blue-black water, while it squeezes us in. Just as Father intended it to. Winter is here to wall us up, to bury us in snow and keep us safe.
Today, there is a cold wind that bears no other smell but the ghostly scent of frost. I feel it through my furs and woolen dress, down to my skin…
All of the sky looks like a burnt log in the morning hearth, cold, spent, ashen.”
Those snippets are just from the first few pages!
Solveig and her two siblings, Asa and Harald, have been sent by their father, the king, to a remote fjord for their own safety. As winter encroaches and their food dwindles, they wait for a summons home. When a ship finally arrives, it carries a small contingent of berserkers who have been sent to keep them safe throughout the winter. Alric, the skald, (story teller) has accompanied them.
Solveig is the middle child and a girl. Asa, her older sister, is valued for her beauty, and Harald, her younger brother, because he is the heir. Plain Solveig is seen by herself and her father as having no value.
Then Alric takes her on as an apprentice skald and Solveig starts to come into her own power and confidence.
As winter advances Solveig’s ominous dream appears to be coming true. Terror seizes them as they face poison, sabotage and treachery. The royal family have no idea who they can trust.
There are stories within stories inside this book. I loved the seamless integration of Norse Myth into the main body of the tale. I loved the adventure. I loved the characters. I liked that even the villains were complex characters.
I loved the ruminations on the truth of stories. “A story is not a thing. A story is an act. It only exists in the brief moment of its telling… I begin to let myself believe my own story, that my words can summon shield-maidens. That my stories can shape the world…” 
 
I wanted to like this book more than I did. The reviews were great - I was prepared to be wowed. Perhaps that was the problem. Nothing really lives up to such high expectations. In spite of all this, I might even reread this one.

The Misfits, Totally Joe, and Addie on the Inside by James Howe

The Misfits, Totally Joe, and Addie on the Inside by James Howe

The Misfits and Totally Joe are both great novels, but in Addie on the Inside, James Howe has surpassed himself! These books are not sequels but rather companion books that enable us to know more about the characters and the events that shaped them.
I brought The Misfits into the library a number of years ago because I was fed up with hearing "that's so gay", or "you're so gay" used as insults.  I thought that if students had some connection with someone who is gay, even if it was through literature, it might change their attitude.  Of course just bringing this book into the school hasn't been all that has happened since then, but I am happy to say that I rarely hear that kind of name calling these days.

The Misfits is the story of four middle school kids who call themselves the gang of five. Bobby is chubby. Addie is tall and very smart. Joe is gay. Skeezie is a born again Elvis. None of them fit in with the regular school population and have to deal with teasing and harassment because of who they are. They create their own political organization, the No Name Party, for the grade 7 elections. Its purpose it to put an end to name-calling.
Misfits is narrated through the eyes of Bobby. It is hilarious, honest and painful. While the political machinations play a significant part of the story, it is also the story of a boy trying to make sense of what is going on around him.  Bobby is close to his father since his mom died when he was eight. Her death has left its own kinds of scars on both of them. in this book Bobby grows and matures.  He enters into his first romantic relationship. Eventually Bobby surprises us and himself with his own passion and confidence.

Totally Joe, written as an ‘alphabiography,’ is Joe’s interpretation of the events of the year. At times Joe struggles with being a boy, yet not a boy boy like his brother, Jeff. However, most of the time he is a confident character full of energy and optimism. We get to know Joe as he embraces the joy and heartache of his first romance. We are there with him as he tries to deal with ongoing homophobic harassment.  There are some who think Joe’s story of coming out and acceptance by his friends and family is idealistic.

I think it is about possibility and what should be.

And now the long awaited story of Addie has arrived! About all I can really think to say is WOW! Misfits was written in a relatively classic novel style, then Joe’s story was in a journal format, and Addie’s perspective is revealed through poetry.
In Addie on the Inside, James Howe has done a wonderful job illuminating the girl behind the girl we read about in the first two books. Addie is strong, outspoken, and confident on the outside, but behind the scenes is a girl struggling with some of the usual teenage angst - body image, peer pressure, and her first romance. Yet there is much more to Addie than that. She worries about the state of the world: global warming, homelessness, poverty, war, and “how in the world the world will ever be okay.” Not only does Addie worry, she has the courage to do something to change the way things are.

While the other books focus more on the male protagonists, in this one, the actuality of how girls bully and harass one another is exposed. In spite of everything she has to deal with, Addie remains smart, sensitive, and secure in who she is.

I Am Who I Say I Am

“I am a girl who is growing up
in my own sweet time,
I am a girl who knows enough
to know this life is mine.
…
I’m a worrier, I’m a warrior,
I’m a loner and a friend,
I’m an outspoken defender
of justice to the end

I’m the girl in the mirror
who likes the girl she sees,…” page 201


Now I guess we just have to wait for Skeezie’s take on things.