The Porcupine of Truth by Bill Konigsberg

I host a reading challenge to read all the YMA books of the year. This year's co-award winner for the Stonewall Award (Excellence in LGBT Lit) was Porcupine the Truth by Bill Konigberg. With the completion of this book I have only one more book to read to complete the challenge.

The Stonewall Award selection committee said this about the book,

 In “The Porcupine of Truth,” an epic journey takes two unlikely friends into the heart of community, history, family, and themselves,” said Stonewall Book Awards Children’s and Young Adult Subcommittee Chair Marian Mays.

Carson and his mother move back to Billings, Montana to nurse his father who is dying from complications from his alcoholism. The day that Carson arrives in Billings he meets a girl his age, Aisha, who is living at the zoo after being kicked out of her home for being a lesbian. The two teens become instant friends and Carson invited Aisha to live with him until she gets her life settled. As they attempt to make some room for her in the basement they discover boxes which contain documents which Carson thinks would help his father understand the mystery of what happened to his father and we he abandoned the family many years before. With a little more digging the two new friends decide to go on a short road trip to follow up on a lead which might help them locate Carson's grandfather. The short road trip turns into a much longer one as clues lead the pair onward. As with all epic road trip novels, answers are the awaiting the travelers at the end of the trip, but those answers are surprising and unexpected.

The book is divided into four parts. For some reason, I had a hard time gaining any traction on the story until I reached part three, which is well over half way through the book. Carson's sarcasm and his seeming anger at God were a bit off-putting and frankly confusing. The porcupine of truth is what he says is his guiding principle of life. Carson should be a sympathetic character since he has basically been raised by his mother with a very neglectful, alcoholic father. But his sarcastic humor makes him rather unlikable. Aisha, who really ends up being the more sympathetic of the two, has a much bigger claim on anger toward God based on the reason she was kicked out of her home. Honestly, I am not sure why Aisha put up with Carson for their whole road trip.

The last two sections of the book make up for the the first two. In fact I was very appreciative of the information that was revealed, which included a bit of a history lesson. I won't tell you what is revealed because it will give the whole book away. No spoilers here. Let me just say, I now know why the book earned the book award for excellence in literature on a LGBT theme.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I read the print book from my own library.

Sunday Salon, April 10th

Be willing to stand out and be different!. Photo by D. Bennett.

Weather: Lovely. Earlier this past week we had record-breaking warm temperatures one day. It was 19 degrees warmer than usual. I know that is not a good thing overall but it was lovely for this time of year to be outside without a coat enjoying the sunshine.

Last day of our Staycation is today: If you have been reading this blog lately you know that Don and I stayed home this year for Spring Break. We decided to take day trips to discover the weird and wonderful of Western Washington.

It all started with a book: Washington Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities, and Other Offbeat Stuff by Harriet Baskas. The book highlights the weird and quirky things to do in the state by town and regions. We mapped out our plan to discover and explore close to home. (Click the links to see more about our adventures.)

• Day 1: North. Jimi Hendrix Memorial; Fremont district of Seattle (Lenin statue, Troll, Waiting for the Interurban, and a rocket); The Panama Hotel and tea room; Giant Hat and boots.
• Day 2: West. Karpeles Document Museum; a peanut butter and bacon hot dog; Java Jive.
• Day 3: South: Mima Mounds; Old Bordeaux, a ghost town; The Black Houses of Olympia.
• Day 4: North: Tulips
• Day 5: Slept in and worked in the yard, though about getting tickets to the Mariners home opener but they were too expensive. Stayed home.

  

  Anne is waiting for the Interurban

On life and death: I didn't post last week because I was in Eugene attending a memorial service for a long-time family friend, and my Dad's best friend, Charlie. It was a sad reason to gather but a beautiful and inspiring service to honor a man who lived his life for God and to be a loving person to mankind. Everything about the service was affirming and healing. If anyone arrived feeling broken, they left feeling whole.  I contemplated staying home so I could attend the memorial for the student who took his own life, which was the same day. I decided to spend the day with my parents at the memorial for their friend and I am so glad I did.

April is National Poetry Month. Today I wrote this little Rumi poem "There is a Field", on the sidewalk in chalk;

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

Books read the past two weeks:

• Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart---historical fiction; a book club selection.
• Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina---audiobook; YA. Set in New York in 1977. Disco is king but Son of Sam is terrorizing the city.
• The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos---audiobook; YA. Imogene's father disappears but she thinks she can find him using the tools he left her. Don and I listened to this book as we drove around for our Staycation adventures.
• The Porcupine of Truth by Bill Konigsberg---YA. I finally finished this book which I stated in February.
• Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach edited by Intrator and Scribner. Love it!

Currently Reading:

• The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters---YA. Historical fiction set in Oregeon. Progress 10%.
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton---my Classics Club selection. Progress 35%.

Library Week promotion. Just fun. See if you can keep track of all the books they show and mention.

Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach

Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach edited by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner is the second volume put together by the Courage And Renewal Center. These volumes are personal favorites because they not only include incredibly wonderful examples of poetry but they include short essays by teachers on how a particular poem has helped them in their teaching career. In the introduction the editors say that poetry is especially good at giving us revelations about our lives and about teaching because "poetry compresses meaning into charged particles of language and image. Poetry stirs up an inner conversation about questions, emotions, and things that matter." I would concur. since reading more poetry I have found it speaking to me at particular moments in my life when I need and am open to an inspiration.

But why are poetry and teaching such a good pairing? Poet Taylor Mali says this, "Whether teaching or writing [poetry], what I am really doing is shepherding revelation; I am the midwife to epiphany." While the Roman poet Horace said that poet's job is to "either instruct or delight." And T.S. Eliot said, "poetry can communicate before it is understood." Poetry, therefore, can help set the student up for learning.

As an educator I often feel like a lone wolf. What I am doing in my classroom, or library doesn't relate to what anyone else is doing. I couldn't be more wrong. I may be a teacher but I am also part of a school, a part of the whole. The lyrics to the song "Helplessness Blues" reminds me of this truth.

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me
                                                                             -The Fleet Foxes.

Poetry reminds me to be the best teacher (and librarian) I can be. Fernando Pessoa's poem, "To Be Great, Be Entire" is a perfect example of this, "Be whole in each thing. Put all that you are/Into the least you do."

Today I am inspired by the poem "Your Other Name" by Tara Sphia Mohr. I am reminded by poetry that I can be a "cauldron of swirling light" for my students even if I don't always feel like it. And when I am feeling uninspired, I should follow this poem's advice---

Read poems. Walk in the woods. Make slow art.
Tie a rope around your heart, be led off the plank,
happy prisoner.

Don't you just love this metaphor for plunging into the unknown and doing it happily? And notice here a poet reminds us that reading poetry can help us regain our love for the craft of teaching.

Lastly, today I want to embrace this blessing from John O'Donohue and his poem "For Presence"---

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
     around the heart of wonder.

Wonder. Isn't that what we want for our students? To experience a sense of wonder every day as they learn new things?

Today, as part of National Poetry Month, I encourage you to find a poem which speaks to your heart, that opens it to a sense of wonder.

All quotes are from the book-

Intrator, Sam M., and Megan Scribner. Teaching with Heart: Poetry That Speaks to the Courage to     Teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014. Print.

April is National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month, Poets.org

A few things I will do this month to celebrate poetry:

• 1. Write a poem in chalk on the sidewalk in front of my house
• 2. Go for a walk on Poetry Way between Owen Beach and the boat launch in Pt. Defiance Park
• 3. Write a blog post about the poetry book I just finished reading yesterday, Teaching with Heart
• 4. Make a display in the library case and the bulletin board of poems and poetry books
• 5. Make myself available to teachers who want me to come to their classes to cooperate with them on a poetry project
• 6. Read a poem-a-day (from this day forward)
• 7. Advertise Poem-in-your-pocket Day, April 21st
• 8. Host a Book Covers Poetry Project Contest (more on this later as I flesh it out)
• 9. Encourage you, my readers, to incorporate poetry into your life this month, too.

Your turn. How will you celebrate National Poetry Month? 

Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina, a book review

Do you remember when disco was king and everyone was crazy to dance in hot, stuffy rooms with disco balls throwing lights all over the room? I do. I was in college when the movie Saturday Night Fever ushered in the disco craze and the rest is history.

When I saw the title of Meg Medina's latest book, Burn Baby Burn, I just knew it had something to do with disco and the late 1970s and I was right. The year was 1977 in New York. "After a freezing winter, a boiling hot summer explodes with arson, a blackout, and a serial killer named Son of Sam, who is shooting young people on the streets seemingly at random" (Goodreads.)  Nora is seventeen and just wants to have the best summer of her life before she and her friends split up and go off to college. But it ends up being the worst summer ever with Son of Sam on a rampage, her brother causing huge problems for her family and community, and a mother who cannot make ends meet.

Meg Medina did a great job going back and catching the feel of the seventies and the disco era in Burn Baby Burn. She described the fashions, the problems, and the feel of this by-gone era to my satisfaction. I could picture everything---the platform shoes, the polyester shirts that men wore open to reveal chest hairs, tube tops, and glossy lip gloss. Even the movies of 1977 were very memorable: Annie Hall, Stars Wars, Saturday Night Fever, and the second Exorcist. It was fun taking a step back to my younger days.

What I didn't know, or didn't really pay attention to, was what was happening with the Son of Sam and his reign of terror in the New York area at the same time. Though it played in the background of Nora's life, I learned about the mood in the city that summer before he was finally arrested in August of 1977 as Nora and her friends were not allowed to go anywhere after dark, even sitting in a car.

The best part of Burn Baby Burn was glimpse we got at Nora's Latino culture, and the multi-ethnic neighborhood where she lived in Queens. One character was involved in the push for the Equal Rights Amendment, another was concerned with housing issues with raising rent prices. All the characters seemed real.

I hope that my readers will pick up Burn Baby Burn. They will learn what life was like in the not-so-distant past and be immersed in a very 1970s story.

And now for your listening (and viewing) enjoyment, "Burn Baby Burn--- Disco Inferno" by The Trammps, I love the bass line. It was a featured song in the wildly popular movie, Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta, which hit the big screen in 1977!

2017 Printz Award Contenders

1 / 35 books. 3% done!

Staycation, highlights day 4...TULIPS!

Today, after dropping our daughter off at the airport en route to Boston and her last grad school interview, Don and I continued up north to the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley. I'll let the photos of the day do the rest of the talking.

It was a beautiful day. The only semi-weird thing that happened was finding two banjo-playing musicians out in the middle of the field.

Next up: we stay home and do some work around the house.

Friday Quotes: THE MYSTERY OF HOLLOW PLACES

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---

Book Title: The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos

Book Beginning:

The bedtime story my father used to tell me began with my grandmother's body.

Friday 56:

So we weren't the happiest family in Happy Town. But I wasn't a gloomy kid, or contrary to my Dad's predictions, a creepy kid, and life wasn't so bad.

Comment: Imogene's father has gone missing and she is sure he left her with the tools to find him. The first place to start is to find her mother who left when Imogene was a baby.

Anne

Staycation, highlights day 3

Today, after a stopover at the GKHS library for a little work boxing up surplus books, Don and I drove south to explore more weird and curious aspects of our state. Today we explored the Mima Mounds, a ghost town, and the Black Houses of Olympia.

1. Mima Mounds

"Mima mounds (sounds like dime-a) were named in 1841, when a vast pimply prairie (the Mima Prairie) was discovered in western Washington during the United States Exploring Expedition. In the centuries since, the source of this strange landscape has defied explanation. A single field may be covered in a million mounds that are several thousand years old, yet no builder has ever been found" (LiveScience.)

It is really hard to get the full effect of the mounds from ground level so this photo is very uninspiring, but take a look at the aerial shot taken by the DNR below:

The mounds are four or eight feet high and eight to twelve feet in diameter. What a curiosity. No one knows what caused them and it is a big scientific mystery with lots of ideas what caused the mounds, but no answers.

2. Old Bordeaux, a ghost town

After driving around for a while and then wandering around in a forest near the Capitol Forest we finally found the remains of an old logging town, Bordeaux, which was abandoned over 60 years ago when it was logged out. All that remains is the ruins of the saw mill, a vault from the company store, the smokestack, and the foundation for a steam donkey. Take a look at this website for photos of Bordeaux when the town was a busy spot here.

The vault is all that remains from the company store. Notice the ferns on the roof and the graffiti.

The forest is taking the buildings back.

Pilings left behind can still be seen in the creek.

3. The Black Houses of Olympia

"Owned and rented out by a Gothic dentist (and bar/coffee shop owner) named Dr. Duane Moore, the Black Houses of Olympia have become a thing of legend. Supposedly, Moore began painting the houses black in an attempt to drive down property values throughout the city, and some say they form a pentagram when mapped out. Who knows. What we do know is that many of the houses have cryptic names such as the Track House and the Black Womb, and one of them features a mural painted by one of the members of Slayer" (Things to do in Pac NW.)

We don't know if we saw any of the houses with unusual names but we do know that we found several of the black houses as we drove around Olympia. Nearly all of them also had badly overgrown yards, which would also drive down property values. 

We drove past two other black houses, one was so overgrown we couldn't get a good shot, and the other was black but it had some orange trim, so we didn't think it counted.

Tomorrow we are heading up North again. After dropping Carly off for her flight to her last Grad School interview we will drive up to Skagit County to see TULIPS! (OK, not weird but wonderful.)

Staycation update, day 2, West

Day two, Staycation.

Destination: Tacoma and points west. We got a late start on the day and decided to postpone our trip south until tomorrow.

Documents related to the Titanic.

First stop: Karpeles Manuscript Museum Library. We have lived in the area for over thirty years and didn't know this place existed. This museum has original documents that are shared across a network of seven other museums across the country. Today's exhibit highlighted documents related to the War of 1812. It was a housed in a large building which was very dusty and dirty. It was quirky and odd, perhaps a treasure in the rough. We will probably go back when they change the exhibition.

Second stop: The Red Hot tavern for lunch (not weird) but what I chose to eat was weird. A hot dog called:

THE HOUND DOG

4.75

Sweet creamy peanut butter and 2 slices of crispy bacon. Trust us on this…

Yes. It was a hot dog with peanut butter and bacon. Yum!

Third Stop: Bob's Java Jive, a dive bar famous because it is in the shape of a teapot. We couldn't go in because it doesn't open until 8 PM nightly.

Highlights of Staycation, Day 1, North

Because my husband and I are stuck at home this year for Spring Break we decided to take a series of day trips to investigate the weird curiosities Western Washington has to offer. Yesterday we mapped out a full day of adventures which took us north of our home in Puyallup.

First stop, Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton to see
the final resting place of Jimi Hendrix

After his death in 1970, guitar legend Jimi Hendrix was buried in an obscure, simple plot. A few years ago, his remains were exhumed and relocated to to this large memorial his family built on the cemetery grounds with access from the street and room for the many fans who visit to park.

If you look really closely you can see lipstick marks on Jimi Hendrix' cheeks left by admiring fans.

At this point I cued up my phone to play music appropriate for the day on Pandora Radio.

First song: Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix

Next stop: Fremont area of Seattle, via the I-90 floating bridge.

Rocket

We parked near this circa 1950s Cold War rocket which was moved in the 1990s to become a landmark in the Fremont area of Seattle. At one time people could insert a few coins to make steam appear, making it seem like the rocket was ready for blast-off. A sign nearby says that it is tipped just a bit so that it's trajectory aims at Seattle City Hall.

Waiting for the Interurban

Created in the 1979, this Richard Beyer sculpture grouping is named Waiting for the Interurban and it is a favorite spot to decorate and personalize. As you see in the photo above, we (temporarily) added an Oregon Ducks jacket to a gentleman waiting for the bus.

Vladimir Lenin Statue

Moved to Seattle in the 1990s.  A teacher found it on a scrap heap in Czechoslovakia and paid to have it moved here. Lenin often gets decorated, painted, or dressed up. This has to be one of the weirdest and most unexpected sights in the city.

Fremont Troll, under the Aurora Bridge

The troll, made of steel re-bar, wire, and concrete is clutching an actual VW Bug which you can barely see in this shot. We hit a crease when one group of tourists were leaving and before another group arrived so no one is crawling on the troll at this moment.

JP Patches, the clown of early local TV fame



JP Patches was the host of a popular kid's show in the early years of local Seattle television. We saw this sculpture as we were leaving the Fremont District. Don parked illegally and jumped out of the car to get these shots.

Since we were walking around to see the sights in Fremont we didn't have any theme music playing.

Next stop: The Panama Hotel

Made famous by the book, On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

The Panama Hotel still houses items left behind by families who were rounded up in the Japanese Internment following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in WWII. We drank a pot of tea and ate shortbread and sesame seed cookies while listening to music of the era on 78 speed records, played on an old record player.

The Panama Hotel tea room wasn't quite what I expected but it was fun to feel like we were stepping back in time and learning about the city's past at the same time. In the photo above Don is looking through a glass panel to the items left behind by Japanese-Americans as they were being sent away. Many never came back for their things when the war was over.

Back in the car. Cue the music to the 1940s big band sound. First song, "In the Mood" by Glen Miller.

Last stop: The Hat and Boots, now located in Oxbow Park in south Seattle (moved here in 2003.) They were once part of a gas station and an obvious roadside attraction. The hat was the office and boots were the restrooms.

The weather held most of the day only sprinkling on us for a few minutes at the Troll. Here, our last stop of the day, the sun broke through the clouds and we had a glorious few minutes alone in the small neighborhood park with a huge hat and pair of boots.

On our way home we listened to Western Swing music. First song, "Bob Wills is Still the King" by Asleep at the Wheel. Plenty of slide guitar and fiddling to fill the car as we drove home.

Today: we head south: Mima Mounds, Black houses of Olympia, and Tiffany chandeliers.