ABAW March Edition

Chronicling the ongoing attempts to read a book a week along with Sonar X9.

My list:

Firmin by Sam Savage

Savage finds an positive aesthetic in that which is usually despised and discarded, namely a rat, a hermit, a trashy neighborhood.  Firmin chronicles the life from birth to death of a bookstore rat in a doomed neighborhood in Boston.  I had a hard time getting into this book at first, though it is short and the characters are smart and well-written.  I’m grateful that I stuck with it though because there are several elements of the story that I really enjoyed.  The cultural allusions run thick.  My favorite thought from the book: people do not infest.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

I found this novel in a New York Times series about learning not to be afraid of math.  It is a quiet story about a quiet relationship.  The housekeeper tells the story of meeting and working for a man, a former mathematics professor, who, because of an injury many years ago, has only 80 minutes of memory.  Every day they must begin their working relationship anew.  The housekeeper comes to feel very affectionate toward the professor, and even though the professor can’t remember from one day to the next, he takes great joy in knowing the housekeeper’s son.  At times charming and heartbreaking, the story also includes clever and accessible explanations of several mathematical concepts important to the professor, as he teaches them to the housekeeper or her son.  Lovely, bittersweet book.  

Food Rules by Michael Pollan

This is a short, pocket book which digests (pun intended) many of the ideas Pollan discusses in his other work about food and the way we eat in our society.  One rule per page, simply stated, organized by his core motto: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”  The first section details rules for determining what is food, as opposed to “edible foodlike substances.”  The middle section is rules for moderating consumption.  The final section helps to guide people toward a mostly plant-based diet, without absolutely shunning meat.  My favorite rules include: eat all the junk you want if you make it yourself, don’t eat it if your grandmother or great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it immediately as food, and don’t eat cereal that colors the milk. 

Push: A Novel by Sapphire

This has been one of the hardest books for me to read this year.  Like a poem, every word counts, every word has emotional impact.  Push is the story of Precious, a teenage girl who has been emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by her mother and father as long as she can remember.  At sixteen, she already has one child, and is expecting her second.  She is drowning in life, but a teacher throws her a lifeline and then teaches her how to build a boat.  The central metaphor is in the title, first seen as Precious recounts the birth of her first child, when a paramedic gently tells her what she has to do.  The story though, is more about Precious giving birth to herself, pushing herself, finding some self-determination in her world.  Some might wonder why anyone would want to write or read about a life so abused and debased, but Sapphire does something that is essential in literature.  That which is abstract and unquantified can be ignored.  When Sapphire writes Precious into being, she makes her life tangible, concrete, and quantifiable. Push is a hard reality made visible, a reality that is then more difficult to ignore.  Push is beautiful.  No, I haven’t seen the movie.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

These short stories of various lives in Pakistan are beautiful to read.  There is a vividness and bright aesthetic beauty to the grim world Mueenuddin portrays.  I wish I’d come to this collection at a different time though.  Quick on the heels of Push, I had difficulty reading stories which continued to illustrate how much it sucks to be a woman in the world.  Though I think the characters of the stories were well-wrought and the stories of byzantine business dealings were engaging, I couldn’t read more than a few before I had to put down the book for relief.  I want to return to these stories again later, when the timing is better.  

Sonar X9’s list:

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Dead Guy Spy by David Lubar (A sequel to My Rotten Life: Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie)

The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook by Eleanor Davis

The Real Spy’s Guide to Becoming a Spy by Peter Earnest and Suzanne Harper

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin (abandoned)

I think this book is another case of ill-timing.  I have no doubt that he will like this book one day, but now was not the right time.  

Currently Reading:

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Mossflower by Brian Jacques

Yes. Yes. Yes. We will finish this one this week. I love reading Jacques out loud, but it does take a very long time to get through one of the Redwall-mice books this way.  I don’t want to comment prematurely, but I haven’t enjoyed this one as much as Redwall, with one exception.  I love the dialect of the moles, so having Dinny and his family popping up every few pages is delightful.  Our favorite phrase is one from the moles, declaring an overly talkative creature to be a “roight noisebag.”

Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard

I think it may be a little early for Conan, but he’s plowing through this one a few pages at a time between other books.  

Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger by Kevin Bolger

Surely Sir Fartsalot will take his place alongside the Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants very soon. 

Other notable books that have passed through the house lately:

Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace by James Proimos

This book is clever and funny and sweet.  I love Paulie’s parents, who don’t bat an eyelash when Paulie wants to achieve world peace before bedtime.  

My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall

The illustrations in this picture book are lovely, round, cut paper illustrations, with hearts as the predominant shape.  I can’t imagine the time it took to create the illustrations, but the book might just inspire your kids to make their own pictures out of common shapes.  

Hoot by Carl Hiassen

We listened to this book (most of it) on our trek to New Mexico.  We look forward to finishing the story when we get through Mossflower. 

Alphabeasties and Other Amazing Types by Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss

This is another clever, visually engaging picture book based on typefaces.  Anyone with a passion or even a passing interest in typography will dig this alphabet book.  Each page has a creature made entirely from the first letter of its name.  All of the typefaces are identified at the end of the book.  It’s a beautiful illustration of the rhetoric of font choice without being the least bit stuffy about it.  Many of the phrases feel quite lovely in the mouth as well. 

The Pigeon books by Mo Willems

What kid doesn’t love yelling “No!” at the increasingly absurd pleas of the Pigeon to do things he’s not supposed to do?  These picture books make reading a two-way street.  Check out Willems’ other great books as well.  

The Magic Treehouse books by Mary Pope Osborne

I’ll be honest and tell you that I haven’t read any of these chapter books, but Sonar X5 has read 28 of them.  All of the ones that he’s been able to get his hands on at the library.  Osborne’s project to introduce history, geography, and literary canon into stories about a pair of time-traveling siblings is really rather awesome in it’s scope.  There are more than 40 books total now, and Osborne keeps writing.  

The Spiderwick Chronicles, including the novels, their continuations, and Care and Feeding of Sprites by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

If you know anyone who likes fairies, suggest these chapter books to them.  They  are fun and a bit edgy, with a touch of scary and dark around the edges of both the story and the beautiful illustrations.  The Sonars really love the Care and Feeding of Sprites companion book, which has inspired them to make up their own wee fantastic creatures. 

What we’re thinking of reading:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Clockwork by Philip Pullman

A Paper-Tweet Vacation

We recently drove from sunny Coastal Texas to chilly-snowy North-Central New Mexico.  We do this sometimes.  Usually in a Eurovan with three children and enough stuff to keep us busy for three months.  The drive both ways was absolutely beautiful.  The Sonars wanted to see snow in New Mexico and they were not disappointed.  The snow season in New Mexico has been spectacular (it’s snowed once more since we left).  We had flurries at Papa and Nana’s house on the northwest side of Albuquerque, and we spent a glorious slippery afternoon tobogganing on the east side of the Sandias. 

I resisted the urge to tweet away the vacation with my phone.  At more leisurely moments though, I could not resist the urge to jot down (on actual paper!) things I might have tweeted at those moments.  And just to make it look like I have nothing to do right now, I thought I’d share them with you. 

 The stunning sunset view from my parents’ porch. North Albuquerque and a portion of the Sandia Mountains at sunset. Please click this thumbnail to make it bigger. It’s worth it.

March 13, 2010

*On the road from Calvert, Texas to Corrales, New Mexico.

*Lost in Waco, home of Dr Pepper. Baylor buildings are pretty. Don’t see any bears.

*Dublin, TX. Heard a rumor they make DP w/cane sugar here. Knights of Pithius sign in the Rotary bldg window. Big shudder.

*Gorman Mills. Peanut elevator!

*Abilene is long and skinny w/ few food choices on the interstate besides truck stops.

*Sweetwater, TX, Sonic. Rattlesnake Roundup this weekend. Apparently we are the only people here not attending.

*Roscoe, TX. Wind turbines on the edge of the highway. Huge and ready to march across the plains. They are crankin!

*Farm the wind from the air and cotton from the soil. Road Radio: Def Leppard.

*Price Daniel Unit TDJC. What does this mean? Road Radio: Bad girlfriend.

*Snyder, TX. Bathroom break. 

*Knitting. Finished a sock at Justiceburg, TX.

*Texas is pretty big. 11 hours on the road and we haven’t left the state yet. #understatement

*Pride Runs Deep in Shallowwater. #roadsigns

*Anton, TX. Pronunciation tips anyone? Ant’n? Ann-tahn?

*Looks like dinner in Clovis, NM. Anyone have a favorite place?

*Prairie dogs are watching cars go by from the edge of the freeway.

*Sudan.

*Tumbleweed!

*Ack!  (Someone nearly ran us off the road there. Happily, a state trooper was there to catch the dangerous passing and the speeding)

*Was that a pull-camper decorated like a dog?

*Ah. We made it to our destination in good time.  To bed now. 

 Sunday March 14

*Someone who shall remain nameless, in an overtired state, might have tried to pee on the ceiling in his sleep.

*Cold front moves in. Sky turns gloomy. Will it snow?

*It’s snowing! We’re bundling up the kids to go look for enough snow to slide in.

*Snow rain sun snow rain sun snow rain sun

*Toboggan at Sandia moutains. Slushy cold snowballs silding mud fluffy snowflakes fun leading to happy tired.

*Altitude change and dry air playing havoc with sinuses.

Monday March 15

*Snow-covered mountain view in the morning sunshine.  Sonar X9 wants to do more sliding. Brisk walk.

*The kids are bringing sand from the driveway to the patio on sock-load at a time.

Tuesday March 16

*Albuquerque has a lot of billboards. #understatement

*Explora! An amazing museum where we can play with everything! Sciencey, puzzley, educationey, geeky.

*Explora! We could come back every day and neither get bored nor play with it all. 

*Explora! There are many things in this museum I’d love to imitate at home. Ex: the stretchy sail room dividers that are adjustibly attached to walls with old stereo jacks. (ok, that one’s too long to be a tweet. Cut me some slack.  I was on vacation.)

*Explora! Gift shop is as awesome as the rest of the museum. I bought brain-teaser puzzles for the drive home.

*Dream food: Little Anita’s chicken tacos or enchiladas.

*A common New Mexico question: red or green?  Come on.  No contest.  Green all the way baby. 

*Dry sinus misery. If I don’t drink till my eyeballs float I can hardly breathe. I might be turning into a mummy.

Wednesday March 17

*Happy St. Patrick’s day. Brisk morning walk. Chewy dark beer in the afternoon. Home-cooked corned beef and cabbage by Nana.

*New running shoes and sport sandals for Sonar X9 (he’s training for a team marathon). Shiny shoes are always faster.

*Didn’t get a chance to call bro to wish him a happy birthday until it was late in the evening. I suspect he’s already on a pub crawl.

Thursday March 18

*Another brisk morning walk. Convinced Sonar X5 to come. Sonar X9 ran most of the way.

*New sport sandals for Sonar X5. Not so shiny but easier to shake out the sand than tennies.

*Dan, Sonars X7 and X9 return to the mountain for more sliding. Here on the mesa it’s nearly 70F.

*Sonar X5 and I hang with Nana on the patio and try not to get a sunburn. Only partly successful.

*Delicious pizza dinner and more of that growly dark beer. Love the molassesy undertones. 

Friday March 19

*Rough night w/much sneezing, coughing, and flopping. We are all histy. Time to head home. New Mexico we will miss you!

*On the road by 6am MDT. Hoping to hit our southerly turn at Cline’s Corners before sunrise breaks the horizon.

*Made the turn moments before daybreak, saving us some eyeball splitting.

*Beautiful sunrise over the desert. Orange yellow pink purple blue grey.

*Everyone’s skin feels like paper.

*Snow remains in many shady nooks and crannies along the road.

*Encino, NM is not quite a modern day ghost town, but very very close. Not much more than a speed trap w/ many dilapidated buildings.

*Breakfast in Vaughn, NM. The Conoco store or Penny’s Diner?

*Penny’s was nice. It will fill you up, but don’t expect it to be fast. 

*Eastern New Mexico: big ranches, wide open spaces, cows, easy driving on 285S to Roswell.

*Speed limit: 70mph. My speed: 74mph. The driver who just passed me rapidly: reading a book. #crazy

*Vaughn to Roswell: not much. A few startlingly green alfalfa fields, fewer than a dozen buildings visible from highway, handful of bus stops.

*Subtle shift around mile marker 114. Less cow. More drilling.

*Roswell’s alien kitsch is always fun. Town seems very vibrant compared to many communities.

*Let the tantrums commence. Nearly 1/3 home, three tantrums so far. Good news though, I can mostly breathe through my nose again. 

*Almost halfway. Trying to delay lunch another half hour. Should I bribe them with jellybeans?

*Stop sign in middle of nowhere. Intersection between US Hwy 285 and TX Farm to Market Rd 1776. No traffic. Weird.

*Ft. Stockton one of my fave parts of this drive. Halfway and the wind turbines.

*The turbines stand at the head of the mesas and ridges like forward scouts or sentinels. Sneak up in valleys to ambush unsuspecting passersby.

*A beautiful sand- and chocolate-colored paint horse near the road.

*The scrubby bushes at Ft. Stockton grow steadily on the road to San Antonio, gradually becoming trees.

*A goat standing on the side of the road.  Some dogs on the roof of a building. Not in the same towns.

*Darkness falls as we hit San Antonio. We stop to eat and load up an audio book for the kids. Hoot by Carl Hiassen.

*Kids drop off to sleep one at a time. We do not drop off to sleep. 

*Amazingly, we make it home way before midnight. One more brief tantrum of waking confusion, and we all land in our beds, happy to be home.

*We’ve had a lovely time. Thanks for sharing snippets with me. #love

I could eat him up

Behind that fringe are the luscious brown eyes of Sonar X7.  Happy birthday kiddo!

The Other February Books

A Book a Week continues. 

Me

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

This is the 2010 Newberry Medal Winner.  Sonar X9 read it last summer, having found it in the library.  At the time, when I asked him about it, he had a hard time describing exactly what it was about.  He was clearly engaged with the story, and it obviously left him with a good feeling.  That kid loves an adventure story or a graphic novel that he can rip through quickly, but he has the sensitivity to really appreciate a book like this one as well.  It’s a smart book, that doesn’t condescend to explain every last detail, that pushes a kid to think about what it happening and puzzle out some meaning.  The book stayed with him and he mentioned things about it here and there.  I’ve wanted to read it since then, but when it won the Newberry, I knew I couldn’t put it off.  I’ve rarely been disappointed by the Newberry choices.  This one was no exception. 

I liked Stead’s first novel, First Light, but there is something distinctly different, bigger, more profound about When You Reach Me.  When You Reach Me is the story of a kid who finds a note, loses one friend, gains others, and along the way puzzles out a notion of time travel, self-sacrifice, and the way in which relationships must grow and change.  The characters have believable depth and flaws.  I particularly love the mother, who is studying for an appearance on the $25,000 Pyramid every day when she returns from her job as a paralegal. It’s good to see the portrayal of a parent that is engaged with her child but also struggling to be her own person and achieve her own goals.  I could talk about any of the characters in a similar way.  I believe in them.  They are complex, but that complexity is revealed by degrees, in elegant and simple ways.  

The story also has an elegance, though it seems far from simple until the very end.  The main character, Miranda, refers regularly to her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, another time traveling tale. I read A Wrinkle in Time in the third grade.  I remember very little about the story itself, but I remember the feeling that I wasn’t quite understanding the book.  I remember a feeling of flying.  I remember enough to know that this story is quite different and yet similar.  Enough to know that I want to reread it.  One book leads to another book as this book is passed to another person.  Partner is reading it now.  

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

This book was just fun.  I loved Pride and Prejudice when I read it in college, but with a kind of romantic distance.  I appreciated Elizabeth’s wit and marveled at the restraint exercised in a society of manners.  This zombie redaction heightened my appreciation of the original, particularly of the potential for reading humor between the lines.  Grahame-Smith elevates the innuendo even further.  I lost count of the number of ‘ball’ jokes.  He is able to infuse Austen’s work with something else besides zombies, a sense that the characters have actual bodies.  In the novel of manners there is a sense that anything corporal or bodily is just not talked about as if it isn’t there.  I don’t recall once thinking of Elizabeth’s body in any way beyond a holder for a gown or a hand proferred.  There was no sense of her physically.  Graham-Smith though, gives Elizabeth and her sisters bodies that fight and feel.  Oh yes, and they sweat too, though the low word ‘sweat’ does not appear in the pages of the book.  Elizabeth and Darcy at different points suffer from “exercise moisture.”  

Another word that appears rarely in this zombie book is ‘zombie.’  Epithets abound, but my favorite is “manky dreadfuls.”  That should totally be the name of a punk band.  

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is my favorite book so far this year.  A 2007 nominee for the ALA Printz award, this book wrapped itself around me and wouldn’t let go.  Death narrates this story of a German orphan living through World War II with her foster family near Munich.  Leisl is the thief and main character, earning the title when she steals a book from the cemetery at her little brother’s funeral.  Heartbreaking.  Rich.  Nuanced.  Leisl’s best friend is Rudy.  Together they steal books and other things, both for the thrill and to fill the aching need of hunger and privation of the war.  I find myself wanting more boys in stories to be like Rudy.  Or like Marcus and the other boys in When You Reach Me.  A boy who is both trying hard to be what he thinks a boy should be, which is so much more than any stereotype of masculinity.  These boys are trying to be strong and fast, but they’re also full of love, fear, and silliness.  They make mistakes but they know when to do the right thing.  

Death tells us the story of how Leisl—I get hung up on the word here, I want to say ‘survived’ because she is a survivor, but ‘endured’ works well too.  How people live, endure, survive.  Death is most troubled by his job when he has to face those who survive.  The way that survivors react to a death is difficult and painful for Death to endure.  But of coures, he does endure.  Death is eternal.  He reminds us that we know how things end.  They always end in death.  Leisl is human, and her life will end, but she and Death are similar in the ways they learn to cope with their survival.  

I’m rambling here.  This book makes me want to outline essays about the theme of survival, the use of words to control and uplift, the notion of nourishment beyond food, the ways in which lives are balanced against one another, or any number of other things that this rich story would support.  

The book is heavy.  Situated in an impoverished neighborhood during WWII, with a labor camp right down the road.  The story itself has few moments of explicit violence, but there is a palpable tension surrounding the story.  We know that people are dying in any number of ways.  We know the fear in which people lived, especially if they’re doing something that could lead instantly to their death if discovered.  Zuzak exploits these tensions exquisitely.  He tells us more than once what is going to happen, but rather than deflating what follows, the tension is heightened, the story driven forward.  We are compelled to read in order to understand how that conclusion comes about.  To learn what happens around that conclusion.  

This is one I will read again and hope that you will read.  You will cry, but it will be the kind of sadness that is deeply thoughtful and cathartic and enriching.  

Sonar X9

Things are so busy around here right now that I haven’t been able to get even a simple thumbs up or down on any of these. I think he loved most of these, though Johnny Texas was compulsory at school and I have no idea whether he liked it.  He was enjoying the novelty of The Inferno but I think was undone by the complexity and has given it up in favor of other pleasures.  

The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell

Tapestry: The Hound of Rowan by Henry H. Neff

Tapestry: The Second Siege by Henry H. Neff

Fergus Crane by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

Johnny Texas by Carol Hoff and Bob Meyers

The Inferno of Dante by Robert Pinsky

What We’re Reading Now

Firmin by Sam Savage

Mossflower by Brian Jacques (out loud)

What We’re Thinking about Reading

In Other Rooms Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

American Nerd: The Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

The 2010 Winter Olympics and Some Knitting

Sonar X5 has an infamous obsession with American football.  Surprising for such a young kid, I know.  I wondered what he would do when the NFL season was over.  I wonder no more.  He has seamlessly transferred his football obsession to the Winter Olympics.  We’ve watched Luge and a lot of Skiing.  He’s not crazy about Figure Skating, but he’s fascinated by Curling.  I don’t completely understand Curling, but we are figuring it out.  

While he watches sports he never knew existed, I am working on a Knitting Olympics project.  For background on the Knitting Olympics, please refer to the inimitable Harlot herself.  For my project I am knitting a Buttercup Top by Heidi Kirrmeier (Ravelry link requires login) using a bamboo blend yarn called Spa by Caron.  The colorway is called Ocean Spray.  The Sonars gave this yarn to me for Christmas.  

This is a raglan sweater, knit from the top down in the round.  On the fourth day of knitting, I separated the sleeves and body.  Today, the fifth day of knitting, I’m chugging away at the acres of stockinette stitch ahead of me.  

The shoulders and sleeve-caps of a hand-knit sweater, the day five knitting progress on my Buttercup top for the Knitting Olympics

I love the acres of stockinette.  Some knitters complain of boredom when knitting large swaths like this, but I find it very meditative.  I have to maintain a pace of 9-12 rounds of knitting per day to finish before the Olympic Closing Ceremonies.  I have been a little overzealous here at the beginning, knitting more than is perhaps healthy, and I am suffering with a sore left hand.  I plan to ice the hand and pace myself a little better.  I am confident that I will be able to finish though. 

In other knitting news, there is one, ready-to-knit-the-toe sock hanging around in the car for waiting times.  I may have mentioned this stress project in a previous post.  

I also received backup yarn from my Ravelry Hero and finished knitting all of the pieces of the Tempest Cardigan.  I tried wet-blocking the back piece, but was unhappy with the result.  The pink stitches were just not relaxing and lining up the way I had hoped.  I have used this pink alpaca yarn in a couple of projects and have always found it fiddly for both gauge and blocking.  So for the other pieces, I decided to try steam-blocking with my iron.  I spread out the pieces gently, set the iron on Maximum Steam and sort of blotted the pieces with the iron, spending extra time on the curling edges of each piece.  

The results here were stunning.  The stitches emerged in the most gorgeous rows, the delicate sheen of the green silk and wool popping out.  Three cheers for steam-blocking. 

Hours of seaming went off without a hitch.  The pattern suggested slipping a stitch at the beginning of every row to create a selvedge edge for ease of seaming, and I am so pleased with the result.  That selvedge, and the bold stripes made lining up the pieces so much simpler.  Here’s a poorly lit (late night) shot of the sweater during the seaming of the second sleeve and underarm. 

A nearly complete hand-knit Tempest Cardigan in green and pink stripes, pictured during seaming.

After the seaming I picked up and knit the 210 stitches for the button band and collar.  That knitting went surprisingly quickly, but the bind-off befuddled me.  I started to bind-off loosely with the working needle, but after a few inches, it became clear that it was too tight.  I picked that out and moved up a couple of needle sizes and set off again.  This was Friday morning, the same day as the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, and my eyeballs were on the yarn for my Olympic sweater.  I obliviously bound-off the whole edge and held it up to find that it was obviously STILL TOO TIGHT.  Ugh.  I left it for a couple of days, then picked out that edge.  That’s where it waits, while I work on Olympic knitting and contemplate bind-off options.  I’m thinking that I’ll use Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind-off and see if I can carefully and continuously control the tension that way. Incidentally, that bind-off reminds me of kitchener stitch, which—contrary to its reputation among some knitters—I really love to do.  I’m hopeful that I will enjoy the process.  

In the meantime, I can choose buttons (I need ten small ones).  There is a bottom-facing still to be knit, but unless something very strange happens, that shouldn’t be too terrible.  

The most amazing part of that sweater is that I have four of the tiniest little balls of green yarn left right now.  Two are the size of regular marbles, two the size of shooter marbles.  If I blend them with the pink for that bottom band, I should just about use them up.  Talk about a close call.