Review and quotes: DRAGON HOOPS by Gene Luen Yang

Title: Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

Book Beginnings (1st page):

Friday56 (54th page):

Summary: Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang has created another masterpiece with award-winning Dragon Hoops which follows the real-life Bishop O'Dowd Dragons basketball team on their quest to win the California State Championship in 2015. The book not only chronicles the high school team's basketball season, it also gives a history of basketball from its inception through all kinds of historic changes for women, races, and rule changes. It also takes an up-close-and-personal look at some of the players and coaches on the O'Dowd team and beyond. Yang inserts himself into the story, too. As a teacher at O'Dowd he chronicles his own transformation from a non-sports fan to a basketball fanatic.

Page 10

Review: I read this book over two weeks ago and the longer it has simmered in my brain, the more I like it. In fact, in a lot of ways I think the book is downright fantastic. Here is what I liked---

• Yang takes a close look at his team's season including play-by-play moves during games. Because it is a graphic novel (memoir) the cartoon boxes serve as a kind of stop action play back.
• Many of the players were interviewed and Yang gave us a sense of their personalities and their struggles. Two of the best players, both African Americans, declined letting Yang in on all the struggles they've had in their lives, preferring to focus on the positives of their game and where they hoped to go in the future. One boy, an Iraqi American, talked about the racism he encountered during and after games and how he is able to ignore most of it. Yang even experienced some of it as a spectator sitting near people yelling racist things at the boy during the game. Another player from China talked about the differences he has experienced in the USA compared to those at home. While Yang was watching a game a parent from the opposing team assumed that Yang was this boy's parent. Two Asians must be related, right? By knowing these boys stories one can cheer on the team for personal reasons.
• Interspersed throughout the book is a look back at the evolution of the game of basketball. Page 54 shows the creator of the game, James Naismith and the simple reason he created a new game in the first place. I had to laugh to see it originally had thirteen rules. Subsequent historical pages dealt with the early game for females, the introduction of blacks to teams, the Harlem Globetrotters, the beginning of the NBA and important players who advanced the games at each step.
• Speaking of STEPS, Yang does this really cool thing through out the book of showing how each person took a step forward or backwards in advancing the game and themselves in life. The first page we see a young Yang stepping away from sports because he is so bad at them. Later we see him taking a step in the other direction as he crosses the barrier from the school building and the gym to meet the basketball coach. Later we see steps taken by the likes of Meadowlark Lemon for the Harlem Globetrotters, female players who broke barriers, and the first really famous professional player.
• In an interview for NPR Yang said he didn't intend to insert himself into the story of the O'Dowd Dragons and their award-winning season but as it evolved he found that he was changing as he told the story. I really liked how the reader is let in on the process used to balance work, family, and cartooning. We also got to watch Yang evolve into a fan. At one point in the story he and his wife have this funny exchange (see below) about how cartoonists tell a story leaving out and adding details and his wife asks him if she is real. For this reason I am not sure if we can call Dragon Hoops a graphic autobiography/memoir or just a graphic novel. Whatever it is, Yang as a character shows growth.
  
• 
  
   
• It is an award winner. You know I am a sucker for award books. Dragon Hoops won a 2021 Printz Honor, the 2020 Harvey Award for Best Book, and placement on several '2020 best books of the year' lists.
• This is the third Yang graphic novel I've read and I'm ready to go out and search for his other 2020 Harvey Award winner: Superman Smashes the Klan.

  

  Yang wins two Harvey Awards in 2020.
  

  
  
• I should say as a disclaimer, the book Dragon Hoops is very long, over 400 pages, and heavy. In fact the cover is designed to feel like the texture of a basketball but I suspect it is heavier than said ball. Big graphic novels don't take nearly as long to read as regular text, so don't be afraid to give this one a try. I know you will enjoy it, too.
  

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.      

-Anne

Review: HAMNET---a book club selection and quotes

The cover on my book and on this book differ. The subtitle of mine says, "A Novel of the Plague", where this one says, "A Novel."

I should say at the outset---I loved this book, Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O'Farrell. That said, I recognize that my feelings toward the book may end up being a problem for our upcoming book club discussion. Usually if one person loves a book there is another who hates it then the discussion devolves into squabbling match defending one's opinion rather than discussing the merits or aspects of the book. We'll see if this happens this time.

Hamnet, which I'm assuming many of you know, was William Shakespeare's only son. Little is known about Shakespeare outside of his brilliant plays. It is known that he married Anne (or, according to some records, Agnes) Hathaway when she was 26 and he was 18 and that she was three months pregnant. Together they had three children: Susanna, born six months after their wedding, and twins, Judith and Hamnet, born three years later. Shakespeare's father, James, was a glove maker and for a while was the mayor of Stratford, though later some event occurred that caused him to lose his position and his prestige in the town. William Shakespeare was the oldest living child to his parents, he had several younger brothers and a sister. At the time of their marriage it is likely, though not known for sure, that William and Anne (Agnes) lived in an attached house next to his parents' home. Later, after he had established himself as a playwright and an actor, they moved to a large house (the second largest) in Straford which he bought, though Shakespeare himself was mostly away living and performing in London. Scholars also have found records that both Suzanna and Judith grew up and got married but Hamnet died when he was just eleven years old. It is not known what caused his death but it is very possible that it was due to the Black Death (the bubonic plague), which was a very common cause of death in those days. Four years after the boy's death his father wrote "Hamlet" (a name synonymous with Hamnet) possibly as an homage to the memory of his son. Many consider "Hamlet" to be one of the finest plays ever written. Shakespeare was able to transpose his grief into a masterpiece.

From these few scant details, Maggie O'Farrell has crafted a beautiful and believable story. About her book, Where the World Ends, another fiction book based on scant details of an historic event, Geraldine McCaughrean wrote in her notes, "What you are reading is a true story...and there again, it's not. Fiction is elastic: it stretches to encircle true facts and then crimps them into shape to create Story." Taking the barest of details about Shakespeare and his life and his family, O'Farrell has done the same thing and created an amazing 'Story.'

So why did I like Hamnet so much? First, the book was only tangentially about Shakespeare, who interestingly goes unnamed throughout the book. It is more a book about a marriage, about domestic  life in the late 1500s, and about grief, specifically a parent's grief after the death of a child. Like so many marriages the one between William and Agnes (as she called in the book) is complicated and messy, yet O'Farrell also makes it full of love and passion. The scene where they first make love is in such a unique setting---the apple barn, where the apples twist and jiggle around as the couple are likewise bouncing around. A common enough act gets turned on its head by the action of the apples.

Secondly, though the subtitle mentions that the novel is about the plague, there is really very little about the disease and there are no lengthy, science-y descriptions of the causes and effects of it. There is, however, one very clever 10-page sequence about how the plague reached the Shakespeare children. "For the pestilence to reach Warwicksire, England, in the summer of 1596," O'Farrell writes, "two events need to occur in the lives of two separate people, and then these people need to meet" (140). Then, like a forensic epidemiologist, she charts the original flea and its progeny as they make their way from Alexandria aboard a merchant vessel living on monkeys, cats, midshipmen, glass blowers, and finally entering Stratford on rags designed to keep the glass bobbles safe. Judith happens to be present when the glass bobbles are unpackaged, along with the fleas therein. The transmission of the plague through such an unlikely route seemed terribly prescient today with the transmission of the COVID-19 virus and its variants twirling around the globe. The timeliness of the page 56 quote, too, has struck me. Even in Elizabethan England the Queen knew about social distancing and quarantines. (See below.)

Agnes (Anne) Hathaway is a remarkable character. She is a kind and thoughtful healer who grows her own herbs which she puts to good use in her community. A comparison to Cinderella comes to mind--a hard worker and completely overworked and overlooked. At the moment when her children are falling ill with the plague, she is a mile away dealing with bees which have left their hive and swarmed in a nearby tree. While she is gathering the bees back from the swarm her son Hamnet is running around (see page one quote at bottom of blog post) trying to find her to help his sister Judith, the first to fall ill to the disease. 

Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicenter, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns. This moment is the absent mother's: the boy, the empty house, the deserted yard, the unheard cry ... It will lie at her very core, for the rest of her life (9,10).

She will look back on that day with the bees many times.  Though she was unaware of her children's illness, poor Agnes is left to suffer from guilt at not knowing. O'Farrell writes, "There is a part of her that would like to wind up time, to gather it in like yarn. She would like to spin the wheel backwards, unmake the skein of Hamnet's death." But of course she realizes, "There will be no going back. No undoing what was laid out for them. The boy has gone and the husband will leave and she will stay and the pigs will need to be fed every day and time runs only one way" (241). Such profound grief.

Often when I read historical fiction I am struck by how clear the details of life in the by-gone era. It is as if the author has actually stepped back in time to get everything just right. Here O'Farrell helps the reader experience life in the sixteenth century where little is known about the ways diseases are spread and where cleanliness is hard work and then someone throws the contents of the chamber pot out the window. Where people often employed magical thinking and often spoke of seeing ghosts and worried about the dead being lonely. While descriptions of the domestic life of the time were very clear, many of the details of the story are delivered in a dream-like fashion as though the characters were almost sleep-walking through their own lives. Perhaps that is the way life feels after a tragic, untimely death.

I loved the ending even though I wanted the story to go on and on and I didn't want it to end.  As I read the last passage and closed the book, I sighed to myself--"perfect."

As it turns out, it is my turn to lead the discussion this month on Hamnet. Here are a few resources I think will assist me as I prepare for  the club meeting:

• The UK Women's Prize for Fiction-Reading Guide for Hamnet.
• Sally Flint's Book and Family Chat - Hamnet 
• Goop Book Club quotations to generate discussion 

(RHS Book Club, March 2021)

 

Book Beginnings quote: 

A boy is coming down a flight of stairs.

Friday56 quote: 

If the plague comes to London, he can be back with them for months. The playhouses are all shut, by order of the Queen, and no one is allowed to gather in public. It is wrong to wish for plague, her mother said, but Susanna had done this a few times under her breath, at night, after she has said her prayers. She always crosses herself afterwards. But still she wishes it. Her father home, for months, with them.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

 

-Anne

TTT: Books on my Spring TBR (and a look at how I did on my winter TBR list)

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my spring reading list. (Below the fold, how I did on my winter reading list.)

My Spring reading list:

Book Club selections:

1. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
2. The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
3. Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford
4. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (a re-read)
5. The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare 
6. The Exiles by Christina Baker Cline

Audiobooks/E-books:

1. Dune by Frank Herbert 
2. A Promised Land by Barack Obama (finish it)
3. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green
4. Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth
   

Print:

1. The Atlas of Happiness by Helen Russell
2. Fury and Grace by Pickett and Brubaker (finish it)
3. Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine 
4. We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom
5. Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
   

My Winter reading list...how did I do?

Audible/Overdrive audio or e-books:

1. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman ✓
2. The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein ✓
3. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett ✓
4. A Promised Land by Barack Obama (Still working on it, 20 hours down, nine to go)
   
5. Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline ✓

Print books: 

1. High Achiever by Tiffany Jenkins ✓
2. The Last Resort by Marissa Stapley ✓
3. The Greatest Miracle in the World by Og Mandino ✓
4. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (I couldn't find my copy)
   
5. The Magic Fish by Le Nguyen Trung ✓
6. Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth ✓

Cybils Nonfiction: As a round-2 judge I read 21 books for this category.

I really feel great about my reading list accomplishments here. Out of 32 books on this list, only two weren't completed. Pretty good for me. Of course, the Cybils finalists HAD to be finished and most of the other books I needed to read for book club or I already had checked out/on hold. Tricky way to influence the results, huh?

-Anne

Sunday Salon: Emerging

Hope is emerging. We have joined with 100 million Americans by getting our first COVID-19 vaccine.

Weather: Today it is sprinkling rain but the rest of the week has been glorious. See photo below. I took the photo of my neighbor's house with the beautiful wispy clouds behind while I was walking the dog. It caused me to search out a poem about fair weather and I found this delightful one called "Today" by Billy Collins, a favorite poet. Spring is definitely emerging. 

On Friday, another lovely day this past week, I joined my daughter and her sons for a Leprechaun Walk at a nearby park. We searched everywhere as we walked and didn't find any trace of those magical little men. My grandson was pretty disappointed but understood that they are hard to find. I left, they stayed to spend time at the play structure. When they arrived at our house an hour later, my grandson had a leprechaun with him. He found it on the bench at the play area. Ha! All the searching and there it was in plain sight!

Hope: Our Army insurance came through for us again and we got our first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Friday. Both of us left the building feeling hopeful for the future. Though some are saying we shouldn't publish our 'vaccine selfie' we disagree. We are celebrating the hope we feel that a new day is emerging when we can all gather together again safely. Both of us felt a little sick and achy yesterday but now are feeling healthy again today.

An Army nurse administered our vaccines. Easy-peasy. No pain.

Hope is emerging for many, many Americans with the passage of The American Rescue Plan: Here are 10 reasons to be ecstatic about TARP. Follow the hyperlinks if you want to learn more:

1. It causes a shift in the way we look at government. (NY Times). "The role of government is being redefined. There is now an assumption that government should step in to reduce economic insecurity and inequality."
2. 20% of the poorest citizens will see a 20% increase of their income (Tax Policy Center).
3. Child poverty will be cut in half  (NY Times). Researchers predict it could become one of the most effective laws to fight poverty in a generation.
4. Union members will have their pensions restored (Intelligencer). The bailout targets multi-employer pension plans, which bring groups of companies together with a union to provide guaranteed benefits. All told, about 1,400 of the plans cover about 10.7 million active and retired workers, often in fields like construction or entertainment where the workers move from job to job.
5. This is the largest investment the government has ever made for Indigenous Communities.
   
   
   
6. Most significant bill to support Black farmers since the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 (WaPo). A little-known element of President Biden’s massive stimulus relief package would pay billions of dollars to disadvantaged farmers — benefiting Black farmers in a way that some experts say no legislation has since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
7. Millions will gain health care coverage (Vox). The Covid-19 relief bill increases the size of the subsidy for those already eligible for assistance (people making between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level). It also extends subsidies for people earning more than 400 percent of the poverty level, ensuring that nobody would pay more than 8.5 percent of their income for health coverage.
8. The plan will save public schools and universities (Vox). In line with Biden’s proposal, the bill calls for $130 billion toward school reopening, directing funds toward areas such as ventilation system upgrades, reduced class sizes, and personal protective equipment to help make schools safer, and ensures the money is directed toward public schools. At the university level it directs $40 billion in grants to higher education and requires institutions that receive funding to dedicate at least half of it to emergency financial aid grants for students. At for-profit higher education institutions, 100 percent of allocations have to go to student aid.
9. One billion dollars set aside for public service (AmeriCorps). The bill proposes an increase to the AmeriCorps living allowance to make service more accessible and inclusive, increase the diversity, cultural experiences, and number of AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers serving in communities across the country, and to help stabilize existing national service programs and expand into new communities.
10. More COVID-19 vaccines and testing (Vox).
11. And so much more: mental health, public transportation, renter assistance, mortgage assistance, child credits increased, help for seniors, unemployment benefits won't lapse, and more...
    

Evidence that good things are around the corner. Photo taken in my neighborhood this past week.

Biden vows America is coming back after a year of pandemic (WaPo). If you haven't seen his whole speech on the COVID-19 anniversary of lockdowns, please watch it here.  

Biden gave us a little hope that we may be able to gather for the 4th of July this year. There is hope!

Books:

• Completed:
• Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline. The sequel to the very popular Ready Player One. I liked but didn't love it. I think the difference is I was prepared for the fun, quirky bits introduced in the first book. The ending was surprising though. Carly and I listened to the audiobook together.
  
• Currently reading:
• Fury and Grace: 40 Days of Paintings and Poetry from Prison edited by Rev. Riley Pickett and Revs. Layne and Crawford Brubaker. This is the best Lenten devotional I've ever experienced. 55%, print.
• Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. A book club selection about Shakespeare's family. I am enjoying this a lot. Print and audio, 34%.
• A Promised Land by Barack Obama. We made a bit more progress on this audiobook this week. 20 hours down, 9 to go. 70%.
• This is Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankin. Print, 25%.

The Puzzle Cats have been busy this week sleeping on two puzzles. What would we do without their help?

Fred (left) and George (right)

 

And a few funnies to make you remember to add humor to your life whenever possible:

 

1.

2.

3.

4. I think this is a great idea for your next Zoom meeting...

5. Happy Pi Day:

I made several of these prints, so I thought I'd include another one. It is worth remembering to celebrate happy moments and good weather.

-Anne

 

Review and quotes: FIFTY WORDS FOR RAIN

Title: Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie

Book Beginnings quote: 

(Kyoto, Japan. Summer 1950) It came quickly, the pain. It arrived with startling fanfare. Nothing could stop it once it had set on its morbid path.

Friday56 quote: 

"Well, yes. Yes, we are. But I'm not...I'm not supposed to be here. She told me that I couldn't talk to you unless you talked to me first and...well...you didn't. And I'm not allowed to leave my room without permission."

Summary: In 1948 Nori's mother drops her off at the home of grandparents she has never met with these words of advice: "Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist." That is the last time Nori sees her mother. In her grandparents' home Nori is confined to her bedroom in the attic unless she is let out to take a bath of acid designed to lighten her skin, skin too dark according to Japanese standards because of her African American father. Her grandparents worry that if anyone knows about Nori's existence it will be a stain on their royal Japanese pedigree. Nori is obedient to a fault. Though lonely she still has an active and curious mind. When her half-brother, Akira, moves onto the estate Nori takes a rare opportunity to speak to him even though it is forbidden. In Akira she finds an ally and a friend. The story spans decades and takes place on several continents. It is a story about human connections and the ties that bind us together and break us apart.

Review: I am torn in half as I analyze Fifty Words For Rain. Half of me was completely swept up in this historical saga of Japan as it emerges from its old empire and the lives that are made or destroyed by it. Yet, I wanted more---the details that would make the setting come alive and the motivations of the characters more understandable. And I also want to love/like at least some of the characters at least most of the time but often the characters, especially Nori, would disappoint. In fact, the ending was maddeningly unexpected and awful. Either the author was setting us up for a sequel or just wanted to shock the readers. Either way, I was unsatisfied. 

Fifty Words for Rain is a book club selection and I suspect that we will have a fairly good discussion about the book, especially if one of our members attends. She lived in Japan for a few years and taught Japanese language at the high school level. I'm curious what she will think of the book and how her perspective will help me cope with the bits of the story that I found so distressing. Though not a personal favorite I find myself agreeing with the reviewer from Publisher's Weekly, "Lemmie’s heartbreaking story of familial obligations packs an emotional wallop." I did find myself wiping away tears several times as the story unfolded. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

-Anne

TTT: Spring Cleaning my TBR list

Top Ten Tuesday: Time to make decisions about the longest books on my TBR list and do a little spring cleaning.

I just checked. I have 231 books on my TBR list. These ten books (below) have been on the list the longest. Time to decide about what to do with them--- to read or not to read. 

Let's see. 

The Orphan Master's Son (2013); A Visit From the Goon Squad (2011); and Interpreters of Maladies (2000) are the first three books on my list and all are Pulitzer Prize winners (winning date in parenthesis.) I have a personal challenge to read past Pulitzer Prize winners, so these three books stay on the list.

The fourth book, Without You There Is No Us, is a book I purchased after meeting the author. I am still curious about the topic and since I own a copy of the book, it will stay on the list.

The fifth book is a toss up. Love and Other Demons is by the master of Magical Realism, Gabriel Marquez Garcia. His book One Hundred Years of Solitude was one of the most difficult but most satisfying books I've ever read. The reviews on this one are generally very good and the premise sounds different and so captivating. I need to conduct some more research before I remove or keep it on the list. 

The Atomic Weight of Love. Hmm. I can't even remember why I placed this one on my TBR pile. One reviewer on Goodreads said that the audiobook recording of this was so good it held her hostage while she listened. If my library has the audiobook version for check-out I will keep it on the list, if not, off it goes. 

The Notorious RBG. I saw a wonderful documentary film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg before she died last year. I am wondering if this is when I placed this book on my list. I still love her and want to read about her. It stays.

The fourth and eighth book on my list are about the same topic: North Korea. I remember why I put A Thousand Miles to Freedom on the list---my hubby and daughter listened to it as they drove east toward New York and my daughter's grad school. They both liked it a lot and told me all about it. Since I don't need to read both but I am committed to reading the one I own, this one will be removed from the list.

I'm guessing I placed the ninth book, Ways of Going Home, on the list because it is set in South America and I read so few books set on that continent. That is not a good enough reason to keep a book on the list. Off it goes. 

A Slip of the Keyboard is nonfiction by a favorite fiction author, Terry Pratchett. He died in 2015 and I'm positive I was still in mourning when I placed it on my list in 2016. Reviews on Goodreads are all positive but I'm wondering if I'd do better just consuming more of his fiction? I need to do more research including finding out if a copy is available from the public library.

So let's see if this was a valuable exercise. Out of ten books I decided to remove or clean up two or 20% of them. That seems like time well spent. If I were to have the same success rate at culling down my whole TBR, I'd end up removing 42 titles. Now that would be an accomplishment. Imagine removing more books from your TBR in one year than the number you add?

-Anne

Sunday Salon, March 7th

Raccoon at Northwest Trek showing off for us

Ian loves the river otters

Weather: We just squeezed in a walk with the dog. It was raining earlier but it cleared just in time. It was cold and windy, though, so we didn't take the long route.

Family: Yesterday we went to Northwest Trek again. It is near our home and we are trying to get our money's worth since we bought a membership for my grandson and I for the year. He loves the play area. I love the animals. The little raccoon above was the most photogenic of all the critters we saw. Well, unless you want to consider Ian as a 'critter.' Here he is hugging a sculpture of an otter.

Earlier in the week I took a weird tumble down the stairs oddly hurting my shin. I think what I did was slipped in my socks and my opposite leg hit the stairs on my shin bone. I am not crippled at all but the swelling and the coloring of the bruise is pretty nasty.

Jamie fell asleep finally once he was in the stroller. It was a lovely spring day, too.

Even though I am not vaccinated yet I am starting duty as weekly babysitter for my grandchildren. Wednesday was my first day on duty and I certainly don't have my grandma muscles built up. Jamie is a bit of a chunker so I might build up some strong muscles by the time summer hits as I carry him around. Jamie doesn't want to miss anything going on so talking him into taking a nap is hard, even if he is tired. I resorted to a long walk with him in the stroller, which seems to have a soporific effect on him.

Books: It was a good reading week.

• Completed
• Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang. A YA Graphic Memoir by the illustrator/author about his school's basketball season. This book is great and I highly recommend it. It was a Printz Honor book in 2021. Print.
• Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie. This is a book club selection for April. Set in Japan right after WWII about tradition and acceptance. I think the writing is strong but I didn't care for the story. E-Book and Audiobook.
• The Last Resort by Marissa Stapley. Another book club selection. This one is a mystery. What happened to Miles? I can't say anything nice about this book. Print.
  
• Currently reading
• Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. Yet another book club selection. This is historical fiction about Shakespeare's son Hamnet. Print and audiobook. 1%.
• Ready, Player Two by Ernest Cline. I started this audiobook in December but had to set it aside  after listening to only about 15% of the book because other commitments pushed it out of the way. This week my daughter joined me in listening to it and we made great progress. It is a fun sequel to Ready, Player One. 78% audiobook.
• Fury and Grace: 40 days of Paintings and Poetry From Prison by Rev. Riley Pickett. I am enjoying this Lenten devotional. Each daily reading is only a few pages so progress is slow, as it should be. 42% print.

Cancel culture? The silliness in the right-wing press about the cancellation of a few Dr. Seuss books is astonishing to me. My sister shared this excellent article "Dr. Seuss and the Bible" in Emmaus Always. I highly recommend that you read the whole thing but let me pull out a few quotes that may be helpful in framing the discussion with people who want to be outraged about this.

• "The decision to cease publication of those six books is not in any way an effort to ban Dr. Seuss from the school libraries or to tarnish the image of Theodore Seuss Geisel, the creator of Dr. Seuss. It rather simply recognizes a much deeper truth that racial bias is baked deep into our world and even in something so beloved as Dr. Seuss."
• "One of the key principles I learned in seminary for interpreting scripture was to be aware of the “canon within the canon.” “Canon” refers to that body of literature one considers to be holy. Within that body are passages which you might say are holier than others, or which you use as a guide to understand the meaning of the whole... The example I often used in preaching was to compare Psalm 137:9, “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” to the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” There is simply no way that one can read those two texts as equal guides for living a godly life."
• "Is there a canon within the canon of Dr. Seuss? That might be stretching the concept a little far when considering the merits of green eggs and ham v. red fish, blue fish! But Geisel did produce a volume of other literature that may provide some clues on his values and beliefs. In Horton Hears a Who! Geisel writes, A person’s a person, no matter how small! It does not take great imagination to insert descriptions of race, gender, religion, gender identity or any other characteristic in lieu of size and to read that as an affirmation of all humanity."

A few funnies:

Today my husband and I were just talking about how achy and creaky we are becoming...

Disgusting... not funny at all.

This would be Carly's cats...

Speaking of Carly's cats: The puzzle cats were busy this week. We finished one puzzle and are well into a second. Hard work for a cat to supervise this much puzzling.

-Anne

Four short reviews and I'm caught up

It is only the first part of March and already I am four books behind on my want-to-review book list. My tardiness is to your benefit...four reviews in one post.

Anxious People by Fredrick Backman

It is New Year's Eve day in a Swedish town (not Stockholm) when an overwrought young parent on the verge of divorce and losing child custody, attempts to rob a bank to pay for rent. As luck would have it, the bank is cashless. In an attempt to get away from the police the would-be bank robber runs into a nearby building and unintentionally turns an ordinary real estate open house into a hostage situation.

The eight diverse strangers attending the open house all are very peculiar and anxious people, hence the book title. Sobbing and still wearing a face mask, the bank-robber apologizes, "I'm having quite a complicated day here!" So it everyone else, including the two police officers who are trying to remedy the hostage situation without calling in the Stockholmers. Since neither officer, a father-son duo, have handled a hostage situation before they have to Google what to do. 

In the beginning none of the characters are likeable or relatable but as the story unfolds we get to know what makes each person anxious that changes and there a satisfying yet unexpected ending. As the headline of the book review in USA Today says, "kindness and compassion win the day."

I, unfortunately, had to read this book in two parts separated by two months in between. (Darn libraries don't let readers have the books they check out endlessly!) For this reason, the book seemed choppy (Duh!) but once I was able to get settled in the second time to finish it, I was charmed. Quirky doesn't even begin to explain the characters and plot of this book. If you are a fan of A Man Called Ove or Beartown by the same author, I'm sure you will appreciate Anxious People, too.

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

In 2001, not long after 9/11, an airplane headed toward Dominican Republic crashed in Queens and killed all 260 people on board. The crash devastated the Dominican community in New York since hardly any family was left unscathed. Author Elizabeth Acevedo took a kernel of the tragedy of that true plane wreck and its aftermath and reworked it into Clap With You Land when another plane crashes and kills everyone on board including a man returning to D.R. from New York. Waiting for his arrival is his daughter, Camino. What this girl doesn't know is that her father has another daughter, Yahaira, and a different wife left behind in New York. Two different families in two separate countries affected by one man's death.

Last year it seemed like everyone was talking about this YA novel by the award-winning Dominican-American author Acevedo. Her first novel, Poet X, won all kinds of awards the year it was published and like that novel this one is written in verse. In alternating chapters we meet the two sisters who eventually make contact months after the death of their father. Acevedo handles their different perspectives in culture, setting, and upbringing with ease. Each girl has a unique voice in her chapters, too. Camino's verses are more flowing and straightforward, almost like reading prose. Yahaira's chapters are more energetic, the poetry coming at the reader in a more staccato style. Since I listened to the audiobook I was made aware of it by the reader's reading style than the actual words on the page.

The title of the book  is revealed to the readers in one of Yahaira's chapters. When she travels to D.R. to meet her sister, all the people on board the flight clap when they land in D.R., a traditional welcome home gesture. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a multicultural YA novel or someone who enjoys reading poetry. I am a huge fan of Acevedo and will probably read everything she writes. The reviewer for Kirkus Reviews says this book deserves a standing ovation. I agree.

The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein

Back in 2012 I read the first book in Wein's excellent series of WWII tales involving one or more members of the Beaufort-Stuart family, Code Name Verity. The Enigma Game is the fourth book in this series (but it would be the second book chronologically after The Pearl Thief) but it certainly also works as a stand-alone title. 

The story is set in a Scottish countryside near a air force base in 1940. A fifteen-year-old orphan, Louisa, is charged with escorting an elderly German opera singer from London to live with a niece who owns a hotel and bar not far from the base. There Louisa meets several people working out of the air force base: Jamie Beaufort-Stuart is a pilot commanding a squadron and Ellen McEwan who is from a Traveller family and is volunteering as a military driver. (Both of these characters were introduced in The Pearl Thief.) One day a German pilot lands on the airfield flying a white flag. Under guard he is billeted at the hotel until someone from intelligence can make their way to the air field to interview him. Until that person arrives the air force uses the aunt to interpret his German. It is clear he is trying to communicate with some particular person who goes by a code name. When no one arrives from London, the man loses his nerve and flies off. But before he leaves he hides an enigma machine and the code to decipher it. Louisa finds the machine and figures out how to interpret the code. She and others communicate what they learn to Jamie Beaufort-Stuart to help thwart German plans of attack. 

Wein seems to have a skill for weaving historical information into spine-thrilling plots and creating fully dimensional, interesting characters. She also clearly knows what she is talking about when it comes to flying those old fighter planes from WWII and she puts that knowledge to good use in The Enigma Game. I am a huge Elizabeth Wein fan and enjoy this series and this book immensely.

The Last Resort by Melissa Stapley

The Harmony Resort offers hope for struggling marriages. It is run by a celebrity couple, Miles and Grace Markell and they offer a "last resort" or chance at saving the marriages in a beautiful Mexican setting. Couples who attend the conference may have marriages that look perfect and they certainly have plenty of money but inwardly things are crumbling. Miles and Grace offer them hope for a marriage recovery. The only problem is that Miles and Grace also have a crumbling marriage and the facade they are putting up has started to crumble. When a tropical storm traps the hosts and their guests on the resort secrets are revealed, alliances are tested, and no one remains the same in the end.

The Last Resort is the March selection for one of my book clubs. It came in a book club kit from the public library. Books in these kits are generally good discussion books and have some literary merit. This book misses the mark on both of these scores, I'm afraid. I didn't like it at all. In fact, the only reason I am reviewing it is because I promised myself that I would review all book club selections I read this year.

Miles is a monster and has followers almost like he is a cult-leader. Maybe we can talk about what we know about cults and cult leaders. Grace is a battered wife. We could certainly talk about the topic of spousal abuse. Marriages fail for a variety of reasons, I guess that could be another topic of discussion. What I hope we don't try to talk about is plot (unrelatable), the characters (single dimensional), or the setting (can't picture it.) As you can tell I am no fan of this book and I don't recommend it.

-Anne

A Spring Walk

Gods-eye; pussy willow; heather through a fence; crocuses; Jamie in stroller; plum blossoms; daphne; tet-a-tets; Jamie awakes for some time with Grandpa!

Yesterday I babysat my grandsons for the day while my daughter and son-in-law were working. It has been a long time since I had both boys alone and my "grandma-babysitting-muscles" were rusty. Ian, age three, is happy and easy to be around, but wants quite a bit of 'pay-attention-to-me' moments. Jamie, 6 months, isn't an easy baby and is hard to soothe. He wants his mommy or will make everyone miserable telling us about it. At 2 pm, after a very short nap, Jamie was crying again, so I called my daughter and asked for tricks. She suggested taking him for a walk in his stroller. With brother Ian napping and grandpa working in the other room, Jamie and I headed out for a beautiful Spring walk. Within the length of two houses, Jamie was a sleep and as long as I kept moving he stayed that way. Alone with my thoughts I had the benefit of noticing the signs of spring in my neighborhood.

The first things I noticed are not pictured: the sound of lawnmowers and the croak of frogs in a nearby pond, two for-sure signs of spring around here. The gods-eye yarn thingy lasted the whole winter in one piece. In fact, the fairies that hung them left four in our yard last Spring or early summer and all are still there, a little frayed but still colorful ans swinging from the branches of our trees in the front yard. 

The pussy willows, the earliest sign of spring around here, are almost past their prime. Whereas the flowering plum street trees haven't started blooming yet with the one exception I found and caught on my camera. 

The crocuses and heather were blooming everywhere giving off nice splashes of purple to enjoy.  I only saw one other daffodil blooming outside of the bunch of Tet-a-tets in my own backyard. The daphne is another early bloomer but I was disappointed that I couldn't smell its beautiful scent. Don made me smell peanut butter after I cam in and complained about it, worried that I might have COVID-19. I could smell the peanuts but not the flowers. No disease for me. 

After returning from the walk, Jamie was sleeping soundly so I sat on my front porch and let him nap in the stroller while I enjoyed just being outside after a long winter inside. About the time that grandpa came out to see what I was doing, he woke up. 

What a lovely spring walk.

-Anne

Review and quotes: APPLE (SKIN TO THE CORE)

Title: Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth

Book Beginnings quote: from the first poem, "Uncle Tomahawk Hangs Around the Fort Until He Finds His Own Metaphor."

Socials and Powwows bring us together, because

they celebrate all the ways we maintain our own

ways of life. We know the dances and the songs,

the exact rhythm patterns for drums and rattles.

 

But we've borrowed dances from other nations. We have

no alligators in the Northeast, no real-world example to borrow

in creating these moves, and yet, Alligator Dance has

been with us for so long, it feels like ours, free and clear.

Friday56 quote: from the poem, "Jaboozie Gives Me Two Lessons in Tradition."

We are at that in-between place, no longer

kids, not quite teenagers. We've been playing 

all day at her house halfway down Dog Street

from mine. She's been teaching me how to match 

colors and tie knots to catch the hollow glass

globes used in beadwork. In the middle of her 

rhythmic, perfectly gradient green beaded turtle

shell, she places one ridiculous bright yellow

bead, off-center in one plate...

...She says in every piece of art you make

if you are Haudenosaunee, you include one flaw,

intentionally, so you acknowledge that only

the Creator can make something perfect.

Summary: Apple (Skin to the Core) is a memoir written in verse by artist and poet Eric Gansworth. He is a member of the Ononadaga Indian tribe living among the Tuscaroras, living on the Rez (reservation) yet an outsider on the inside. This is the story of his family, starting with the horrible boarding schools three of his four grandparents were sent to as children to "kill the Indian but save the man." Gansworth was the youngest of many children, born into a family of poverty and an absent father. The memoir is divided into sections as Eric tells us his story and the story of his family from his childhood on the Rez to his current life as an artist living off the reservation.

Review: Apple (Skin to the Core) was a 2021 Printz Honor book, an award that goes to the top YA books published in the US. The award is based on merit not necessarily on teen appeal. Though I was tremendously moved by many of the poems, others left me flat or I didn't understand at all. The books is long, 339 pages, and many of the poems are long, too. For this reason I have a hard time imagining that many teens will clamor to check this one out. However if they do, there is still a lot to like.

For one thing, reading the book helped me understand the experience of being an 'outsider' in a culture. "When we are born outsiders, we sometimes / find bridges we can make with our own stories / embracing the ways they are connected, instead / of pointing out the gaps between two sides"(284). And calling an Indian 'Apple' is to accuse him of being red on the outside but white on the inside. It is hard to be an outsider who is always accused of doing or being something wrong.

The poem that spoke to me, actually cut me to the quick, is titled "Lines Spoken to Me Through High School and, Let's Face It. Beyond." Each line starts with "You're (or your, or you've)..." with some compliment like "You're pretty smart... / You're pretty articulate..." followed by "you know, for an Indian" (171). Have I said or thought something like this? Oh gawd, I hope not. My heart breaks to think of rude things people say so thoughtlessly.

Gansworth must be approximately my age. He had a brother who served in the military in Vietnam, like many of my friends' siblings and he was (is) a big Beatles fan, like me. In fact, one whole section of poems In Apple (Skin to the Core) are titled for all the songs in my favorite Beatles album, Abbey Road. In the notes at the end of the book, he talks about that album and how it served as an inspiration for this memoir. "Abbey Road was the Beatles' last attempt to exist in that one identity before transforming into something else...I'm well versed in the act of taking last fragments of one's identity before leaving it for another, losing the old one forever" (334).

This book may not become everyone's favorite but I suggest that you give it go and see which of Gansworth's poems speak to you or deliver the message you need to hear today.

Source: print edition from public library.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.     

-Anne