Six Degrees of Separation: Reasons to Stay Alive

Six Degrees of Separation with Matt Haig's book Reasons to Stay Alive.

We start here:

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Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

Is part memoir, part self-help about depression and anxiety

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The Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

Is also part memoir and part self-help on the topic of manic-depression.
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Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

A fictional account of a boy who is deeply depressed and mentally ill, based partially on the author's son's experiences. It contains illustrations created by the son while in the the depth of his mental illness.
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Stitches by David Small

Is a graphic novel about a boy who develops cancer because of unnecessary medical treatments given him by his father at the insistence of his mentally ill mother.
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Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Is a YA novel where the main character also gets unnecessary medical treatment at the hands of an unstable mother.
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The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten
Is another YA book. The main character has OCD and his mother is mentally ill but he gets help for his condition with his therapy group where the therapist encourages the members to embrace the persona of super heroes.
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 Passing for Normal by Amy Wilensky
Part memoir, part self help book about living with OCD and Tourette's Syndrome.
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 Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

We are back to the beginning with this part memoir, part self-help book about mental illness.
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Give it a try. It is fun.
I haven't read REASONS TO STAY ALIVE but I have read all the other books.
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Sunday Salon, September 13

© Steven Pavlov / http://lovingwa.blogspot.com/, via Wikimedia Commons

Weather: today it is drizzling rain; yesterday it was beautiful and warm, the last gasp of summer.

Last Adventure Monday of the summer: Last Monday (Labor Day) Carly, Don, and I drove up to the Mt. Rainier National Park. We entered the park via a not oft used passage and drove sixteen miles on a washboard of a road just to see Mowich Lake. We got there mid afternoon and took a short hike around most of the lake.  Occasionally Mt. Rainier would peek her head out of the clouds to reflect into the lovely, clear mountain water of the lake. At the point pictured above we watched a pair of otters frolicking in the water. It was our last adventure Monday of the summer and we all rejoiced in God's beautiful nature.

Muffy, taken in our backyard this past June. Gotta love those ears.

Update on Muffy: On Friday morning Muffy was unable to get out of her crate because her back legs were paralyzed. By evening she was no better so we took her to an emergency veterinarian clinic in Tacoma that has a neurologist on staff. Yesterday they did an MRI on Muffy and found that she had a ruptured disc and some related bleeding in her spine. With our approval (and credit card on file) they operated on her last night, removing the ruptured disc and cleaning up the area. The surgeon said she was pleased with the surgery and hopes for a good outcome. Now we wait. Will Muffy regain mobility in her back legs? Only time will tell. Yesterday was a very weepy day as we all had to confront the eventual mortality of our beloved pet.

Back to school: Tuesday was the first day of the 2015-16 school year. At this point the majority of my time has been spent getting stuff for staff and students like iPads and other technology and TEXTBOOKS. It is mind-numbing, tedious work. Thankfully the end is in sight for this aspect of my job as we only have a few more days of textbook checkouts.

Rotunda at UVA, photo source Wikipedia

Don in Virginia: Don left this morning for a week-long JAG course in Charlottesville, Virginia. I am jealous. The last time he was there I was able to join him for a few days. The area is so beautiful and historic. We visited the University of Virginia and I became obsessed with the idea of one of my daughters attending there.  As you know, that didn't happen. Oh well... it was a lovely thought.

Currently reading:

• Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge. Part paranormal, part horror. A good book for the Fall.
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Making good progress at 64%.

I finished reading:

• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. FINALLY! I hope to post a review later today or tomorrow.

This makes me happy today: The Piano Guys mash up Bach and The Jackson Five.

  

Have a good week!

The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith

How does one write a review for one of the weirdest, most brilliant YA books ever written? I have hemmed and hawed over this question for weeks and finally give up.  I have no idea. I'll just write a little and call it good and hope that my efforts thrust you in the direction of Andrew Smith's books. OK?

A little about the author:
     Andrew Smith is a high school teacher in California. He writes in the morning before a full day of teaching. Even though he could give up teaching to pursue writing full-time, he loves the kids too much, so he continues on with his day job. Pretty cool, huh? I understand that other YA authors love to do book events with him because his students show up! I'd love to witness that.
     His book Winger, my first of his, is semi-autobiographical. Apparently Smith skipped a few grades and had lots of problems because of it.  He also had a very unhappy, or more correctly, an unsafe childhood with abusive parents. They did not encourage his dream to be a writer and he was often beaten. In Winger the main character is in a private school where he has skipped two grades so he is smaller and younger than all his classmates.
     Smith was discouraged by reviews of his early books which criticized his work. He resolved to forget about publishing and just write for himself. The product of that decision was Grasshopper Jungle, a highly awarded book published last year. Thankfully he didn't stick with his decision to no longer publish his works.

What people say about Smith and his book The Alex Crow: (Goodreads)

• "Andrew Smith, I'd read your goddamned grocery lists if they were publicly available. LOVE."-Jules
• "When people were defending Andrew Smith, one of the things most often said was that he writes books for teenage boys. I actually disagree. I think Andrew Smith writes books about teenage boys."-Shaun
• "This. Was. So. Strange. Like??? How am I supposed to review this??? I THINK I liked it. In some parts. I mean, it was definitely genius."-Emily
• "I think at this point it's safe to say that Andrew Smith may be my favorite living author. No other writer more accurately GETS the teen male voice so perfectly, with all of the frustrations and goofiness and masturbation jokes and swear words and whatnot. Not only that, but Mr. Smith seems to understand that being a teenage boy frequently sucks." -Stewart

What is the book about?
      This is a very hard question to answer. Let's see, first I should say there are five story-lines that all converge at the end of the book. It doesn't seem possible but it does happen and all the parts are drawn together.

• A young orphan from a war-torn country, Ariel, is adopted and brought to America
• In 1880 a ship is stuck in the Arctic ice and while they are trapped the men discover a new being/creature.
• A bio-engineering program which has a goal to de-extinct animals
• A camp for tech-addicted teens
• A mad bomber who hears Joseph Stalin in his head and is "literally" melting.

    See what I mean? How can someone describe these things and even get close to doing them justice? And yes, the book is weird, very weird.

The best review I've read of this book and about Andrew Smith is linked here:
     Entertainment Weekly by Anthony Breznican. I liked Andrew Smith and his books before I read this review, now I love him.

My thoughts:
     Last year I wasn't courageous enough to add The Grasshopper Jungle onto our Mock Printz list even though I recognized its genius. This year I am not making the same error. Kids deserve to be introduced to a wide variety of YA genres and since this one clearly does not fit into any of those genres, they need to read it.  And so do you.  And, by the way, don't worry if you don't "get it" in the beginning.  It all comes together in the end. Andrew Smith has kept to his motto:

Keep YA Weird!

Celebrate---September 12

School started this week. As a high school librarian in a school that launched an iPad roll-out, I had my hands full of getting textbooks and technology into students' and teachers' hands. It was an exhausting week. As Friday drew to a close I expected to go home, have a glass of wine, and have a relaxing evening with my family. That is not what happened. I got home to find the dog shivering in the corner of the room unable to use her back legs at all. She used her front legs to try to move and just scooted herself into the corner and couldn't get out. Poor thing. She is too heavy for me to carry so I had to drag her on a rug to get her outside to relieve her bladder. But she couldn't even stand to do that. I called our veterinarian and was referred to an emergency clinic that has a veterinarian neurologist on staff. I didn't even know such a specialty existed. We had to leave Muffy at the animal hospital over night. Poor Muffy. She will have an MRI today and possible surgery, depending on what they find.

Today I celebrate our family dog, our friend, a clown. Anyone who loves a dog knows how special our pets are to us.

Muffy and Carly

Can you recognize the clown in this dog?

Muffy and our cat Demi. They are friends.

Having a good romp and roll (instead of fetching the ball)

Enjoying the fine weather.

The look of love in her eyes.

Today I am celebrating Muffy, a good dog!

Friday Quotes, Cuckoo Song

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: 

Title:  Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

Book Beginnings: 

Her head hurt. There was a sound grating against her mind, a music-less rasp like the rustling of paper. Somebody had taken a laugh, crumpled it into a great, crackly ball, and stuffed her skull with it. Seven days, it laughed. Seven days.

Friday 56: 

Lost weight? Lost weight? With incredulity Triss recalled all the food she had devoured over the last three days. How could she have lost weight?

Comments: I hope to start this book this Saturday. My daughter read it and thinks it is a very good YA Gothic/fantasy novel. All I know so far is the girl isn't what she thinks she is. Hmm...sounds a bit mysterious, too.

What are you reading this week-end? What do you think of the cover? It sure looks creepy to me.

Great Expectations, Classics Club spin book, update, the first.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is my Classics Club spin book this go round. My goal is to finish the book by October 23rd, which shouldn't be hard and requires me to only read about 60 pages a week to accomplish it. I am caught up and have exceeded that goal so far. But my second goal to blog about my progress along the way hasn't gone so well. Here I am nearly half way through the book and I am just now posting an update. Ah well. The school year IS just starting...

When I announced my selection, several people posted comments on my blog about their experiences with Great Expectations and I thought it would be fun to respond to them in this format. Here goes...

I think you should enjoy the book. Remember that Charles Dickens published the book in a serialized version before it was published as a complete book. -Spoon, (parapharsed from a comment made by my friend, a college instructor of literature and writing.)

Great Expectations, Dickens' thirteenth novel was first published in weekly installments in his own magazine All the Year Round between December 1860 and August 1861. The last Classics Club spin book I read, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins was also serialized in the Dickens magazine the same way. Apparently sales of his magazine had waned and he decided to rework this novel so it would work in weekly installments with cliff-hangers to keep his readership coming back.  This technique worked and the reading public loved the story and couldn't wait for the next issue of the magazine to read on. Each installment contained two chapters.

" I first read Great Expectations at age 14 as an assignment for 9th grade English. When I read it last year - 50 years later - I was struck by two things: (1) how much I actually remembered about the plot and the characters (Pip! Miss Haversham!), and (2) how most of my students in the last few decades would have struggled with the text." - Pam, a retired English teacher

Many people told me they read this book in junior high. Junior high? I suspect that this book would be tremendously difficult to teach today even with high school or college students. Not only are the language and the descriptions difficult to understand but I suspect the humor would fall flat for today's students, too. Two years ago I read Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones about a teacher on a faraway island whose only resource is a well-worn copy of Great Expectations. Even with all the references to Dickens' classic tale, I still didn't understand the connections between the two.  

"We just finished Great Expectations as our family read-a-long. It took a while to get into it, but ended up much more enjoyable than I originally expected."-Susan, a fellow blogger

What a wonderful idea. I wish, looking back, we had tackled more of the classics together as a family. Last year my husband and I listened to One Hundred Years of Solitude together and it was a memorable experience. I read The Borrowers to my children, and of course, The Chronicles of Narnia, but never one of the adult classics.

"I tried reading Great Expectations recently and couldn't do it. I had to put it down at about 40% and I haven't gone back and finished it." -a blogger

I am just a little past 40% and I feel your pain. The book is not exactly riveting, at least not the part where I am right now. I am hopeful that it will improve soon, as so many people have told me how much they liked the book when they read it earlier in their life. I want to get to the "good parts" soon.

"It has been said nobody ever wrote a perfect novel, except Charles Dickens."- Anonymous

I obviously need help figuring out the perfection in any great novel. Maybe we all do. I can see why English teachers would love teaching this novel. It has so many themes, lots of symbolism, and much to teach about man and society. I just stumbled upon a website that explains how Pip exists in five distinct and separate societies...and I thought it was just Victorian England. Ha! I obviously have a lot of learn. I'm off to read more about this great novel on Shmoop.  I know it isn't very sophisticated of me to admit but I find this website tremendously helpful. (Be gentle with me. I've never had a college level Lit class. Not one!)

 

TTT: Series I Haven't Finished Yet

Top Ten Tuesday: Series I haven't finished yet (but plan to finish sometime in the future)

1. The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater...book 4, The Raven King, is due to be published the end of March  2016. Can't wait.

2. Seraphina series by Rachel Hartman...book 2, The Shadow Scale, is already out and I haven't read it. I don't know if it is a conclusion or a middle book of a trilogy.

3. Winger series by Andrew Smith...book 2, Stand-off, is due out this month. Gotta love Andrew Smith's writing.

4. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer...book 4, Winter, is set for publication on November 10th. Kids will be lined up for this one, too.

5. The Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley... there are seven books in this series. I've read three of them and I really want to finish the series.

6. The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde...there are also seven books in this series and I got derailed around book three. I love this quirky detective and the whole premise. I want to finish it.

7. The Wrath and the Dawn series by Renee Ahdieh...I didn't know this book was the first book in a series when I read it. Now I'm hooked.

8. Diviners series by Libba Bray...book 2, Lair of Dreams, came out this summer. Something tells me it won't be the last book in the series.

9. Hmm...do I really want to finish all the other unfinished series? Not sure.

Sunday (Monday) Salon, September 6th

View of the tiny harbor at Depoe Bay from our hotel window

Labor Day

Weather: Overcast, light rain, temperature is 58° F (14° C). The weather has turned on a dime from hot, summer weather to cool, fall weather. Last night we were so cold in the house we had to turn on the heat.

Last week of summer: I've been back at school most days this past week but Friday Don and I drove to the Oregon Coast for an overnight and then on to Eugene for the first Oregon Duck football game of the year. Summer is now officially over, we have been to our first fall football game.

Don ready with his camera for some whale watching

Depoe Bay, Oregon: we stayed in a small hotel on the smallest navigable harbor in the world and spent the afternoon watching whales from the town's seawall. We watched one playing or feeding 400 yards offshore. Don was able to get several shots of it breaching and blowing. The weather was warm with a very light breeze, unusual for the coast. It was just a lovely day to be at the coast. That evening, after wine and cheese at our hotel, we had a lovely seafood dinner at the Tidal Raves restaurant, situated right on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Breaching whale, I thought it looked like an Orca but we were assured it was a gray whale 

Depoe Bay harbor entrance, Highway 101 bridge over the inlet.

Devil's Punch Bowl and more whale watching: after breakfast and checkout on Saturday, we stopped off to see the interesting rock formation known as the Devil's Punch Bowl which traps the churning incoming tide. The tide was too low, so the punch bowl wasn't that interesting. But we looked out in the ocean and noticed two or three whales very near the shore playing among a few rocks offshore. We learned over 200 resident gray whales stay between Lincoln City and Newport all summer. I am sure the three we saw here lived in the area. 

Yaquina Head Lighthouse: we took one last detour before we left the coast, to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. It is situated on a preserved natural area. From the bluffs above the ocean we could see more whales, seals, cormorants, and pelicans. We could have lingered longer but we were on a timeline so we took a quick look around and said our good-byes to the Oregon Coast.

The beautifully situated Yaquina Head lighthouse

The weather was absolutely gorgeous.

A seal sunning on a rock.

The view from the lighthouse bluff. The water just shimmered in the sun.

University of Oregon Football: Kickoff was at 5 PM. Mom, Dad, sister Kathy, niece Kaylyn and her husband, Bobby, cousin Steve and his wife, Anne, Don and I enjoyed the Ducks' 61-42 win over Eastern Washington.

Photos compliments of Anne Parr

Humongous Cat: my sister's cat is huge. My younger sister, Grace, gave Kathy a children's book called The Humongous Cat. We all had to get our photo taken with the book and cat. It was hard work holding him. He must weigh over 30 pounds.

My mom with Pumpkin.

Books read this week:

• Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer. Don and I listened to this during our road trip. It is a very difficult topic but extremely well-written and researched book. We talked about the subject all weekend. (Audio)
• To the Field of Stars by Kevin Codd. About his pilgrim's journey to Santiago de Campostela. I really enjoyed Codd's writing style.

Still reading:

• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Matilda: the Musical: Thursday evening we drove up to Seattle for "Matilda: the Musical." It is based on the Roald Dahl book, Matilda. It was cute and funny with an amazing set. Someone's hearing aid hummed and whistled the whole second half. It was very irritating. But the fun of the musical outweighed the irritation of hearing aid debacle. Dahl wrote Matilda near the end of his writing career, emphasizing the importance of books because he feared they might become obsolete. "Children instinctively realize that Roald Dahl is firmly on their side, that he will never talk down to them, and that he will lead them through the most alarming adventures unscathed" (Albert Evans, in the program.) My favorite part of the evening was listening to the laughter of the children in the audience.

Tomorrow is back to work for the 2015-16 school year. Sigh. Summer is over.

The end of Summer Reading Challenges. How did I do?

It is almost time to head back to school. Labor Day is just a few days away. Time to take stock how I did on my summer reading challenges.

I. Thirty Book Challenge: I read 35 books this summer. I may get two or three more finished before the Labor Day deadline, too. Here is the breakdown, the total is over 100% because some books are in more than one category:

• 25 YA books that may be considered for our Mock Printz event starting later in September or October.
• 5 book club selections
• 6 nonfiction
• 14 audiobooks
• 4 graphic novels/biographies
• 2 by Harper Lee
• 3 books I may actually finish before Labor Day will bring total to 38---To the Field of Stars; Ishamael; and Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

30 books Summer Reading Challenge

35 / 30 books. 117% done!

II. Summer Big Book Challenge hosted over at BookbyBook. I entered through the back door on this challenge. I read a 400+ page book then signed up for the challenge. It was a cheap trick, I know.
The book I read that qualified for this challenge was All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.








III. Austen in August hosted by RoofBeamReader. The goal is to read anything Austen in the month of August, including books about the author. I read What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullen. Mullen asked and then answered twenty questions about Jane Austen and her writing style. I found most of the essays very interesting and enlightening.



Two pending challenges, (both have a late-October deadline)---

Classics Club Spin Challenge: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

R.I.P. X Challenge: this is a challenge to read a thriller, horror, Gothic, or suspense novel. I will be reading Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge but I haven't started it yet.

A love/hate relationship. I love challenges because they spur me on with my reading sometimes even forcing me to read books I've wanted to read for years but never quite had the time or the volition.  I hate challenges because they seem to add pressure (self-imposed) and stress.  That is why summer challenges are perfect.  My lifestyle is less stressful during the summer so I can take a bit more stress from the challenges and there is always an end point in mind.

As I was looking around the Internet for stuff on reading challenges I stumbled upon this huge and hilarious reading challenge graphic which is designed to assist the reader of the challenge to read a YA book a day for a year. Take a look. 365 Day Challenge.

Do you ever join reading challenges? How do you feel about them?

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler

At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation’s leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys tracked down and arrested. But their efforts were not in vain: the boys’ exploits and eventual imprisonment helped spark a full-blown Danish resistance. Interweaving his own narrative with the recollections of Knud himself, here is Phillip Hoose’s inspiring story of these young war heroes.---From the Phillip Hoose Webpage.

Several years ago I was doing some reading about WWII and I cam upon some information about Denmark and WWII. The source said something about the Dane's saving almost all of their Jewish citizens but sending them to Sweden. I didn't read much more and thought that the Danish people must have been so brave to stand up to Hitler. After I read this book I learned it was a bunch of teenage boys who spurred them into action. Knud Petersen and his friends were ashamed of their countrymen and the adults that seemed to just roll over with out any resistance. They wanted to be like the Norwegians who were putting up a huge battle against the Germans and continuing with brazen acts of resistance. But what could teen boys do to fight the behemoth? Knud and his friends thought up a lot of things. Some were simple like changing street signs to confuse the Nazi's, and other things much more daring like stealing their weapons and setting fire to their cars. When the boys were finally caught and imprisoned the country seemed to awake from their stupor. It took the daring, audacity of teen boys to call a country to action.

Hoose does a fantastic job telling Knud Petersen and the Churchill Boys' story. The book is very readable and should be on had at all secondary schools and public libraries for school reports and to fill out the WWII collections.

It amazes me that stories are still coming forward about a war that ended over seventy years ago. Knud Petersen and his friends were true heroes (though they would have given their mother's fits!)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

30 books Summer Reading Challenge

30 / 30 books. 100% done!

I have officially completed my summer reading challenge with this book.