bigbrotherreads

It's ALA Midwinter right now, obviously, which means lots of people are in Boston having an awesome time. I considered it, honestly, but couldn't justify going. Besides, this gives me more time to read 2009 books in the hope that I'll read the winners of the Newbery and Printz sometime before they're announced tomorrow.

Since my last post, I've read Eyes Like Stars, which I probably would have appreciated more if I could remember any Shakespeare I've read, and Flygirl.

I want SO BADLY to discuss Flygirl at length at some point. Specifically, I want to talk about war and passing, in conversation with Leviathan. Both books take place during a world war, where a girl's love of flying prompts her to disguise herself so that she can be a part of the effort. I liked Leviathan a lot (well, the Deryn parts of Leviathan), but despite the text's repeated assurances that she could get in serious trouble for masquerading as male, even the most tense parts of Leviathan I felt less anxiety about her being caught than at the idea of someone revealing Ida Mae isn't white during the calm moments of the story.

Anyway, it was good and I recommend it.

I also reread When You Reach Me, which I liked well enough on first read but absolutely loved on second. I feel like being a giant dorky fan of On the Jellicoe Road has made me better at reading a book closely. I mean, the structure of WYRM is less convoluted than the structure of Jellicoe, but I had a moment where- well, like in the book. The veil lifted for a minute. I am terrible with understanding time travel narratives in general (just ask the poor people who tried to explain it to me at ComicCon a few years ago after the Sarah Connor Chronicles panel), but I feel like this one clicked for me, which is huge. In fairness, I also give credit to Lost, because once you see Locke telling Richard to tell Locke something because he remembers Richard telling it to him, your brain breaks and then repairs itself as best it can. But mostly I give credit to Jellicoe, and to me growing as a reader, which I don't think is entirely unconnected. Since I started reading children's books seriously, I feel like my critical literacy has skyrocketed.

Right now I'm reading The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, and I'm hoping to finish both that and (probably) Ash before the awards are announced tomorrow morning. I have a half-dozen other library books sitting around, which I'm hoping I'll read even if they don't win anything. I'm not sure how much I trust my commitment to Sparkle Motion on this one, though. Last year, after ALA, I opted to take a break, and I don't think I even read Graveyard Book for a good six months, never mind all the honors. Plus, once THESE are done, I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It comes out, and then Scarlett Fever, and then of course Finnikin on the Rock, which I could not be more excited about if you paid me, and I should finish Looking for Allibrandi before I get to that one, and also I ordered a few out-of-print books from Amazon so I should be getting those soon.

The problem with books- and by "problem" I mean "aweosme thing," in case that is unclear- is that you never run out. There's always something else just waiting to grab your attention and refuse to let go.

For example, Calpurnia Tate, which is really a perfect companion to relaxing at home on a cold day in January. Even better, I would say, than my Lost DVDs, which is high praise right now, but also completely true.

I've been neck-deep in books from 2009. I've got a bunch from the Cybils- as a second-round judge, I got two gorgeous books sent to me from publsihers, and just looking at the other picks in the library motivated me to purchase some others, although I'm not mentioning which because we are supposed to be maintaining levels of secrecy re: the final results- and, of course, it's almost ALA time, so I'm in overdrive from that.

Let me tell you something, internet! Children's and young adult authors produce some amazing books. I mean, you probably knew that already, because I already knew that, but when I'm all of a sudden drowning in what different lists have picked out as the best books of the year I think it's natural to get overwhelmed with just how awesome everything is. I'm up to reading a middle grade or YA novel a day, give or take, and every single time I'm just blown away. Since January 1- well, let's say since January 5, because that's when I stopped spending all of my time sneezing and feeling dead- I've read Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr, Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Going Bovine by Libba Bray, The Doom Machine by Mark Teague, Claudette Colvins: Twice Toward Freedom by Phillip Hoose. Upcoming books from my shelf make me giddy, although I'm thinking I may take a break from all the new books to go for a few rereads of the best from 2009.

I've been assuming some of the awards will go to the most likely candidate. Pigs Make Me Sneeze</i>, for example, will probably get the Geisel, and I'd say The Lion and the Mouse has a near lock for the Caldecott- although, of course, last year everyone said that about Wabi Sabi. When You Reach Me is my pick for the Newbery, in terms of what I think will actually happen, although I enjoyed a few other middle grade books (Confetti Girl, for one) just as much if not more. So I'm hoping Confetti Girl gets at least a Belpre honor, although I don't know how likely that is, and out of the "likely" contenders for the Newbery which I've read, WYRM is definitely my favorite. I'm reading Flygirl by Sherri Smith right now because that was my completely random pick for the CSKing award, but I want to see if I actually believe that or if I've been swayed by all the discussions on the blogosphere about what does/does not count. I think Lion and the Mouse could be a contender here for the award for illustration. I would be pretty shocked if Claudette Colvin didn't at least get a Sibert honor.

I don't really feel like there's a standout book in YA that's definitely going to be Printz material, which is why most of the books I'm reading right now are YA. I was hoping it would clarify what I think, but no. I just keep squealing over how good whatever book I happen to be in the middle of is.

In short: This field is so great. So great.


(What? One post for children's books, one for reality TV. That's how it works.)

This is by far my favorite article on the Survivor 20th reunion party, because it is full of gossip and an understanding of its subject matter. The latter comes across in some ways as a lack of respect for the subject matter, and I don't feel that way at all, I think kind of in the same way that you can make fun of your own brother but no one else can. That article has a few typographical errors (Ethan Zohn, guys), but it also shows that the writer knows what he's talking about, unlike the articles that suggest Jerri Manthey was in season 1 or whatever.

But the truth is, I'm fascinated by all of the articles, because the party is really just a way to gather a lot of people at a place with an open bar and marvel at the fact that they've lasted (almost) ten years and (almost) twenty seasons. It's really hard to remember that ten years ago, this kind of reality TV wasn't even on most people's radar. Reality programming meant Cops and seasons of the Real World. In one interview, I learned that Sue Hawk's rats vs snakes speech was ranked in a list of top ten memorable speeches. They put her with Martin Luther King Jr. I don't actually condone that comparison (game for $1 million dollars: not the same as institutionalized racism!), but I can still see how it fundamentally altered the way that television is perceived by audiences, and that's pretty amazing.

I've been saving any pictures from the reunion party that I can find, in case the internet mysteriously swallows them, and I'm pretty consistently delighted. People are glad to squeeze a few more seconds out of their 15 minutes, and I'm really fascinated by how these people act once they've been on the show and know how they were portrayed and how people see them and are reacting to that. It's one thing to follow all of this on Twitter, but quite another to see pictures of people who backstabbed each other and vowed sweet revenge hanging out and hugging. Some people actually talk about how ashamed they are at former performance (Colby is horrified at how badly he did on All-Stars; Russell H can't believe he didn't win the million), but more than enough others just behaved in ways which consciously reflected who they had been, who they had been seen as, and what they wanted to be seen as now.

CBS reality continues to feel creepily incestuous; beyond Rob and Amber, who have a baby, and Jenna Morasca and Ethan, who are also engaged, Courtney from China is with Stephen from Toncantins, there are rumors of Sugar from Gabon and JT from Toncantins, and Eliza from Vanuatu brought James from Big Brother 6 as her date.

In February, there's going to be a Survivor special recapping the cultural influence of the show, and then season 20 starts. I'm really ridiculously excited about February television. Between this and Lost, I'm starting to have a Pavlovian response to any kind of image of a beach with water lapping against the sand.

I haven't updated here in a while, because I got a seasonal job at Barnes and Noble in the children's section. On the one hand: LOTS OF EXPOSURE TO BOOKS, YAY! On the other hand: LOTS OF EXPOSURE TO GERMS, LESS YAY! What I thought was a cold that lasted for close to two months turned out to be a bad case of bronchitis. Um. Oops?

I feel like I'll be a much more pleasant person to be around once I'm no longer made entirely of disease.

A lot has happened since I've updated here. Two months of exposure to kids' books (and let me tell you, the BEST PART of working in a bookstore is spending my lunch break every day reading kidlit)! The season finales of Survivor and Amazing Race! The fall and rise of Kirkus! My finally seeing a doctor!

(Some of these are more globally important than others.)

And now that I can spend more than 15 minutes without lapsing into a disgusting coughing fit, I can get back into blogging here.

Reality TV-wise, Twitter has been an amazing boon; I am drowning in gossip and commentary. I want to talk about last season of Survivor, because it's sparked a lot of discussion about what makes a good player of a reality show. The upcoming season of Survivor is going to be another all-stars season (heroes versus villains), and I've already started a post about what that means. I adore all-star seasons, because from an academic meta standpoint they're the most fascinating thing you can hope for. Jordan and Jeff from Big Brother are going to be on Amazing Race, which I hope will showcase their talents at not being able to tell time or spell as much as BB did. Oh, and the scandal about this season of the Bachelor (which I don't even watch)!

Children's lit has just as much exciting stuff happening. I want to start making predictions for the ALA Midwinter awards, because I predicted Jellicoe last year literally an hour before it was announced and was so freaking proud of myself you don't even KNOW. I read a few books that I kind of fell in love with and want to press onto everyone I know. The Baby-Sitters Club is being rereleased, which is kind of the epitome of joy for me, because those are my favorite preteen guilty pleasure series, but I am upset about the changes they intend to make. I have Thoughts about the Children's Literature Ambassador thing.

Plus I'm on the Cybils picturebook committee! That's pretty awesome.

Happy 2010, everyone!

Apparently it's been up for a few weeks now, but I just stumbled upon CBS's new former-Survivors-comment-on-current-Survivor-seasons page, "The Immunity Blog".

I love watching people who've played the game before comment on the game, because they tend to have very specific insights, viewing the entire game through the lens of how they played the first (or second) time. I don't disbelieve anyone who says that you can't understand the Survivor game until you've lived it, but I do think that there's really no way to understand anyone's gameplay unless you are that person and that person usually has a seriously skewed view of the game anyway. So it's fascinating to me on levels.

I can't tell if Coach parodying himself or being sincere. I SERIOUSLY CAN'T. Which I guess is what turns a good character into a great character, although I'm not entirely sure what it says about a person.


Still, Survivor cast members obviously still have a lot to learn. Sure, Hatch was jailed for not paying taxes on his $1 mill, but you don't see HIM arrested for using his profits to start a drug-smuggling ring, do you? DO YOU?

Big Brother makes me so proud and so ashamed, frequently at the same time.

You want to know why I deny all of BB9 except for the existence of Chelsia and Big She and Sharon's interactions with the guinea pigs?

THIS IS WHY.

Jasinski allegedly confessed that he had been selling thousands of oxycodone pills all along the East Cost over the past several months, and had been funding his enterprise with the $500,000 price he won from the “Big Brother Season 9” show.

Stay classy, Big Brother.

(This is particularly awesome because, ON THE LIVE FEEDS, he and Matty- who lives in Massachusetts, I should note- discussed their drug dealing. GUYS, YOU'RE ON CAMERA. YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT?)


[Yeah, I know, the whole "collaging book covers" thing came to an abrupt stop. I got new art supplies! I had to organize them into tiny perfect drawers! Maybe "one collage a week" is a more reasonable plan?]

Has anyone else read Dave Eggers's The Wild Things? I know I posted yesterday about acquiring the book. Right at this minute I am on page 83 (of 285- the beginning of Chapter 12), and I am having Thoughts and Feelings about it, and specifically the way Dave Eggers's book portrays childhood versus how Maurice Sendak does. But my thoughts are half-formed and I need someone to discuss it with.

Any takers?

Who is Max? What is a Wild Thing? Is it ever okay to eat someone's head? What if it falls off? Then can you eat it?

The movie's coming out later this week, so to get ready I'm reading the Dave Eggers book that's based on the movie that's based on the picturebook. (I got the normal hardcover, not the one with fur. Because I am not that creepy.)

I'm trying not have any expectations except for a good story, because it's not fair to the book. But there are so many places this can go on a meta-level. Part of me is infuriated that they need to label this "an all-ages novel," because I find that troubling in the assumption that most kidlit has a cut-off age. On the other hand, from a marketing perspective, it's genius, because a lot of people do think there's a cut-off age, and between the involvement of McSweeney's and the Junk food tees and everything, this is a way to at least get hipster adults interested, which I guess is a step, even if it's ironic love of kidlit instead of the pure joy I wish everyone had.

As I am less of a hipster and more of a nerd, I have been looking forward to this since I saw the presentation at ComicCon, and I'm currently trying to figure out if there's any way I could make myself a wolf suit to wear to the movie opening night. It could be mischief-friendly!

When I was in high school, my favorite movies were The Princess Bride and Heathers. I did my homework to these movies. I fell asleep watching these movies. I bought the scores to the movies and listened to them at school. Somewhere along the line, they went from "favorite movie that engaged me completely" to "comfortable background noise." They were reassuring and delightful. I would look up at key moments occasionally, but it wasn't any particular part of the movie I needed. It was having it there that mattered, and it was probably part of what got me through high school in one piece. I do not think I am permanently scarred from that.

This was my first reaction to reading Daniel B. Smith's article on Slate maligning Eric Carle's work. Actually, it was my second reaction. My first was to rant at my roommate for a while about how unreasonable and unfair it is. Apparently I love Eric Carle's work enough to get epically defensive of him.

Part of this is that I spend an absurd amount of time with collage stuff. I know how hard it is. Nearly all of my favorite artists work with mixed media and/or collage. What Carle did was amazing. Yes, because of the things that the author acknowledges in that post- how it's developmentally appropriate and how kids love it- but it's also GOOD. It's visually striking even to an adult, which is a way that grown-ups can consistently derive pleasure. The narrative isn't that interesting? Dude, it's not for you.

Which is not to say a parent reading the same thing every night isn't allowed to be bored, or annoyed, because s/he totally is. The problem comes from branching out to say that the issue is because of the author or book. Saying "Eric Carle... sucks" is basically sacrilege to me, especially when the logic is as follows:

Anyone who thinks that writing a good book for a 2-year-old is easier than writing a good book for a 32-year-old is deluded. The children's author has a monumental task. First, he must entertain, educate, stimulate the imagination of, etc., the child. That's primary. But he must also entertain, educate, stimulate the imagination of, etc., the parent. This is secondary but, for the continued sanity of the reader-parent, of great importance. Toddlers are strong-willed; they will choose the books they want to read, and the parent has to comply at pain of tantrum. Lesser writers manipulate this fact. They serve only the child. Pat the Bunny is like this: flat, rote, simplistic—cheaply exciting for the toddler, who is happy to know what's coming next and how everything is going to end, but a source of excruciating boredom for the parent.

First of all, STEP BACK FROM PAT THE BUNNY >:(. She did nothing to you and she serves a very important purpose.

But more importantly, there is a time and a place where I genuinely believe that one of the most important things about a picturebook is its appeal to adults. That time is the first few months of a child's life, when the reading is largely to demonstrate what reading IS and develop closeness between the reader and the read-ee. The sound of voices reading, the tactile benefits of holding the book-- when it's all about that, I don't really think it matters much what you're reading as long as you're reading. Once a child is old enough to have preferences, though, the book is for them. Appealing to the adult is a nice bonus, but when it's time for bedtime, the adult isn't there for the story. Adults serve as conduits between the story and the child, and by being that conduit it's possible to develop a stronger relationship. But the adult's primary response isn't supposed to be to the text, it's to the kid.

Which is not to say Sendak (who he holds up as the anti-Carle) is not amazing. Sendak is AWESOME, and he wrote and/or illustrated a lot of things that I love deeply. But the idea that one or the other is "better" by anything besides purely subjective aesthetic preference isn't just laughable, it's insulting, both to children who have favorite picturebooks and to adults who still enjoy children's lit.

No matter how simple the narrative supposedly is, as any academic can tell you, there are always layers to be found. Background noise can be static, but it can also provide benefits that, at the time, are completely unnoticed. I ended up writing papers in college about Heathers, and its portrayal of spectacle and gender. When I became really interested in fairy tales, I used the way The Princess Bride twisted tropes as a way to guide some of my research.

And then I went to grad school for children's lit, and while I didn't write any of my papers on Sendak or on Carle, I totally could have. In twenty years, so could Daniel B. Smith's daughter. She could revolutionize the field with insight we've never even thought of.

Or one day she could find a new book, fall in love with Mo Willems's illustrations, and never think about Carle again. That's okay too! As long as it's her choice to make.

I actually read this one when I was a camp counselor, and a bunch of the girls told me I had to read it and one of them loaned it to me. That entire summer is kind of a haze of not sleeping enough, making friends, getting into the kind of wacky adventures you think only exist in YA novels about summer camps until they happen to you, and reading this book. (Well, this book and Ella Enchanted, but this is the one that stuck with me.)

So of course people are trying to get it banned. It causes people joy.


I know that the cover art for these was redone, and I respect that- abstractly- but this was seriously SUCH a gorgeous cover. The fact that it was replaced makes me sad. This approximation is nowhere NEAR as pretty as the actual cover. But hey, it was on the list, and my water colors are RIGHT HERE, so I had to try, right?



(I know. I need to clean my scanner.)

Any suggestions for next week's theme?

...Hey, did you know that if you make covers and don't scan them they don't show up on your blog?

Oops.

Tuesday I took the Praxis, so did not actually do anything BESIDES take the Praxis

Wednesday was The Bermudez Triangle.

Thursday was My Heartbeat.

And Friday will be up once I finish it.

It took three people to convince me to read this one, and after I finished it I apologized to all of them for not listening sooner. I had somehow managed to convince myself, based on nothing but the cover, that it was going to be pretentious and I wouldn't want to read it. Spoiler alert: not pretentious. Just amazing. And it bothers me that I looked at a cover like this- which is GORGEOUS- and think "pretentious." I prefer it to the glossy disembodied-part-of-a-teen-girl's-body shots that are so prevalent, and I really adore the art. I think it completely fits the novel and I can't think of any way to better represent the story.

This is one of the queerest YA novels I have ever read, but I do wonder if the people challenging the book were more opposed to the blatantly non-heterosexual aspects, or the more subversive ones. Or if it was neither, and they were just convinced by the cover it was pretentious, and didn't ever get any farther than that.

I am likely the only person on earth who read this one not because of the romantic angles, but rather because someone mentioned to me that Nina was gone over the summer because she was at a summer academic enrichment program. So my biggest disappointment with this book was that it wasn't focused on that. (Look, I own my biases, okay?) Luckily, queer lit is RIGHT UP THERE on the list of YA Subjects I Love, so reading this wasn't exactly a hardship.

So I like to believe that the people who challenged this had the same misconception about the focus, and weren't upset about the QUEER content, but rather the fact that people are GETTING AN EDUCATION. I mean, that's what book banning is opposed to, right? So it totally works.

My copy of this book is helpfully "splash proof" to be a beach read. I don't know if I'd consider it that, although I don't know how much of my feeling is based on having read it in the winter.


Confession time: until I started collaging this one, I thought the hearts on the cover were just randm patterns that matched the colors of the title. Oops?

I had a conversation with someone (don't remember who) about this book, because it is probably my third-favorite of John Green's novels. (That is the same as saying "least favorite," I guess, except that implies I did not like it, and it's just that I like the other two MORE.) The conversation centered around why I clicked more with the other two books. I thought it was because I have this weird gut-level bias against any book which paints an academically-talented kid as not understanding that school intelligence does not translate to social intelligence, which is entirely less a judgment on the book than on my own inability to separate personal experience from literary. But the other person pointed out that Abundance of Katherines is very much a story about math, and the other two are very much more stories about words. And once they pointed that out, I will very much cop to the way that equations make my brain go on the fritz a bit. Once again, my issues with high school calculus rear their ugly heads.

This is not to condemn the book, but rather to say that it is my least favorite of John Green's books, and I still cannot even comprehend why someone might possibly want to CHALLENGE it.

The best part of these challenges, though, is that they make me go back to books that didn't like with me so much the first time, and I reread them and realize I actually like them quite a bit, not just in a "John Green books tend to be awesome!" kind of way but in a "This particular book happens to be awesome!" way.

So thanks to all of the jerks who are trying to keep perfectly good books from impressionable youth. Your rage is putting books back into my hands, and I appreciate your sacrifice!


Anyway, cover of the day:



In the interest of full disclosure, it's the cover of the audio book rather than the over of the book itself, because I was looking for a good picture online and did not bother comparing it to the book cover itself. Close enough, though, right?

When You Reach Me is the kind of book that you post about before 8 AM on a Saturday, and only then because you didn't want to get out of bed at 1:30 AM to say !!!!!.

This morning, I want to say... something. But I don't know what. Everything seems like it might spoil the book, and I would not want to spoil this book.

I have to reread it. And then reread A Wrinkle in Time. And then reread When You Reach Me again. Maybe then I can post to say more than just "I loved it, and you should totally read it."

But I loved it. And you should totally read it.

Because it's banned books week, and nothing is banned quite like these.

I find that I have issues with every level of the criticism of the Gossip Girl books. I don't love them, personally, but I fail to see how reading a book- any book- is wrong. Not as a gateway into anything, except a few hours of enjoyment. I hate basically everything that sucks the joy out of reading. I love On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta beyond the telling of it- as, er, anyone who's talked to me in the past ten months probably knows- but the idea that I'm getting 'better' enjoyment because it's more 'literary' makes me SO ANGRY. This may or may not be influenced by years of reading Baby-Sitters Club and Nancy Drew and Archie comics. They're what got me to this very mature place in my life! :D?

And censorship isn't just challenging/banning it in schools. There's also the self-selection of librarians, teachers, and booksellers of what they're going to have. Every time a librarian says they don't have Gossip Girl in their library because it's not the kind of thing they think kids should be reading, a little part of me dies, because it's SO classist and offensive. Banning books doesn't stop kids with money; they may CHOOSE to spend the money on something besides books, but they have that option. So basically banning books says that kids who can't afford it should be punished, and saying that adults can decide for an entire community of children, rather than just for their own child.

I also have issues with the seriously misogynistic criticisms of the books, but this is getting kind of long.




Taking the weekend off of art. Next week, it's all books that were challenged this past week.

People talk about this as, like, the First Real YA book, and I always think of it as, like, one of the middle chimps on those posters demonstrating how evolution works. It's not a YA book, but it's one of the steps towards getting there.

I can understand why this book was complained about at first, but I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the book being banned today. It's already made an indelible mark on the literary landscape, so banning it... what's the point? You can maybe manage to shield your three-year-old from gay penguins for a while, or protect your twelve-year-old from anything by Chris Crutcher, but... it's Catcher in the Rye, dude. You already lost the battle. Why fight it?



(I said some would be less complicated than others.)

It seemed appropriate, in honor of banned books week and all.

I can never decide which horrifying explanation of the plot of this book is my favorite, the one where it's all about sex or the one where it's all about the Holocaust. Either way, though, I love that neither of those is the focus of people's complaints: they're just horrified at the one picture of Mickey's full frontal nudity. This is just one of many reasons why book banning is ridiculous to me.

Although if the problem were either the symbolic Nazis or the symbolic birth, I probably would not have been so delighted over the story that well-meaning parents and librarians drew little black sharpie diapers onto Mickey. So maybe it all works out.



(I, um, possibly went overboard for the first collage? Maybe a little? I can almost guarantee there will not be this level of crazy detail every day. Probably.)

Now seems like an excellent time to mention that I'm one of the Round II judges for fiction picturebooks in this year's Cybils (that's Children's and Young adult Bloggers' Literary Awards).

To say I'm excited is putting it mildly.

So you know, it was one thing having this blog when it was just to talk about my grad project. But now that I'm branching out, I feel like there's an obvious question.

What is this blog bringing to the kidlitosphere that you can't get anywhere else?

Well, a bunch of things. But since I'm pretty sure my wit and charm aren't really selling points across the internets, and also because I just moved into a new place and don't have a job [side note: hire me! I'm witty and charming!] and need decorations and like to collage, I'm going with this:

Every day, I'm going to do a small cut-paper collage of a different children's book cover. Each one will be done on a 4x6 index card, and it will go on the wall above my work area. (I will have to relocate what's currently up there, which is a cardstock representation of Adam Rex's Guide to Boovs, but those should fit elsewhere just as well.)

Everything beyond that is up to you. Any suggestions for book covers? Should I only do books I've read? Books I like? Books that have critical acclaim? For books with multiple editions, should I do the covers I like best or the covers I own or the covers that are easiest?

Guide me, kidlitosphere! I want to bring something into your lives!