Readathon: Updates One and Two

YAY!  IT HAS BEGUN!


1)Where are you reading from today?


My students' midterms!  And some theory on the teaching of writing.  (It's not quite my usual fun reading, but it must be done.  And if I'm good, I can pick up some fiction later.

2)Three random facts about me…


Erm...1.  I love listening to This American Life.  I'm catching up on old episodes now.
2.  My cat is lying across my feet, trapping me in place.  (I think this will help to keep me reading)
3.  Part of my readathon may involve rocking to the audiobook of Chime.

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?


More than I can actually read in 24 hours.

4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?


Just to do more reading than I've had time for over the last several weeks.

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?


Mix in some graphic novels, short stories, articles, picturebooks or other short texts to keep you motivated.  SRSLY!  It helps!


LET THE FUN BEGIN!

UPDATE TWO:  


I'm still here and I'm still reading!  So, far I did some reading that was prep-work for the classes I teach next week.  


Part of what I have been preparing for my students is a discussion of young adult fiction book covers and they way certain themes, colors,images seem to trend in and out.  There have been blog posts about this in the past:  how dark covers are, the focus on faces, puffy dresses, flowers, etc.


The cover trend I'm adding to the list is underwater scenes (AKA girls drowning):

Now I'm going to switch directions and focus on some grading.  It's proven to be a VERY slow process.


Wish me luck!

REVIEW: Dusssie

Springer, Nancy.  (2007).  Dusssie.  New York:  Walker & Company.

0802796494

166 pages.

Appetizer:  The morning after Dusie gets her first period she wakes to discover her hair has transformed into snakes (luckily, none of them are poisonous!).  While this causes a wee-bit of a panic for thirteen-year-old Dusie, her mom doesn't seem to be surprised.  In fact, it would seem her mother may have dreaded this.  But even her mom is surprised when Dusie realizes she can hear the thoughts of all her new 27 snakes on her head.

The shocking change on the top of her head leads Dusie to uncover the secrets her mother has been keeping from her all Dusie's life and she'll embark on a journey of self-discovery (as opposed to a mythological quest) to find a way to undo the magic curse.

With both references to fairy tales and Greek Myths, it'd be easy to think of Dusssie as a "girl-version" of the Percy Jackson series.  Dusssie is more focused on emotions and a potential romance than adventure.  Dusie wants to feel loved, but she's not certain she can find love with 27 snakes slithering on top of her head.  While there is a hint of a prophecy (or riddle, as the case may be) this book is more rooted in the personal, instead of a nation-saving quest.  It feels a lot like an allegory, exploring a lot of the tensions of femininity and girl-becoming-womanhood-ness.  Stuff.

I thought Springer did an excllent job of putting the reader (me!) in the mind-set of what it would be like to have...snakes for hair.  An early scene shows the snakes feeling threated when Dusie tries to return to school.  How do the snakes attempt to deal with their fear?  Well....

"Deploy musssk!  Deploy fecesss!" (p. 19).

The horror.  And, ewwwww (but also hilarious!).  That would be a very not fun condition to deal with.  It made me so thankful that my hair was an ordinary bunch of dead cells.  Thank you, world, for that.

Previously, I'd read Springer's first Enola Holmes mystery, The Case of the Missing Marquess.  I absolutely LOVED the feminist twists she presented in Victorian England by giving Sherlock Holmes a super clever little sister.  And that sense of female empowerment is also in Dusssie (which, personally, makes me want to do a little feminist happy dance.  What does a feminist happy dance look like?  It may or may not involve a lot of bending and flexing of muscles.  That's all I'll possibly (not) reveal).

As I was reading, I felt that Dusie's maturation from a girl into a woman and coming to terms with who her mother was and is seemed to be the heart of the story.  Of course, others may disagree.  (I would, of course, love to read your interpretations in the comments!)

Some one else may want to focus on the way beauty is perceived.  A teacher could also use this book with a lesson on the snakes that are commonly found in the U.S.A.  To better understand her condtion, Dusie researches what the types of snakes are on her head (and this serves as a metaphor for her getting to know herself as well).

But now, having been so positive for all these paragraphs, let's take a moment to look at the book cover once more:

Hmmm.

I don't like it.  While it definitely made me think of Medusa, nothing about the girl's face would want to make me pick the book up.  Plus, I didn't get that the middle 's' was being spelled with a snake at first.  (This is especially confusing because the character's actual name is Dusie.  Only the snakes call her Dusssie.)

I think the cover is too literal.  It doesn't make me want to pick up this story.  Ya know?  In my head, I see more of an outline of a Medusa head.  Or maybe an image that would be more symbolic.  But since I have no art skills, I can't actually show you what I'm thinking.

What do you-all think?


Dinner Conversation:

"Color me stupid, but I was thirteen before I understood why my mother always wore a turban.  I thought it was just part of her artistic weirdness.  I had no clue until my own hair turned into snakes" (p. 1).

"Mom's name hadn't meant a thing to me.  I mean, who knows what a gorgon is anymore?  Mom hadn't told me until today that under the turban her hair was vipers, under the polish her fingernails were bronze, under the caps her teeth were fangs.  She hadn't told me that she'd had wings surgically removed by a doctor who could be blackmailed to keep quiet.  She had told me, years ago, that she'd named me after her dead sister, but she hadn't told me that Dusie was a nickname--short for Medusa" (pp. 7-8).

"A coldly regal voice said in my mind, we prefer to be addresssed as ssserpentsss.
"I would prefer if you would shut up!"
I heard a hissy murmur from the crowd, and the regal one said, Be polite.  We bite" (p. 13).

"He never got  to say any more.  If looks could kill...but mine could.  I didn't realize in time, but I felt it happen as anger blazed in me, my snakes thrashed and struck at the air, my eyes flared fire, and Troy...Troy turned to white stone" (p. 20).

"My mother had been lying to me.  All my life.  She'd let me think that while I was in school she spent her days at some studio somewhere, chipping away like Michelangelo, when really...really she was a serial killer, sort of" (p. 24).

"I am going to get rid of you, " I told my snakes...
Go ahead, said the scarlet king snake, and all the others gave a hissy titter, sss-sss-sss.  They didn't act like I was scaring them.  Not at all.  They seemed completely sure I couldn't do it.
Or maybe they knew something I didn't" (pp. 77-78).


Tasty Rating:  !!!!

REVIEW: What I Wore to Save the World

Wood, M.  (2009).  What I Wore to Save the World.  New York:  Berkley Jam.

9780425229675

276 Pages.


Appetizer:  It's been three months since the events of How I Found the Perfect Dress and Morgan and her friends and family have been struck by the (very annoying) college-stress-what's-your-future-freak-out stick.  Morgan has no idea what she wants to do, but a discussion with a strange councilor named Cornelius Phineas opens up the possibility that even though Morgan has been quite the slacker in the grades department, she still has a chance at studying Irish mythology at Oxford.

As Morgan entertains the possibility as a chance to bring her closer to non-boyfriend and love, Colin, she receives a cryptic message from him, asking her to fly to England NOW.  And, of course, she does.  She winds up in Wales and reunited with Colin, but must find a way to save the world while deciding whether to tell Colin the truth about who she is.

I don't think I could have read this book as a junior or senior in high school (and not just because it wasn't published yet).  As a teen who was freaking out about colleges and acceptance letters, I don't think I would have done well to read about a character in a similar situation.  No, that's not true.  I would not have wanted to read about a character who was a slacker in school, yet still had a magical option to attend Oxford, when I'd worked my bum-bum off and still had to deal with a rejection from my first choice public university that made me question my self-worth.  (Grade obsessed?  Who me?  Not so much anymore, I swear.)

Of course, the story eventually becomes less focused on Oxford as--you know--Morgan has to find a way to save the world.  But I just think I would have had trouble with that.

There is a positive to all this college talk though.  Morgan is quick to realize that choosing a college is about HER and what she wants for her life.  Since so many college-planning high schoolers have to deal with family pressures and expectations this discussion in the book can serve as a nice reminder of who should be the focus when choosing colleges.  (Of course, this lesson has the potential to be lost, since Morgan's choice is still so dependent on being close to Colin.  A fact I take issue with since the first book of the series was about her recovering from loosing herself in a guy in a previous relationship.  From my perspective, it started to feel like Morgan lost herself again.)

I also wanted to briefly go back to the covers:



Overall, I do like them even though three different models represent one character.  I also like the blending of reality and fantasy by taking a photo and imposing fantasy elements on top of it.  But I do have one problem.  The hair.  In all three books, Morgan's hair ranges from shaved to a pixie cut.  Is it beyond the realm of possibility to have a model with short hair on the cover of a book?

Now that I've been more than a wee-bit critical.  Let me point out a very entertaining and positive aspect of this book:

There are cheerleading unicorns!

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien figure as minor characters.

Does that strike your fancy?

I've also found out that Maryrose Wood has started another series.  The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place is drawing comparisons to A Series of Unfortunate Events.  But this time around, the young characters were raised by wolves and the series itself will actually focus on the teenage girl who is helping to raise them.

Interesting, yes?


Dinner Conversation:

"And so, in the immortal words of Polonius--"
"In the words of Shakespeare, he means," Sarah hissed in my year.  "Polonius was fictional!  God, that ex-boyfriend of yours is such a dweeb--" (p. 1).

"My point is, it's not just about you."
"Mom, I hate to tell you this."
She started to say something else, then stopped.  "What?"
"My choosing a college?  My choosing a career?  Me choosing what I want to do with my life?"
"Yes?"
"It is about me."
I liked the sound of that as soon as I'd said it, so I said it again.  "It's about me.  It really is."

"So what is it, then?"I was running out of patience.
"You're worried [Oxford]'ll be too expensive?  You're afraid I'll come back with a funny accent?  What?"
Dad shook his head.  Mom just hmmmed and mmmmed.
"They don't think you're smart enough to get in," Tammy said cheerfully.  "Can I have more bread?"
But then even Tammy shut up, so we could all inhale the pungent stink bomb of truth the kid had lobbed into the living area.
Major.  Awkward.  Silence" (p. 26).

"I wanted it all:  Oxford and the cute Irish boyfriend (okay, one of those things I actually wanted more than the other).  And I knew there must be some kind of half-goddess destiny in store for me.  But was I supposed to wait for it to show up and ring the doorbell?  Or was I supposed to go looking for it?
And how do you go looking for something when you don't know what it is?" (p.39).

"I stared at the envelope, not wanting to open it in front of my mother in case Tinker Bell flew out of it, trailing a stream of magic sparkle-dust" (p. 50).


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: Darkangel

Pierce, M.A. (1982). The Darkangel. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.

0152017682

What-hoe, Twilight fangirls (and fanboys)! Vampire romance ahead.  (That is, if you're cool with the 'vampyre' spelling)

But first a warning. This ain't no sparkly, vegetarian, beautiful, stalker vamp. This vampYre, darkangel, is a winged, soul-sucking, dark cold soon to be full-fledged vamp.  Okay, so he's still "beautiful."  The one thing Meyer and Pierce can agree on about vamps is that they should be described as "beautiful" over and over and over and over again.

Aeriel has grown up hearing stories of the darkangels that steal away young and pretty girls. A slave to the richest girl in town, Aeriel and her mistress, Eoduin, must travel on the steppe to collect flowers for a wedding. While away from the village, a winged vampire, a darkangel, descends and steals away Eoduin.  Left behind, nobody in the village believes Aeriel's story that a vampire descended.  Her grieving owners, who blame her for the loss of Eoduin, plan to sell her.

Seeking vengeance, Aeriel returns to the steppe in the hopes of killing the vampire only to be abducted by him as well.  But instead of being chosen as the vampire's fourteenth and final wife, the one who will give him the power to become a REAL vampire, she is to serve the thirteen current wives, who have been drained of their souls.  As Aeriel serves the wives, or "wraiths" as she thinks of them, she must decide if and how she will save them and if there is a way to save the young vampire as well, who seems to have a small bit of goodness left in him.

This is the first book in the Darkangel trilogy that has been rereleased with a arguably less embarrassing cover:

Speaking as someone who wound up getting ahold of both editions, I'll take shadowy angsty man over blond angry toga-boy and hiked-up dress girl any day.

This fantasy is well structured.  It deals a lot with ideas of patience, love and sacrifice.

Activities to Do with the Book:

This book has been around for over a quarter of a century and has been long out of print. The only reason I got ahold of it is because my advisor said it was the best vampire romance she'd ever read. And, you know, she knows stuff. She'd recommended it after a class discussion of Twilight. And for Twilight fans of the world, there are subtle similarities. Although The Darkangel is set in a fantasy world different from our own, Aeriel does have one striking similarity to Bella: Both are clumsy. More so though, The Darkangle has more connections to the original story of Cupid and Psyche and other myths than Twilight.

Favorite Quotes:

“Aeriel rested the broad basket against her hip and adjust her kirtle. The steep climb she and her companion had been taking the last six hundred paces or so had caused the loose, flowing garment to twist around at the neck and fall askew” (p. 1).

“Cheer up, worry-wrinkle,” Eoduin cried over one shoulder. “What vampyre would want you?” (p. 6).

“They were jet, those wings, as deep as the sky, as black as Eoduin's hair—no, blacker, for they were dull, unoiled. They gave off no sheen in the light, no gleam to the eye. They drank up the light and diminished it: they were wings of pure shadow” (pp. 12-13).

"The darkangel looked at her then and laughed, a long, mocking laugh that sent the gargoyles into a screaming, chattering frenzy.  "You?" he cried, and Aeriel's heart shrank, tightened like a knot beneath the bone of her breast.  "You be my bride?  By the Fair Witch, no.  You're much too ugly" (p. 35).

Liar!

In case you're interested, there's been some drama with the American cover of Justine Larbalestier's new YA novel Liar.  

I haven't been able to read it yet, but apparently, the main character is black.  It is one of the few truths the protagonist, a compulsive liar, admits to.

The fact that a white girl appears on the US cover has caused further trust issues with the way the character is perceived as well as expresses a tendency to assume "whiteness" is more marketable.

Justine Larbalestier wrote her own well-crafted and insightful blog post in response to all the dramas.  You can check out what she had to say here.

What is it about the back of a man's head that sells?

Hitman movie

M.T. Anderson's Feed

Two bald dudes,

Two very different stories.