Picture Books!

I hope that before this auto-posts, I'll have time to have written up what I love in picture books. If it turns out that I haven't had time, I'll wish I had talked about:

picture books as amuse-bouche, perfect bites
whimsy
first experiences with language (spare, lush, bouncy, lyrical)
tales that stretch young minds (but that's not a requirement)
meaningful moments in lives of kids
whimsy
eye candy
structure

After that, two recent favorite picture book reads are below. Buglette, the Messy Sleeper by Bethanie Deeney Murguia (Random House - Tricycle Press, which is shuttered, but the book isn't) highlights some of my criteria for "great picture book." Buglette is a very neat bug by day, but her nighttime wriggles--despite being amaaaaaazing--are not just messy: they attract the very scary bug-eating crow. Buglette has to save the day!

Now, that might sound too scary for bedtime, but it really isn't. It's about a small being figuring out how to take care of a problem. Transfer that to something like "I'm four and I'm really scared of spiders, and here's one in my shoe; what do I do about it?" Transfer that to "I've spilled this glass of water; what do I do about it? Can I do it on my own?" Problem-solving skills: good for kid development! All that aside, I love this short, compact story with its playfulness and whimsy, and I LOVE the art. Check out her blog, which links out to her site as well.

Another recent PB read for the younger crowd was Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes (HarperCollins - Greenwillow). I saw this in f&G (folded and gathered--the loose pages without a binding) a long time ago (I think) and was really, really, wriggly-like pleased to receive a copy at BEA's children's authors breakfast, and even more intrigued to hear what the author had to say about it, particularly about the pictures. This book might mislead you: you might think it's going to be quiet and sedate, the sort of book that aunt you don't like wants to read to you because it will make you yawn and yawn and somehow magically play quietly. (I don't have an aunt like that.) Instead, the little white rabbit has a wild, wonderful imagination that encompasses multiple dimensions, and wonders what it might be like to be green, or tall, or a rock... This is perfect for those kids who go to bed in puppy mode one night and wake up barking you good morning. You probably know at least one. (Oddly enough, these puppies are quite interested in pizza and other non-dog foods.) Check out the author here.

Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale; illustrated by Nathan Hale

Why, hello!

I think I have (nearly) cleaned up all my messes of having a month-ish without reliable computer access. I haven't cleaned up the work--not the piled-up inbox, nor the computer-related tasks, nor things that must be done/read/written by a week ago--but in a few programs' installation time, I can start in on tackling. 

In between trips to New York (for BEA) and New Orleans (for event planning boot camp class, with a morning at ALA) (note: while fun, you can do lots of fun things and stay connected to people and books without attending either, and I'm happy to expand on that), and a long weekend with family, I read, among other things, Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon and Deal Hale, with illustrations by (no relation) Nathan Hale (Bloomsbury).

Any graphic novel review I write should come with a disclaimer: I don't entirely "get" graphic novels, comics, manga, and other panel-illustrated writing. It's not because I have some big reason to not appreciate these forms of storytelling; it's probably most accurate to say that I'm very word-visual and linear about that--I read those Choose Your Own Adventures in story chunks, and then read the books from front to back. I love word ambiguity, but not linearity ambiguity, which panel-illustrated stories can sometimes have. I want more words and fewer pictures!

But: I liked this book, and in particular, I liked the first third, where Rapunzel's story is retold in drab browns where Mother Gothel has stripped the countryside bare and enslaved its people, and in vivid greens where Rapunzel is confined to a tower-tree which grows and prompts Rapunzel to grow as well. The next section is a quest to return home and rescue family, and the rest of the story is more episodic, with Rapunzel mostly saving the day, until the Big Confrontation. It's fun to see bits of other fairy tales get hinted at here and there, though.

I don't have a best of last July post, as I only posted giveaways, but it's going-to-the-post-office, no-snow season, so look for more of those coming up.

What Do You Say About YA?

I'm still in the middle of computer woes, which won't be straightened out before the end of next week. This is terrible timing, but I'm sure I'll live. I didn't expect a monitor flicker to be a month's worth of bother; now I'll have to be more understanding of how long it takes other people to get up and running after a computer issue!

But this is kinda perfect for a question that I can post here via phone:

What do you talk about when you talk about YA?

I'm looking for a word, and I don't know what it is. A definition that's not in the dictionary. A justification that shouldn't be needed. A turn of phrase. A feeling.

What do you say? What do you associate, positive or negative, with YA?

A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson

My airplane and clearing-that-shelf reading this week has been A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson (Penguin - Speak). I thought this was a YA book--and there's no reason it can't be read by a young adult, in my opinion--but it felt like the sort of book that's always been in the adult section. I don't know how I acquired this book, so I can't really say more.

Anna is a countess, and the sort of remarkable person who is kind, strong, and humble, despite a very privileged upbringing. But, when the Bolsheviks do their thing, she and her family must flee to England, losing touch with their servant (who's carrying the non-entendre family jewels). While a family friend has helped younger brother Petyr find a place at a respected boarding school, Anna and her cousin, Prince Sergei, end up in service, Sergei as a driver and Anna as a maid of many different responsibilities.

The Earl of Westholme's household staff are discomfited by the new arrival; they see through Anna's disguise and resent the intrusion on their space--but Anna is careful to fill her new role as one born to do so, and after winning a grudging respect, proceeds to charm the household. At least, all except for Muriel Hardwicke, the earl's common-born fiance, who has some unfortunate feelings about eugenics... But, if the family, the staff, and the Earl turn away Miss Hardwicke, will they have to sell their home and scatter to the winds? And is there any hope for Anna and the Earl's star-crossed love?

The stylized language and Anna's steadfast, grown-up Pollyanna-ish personality make this book loads of fun, though there are moments where information is deliberately held back from readers so the denouement can be fetchingly unraveled all at once. Problems with punctuation and spacing, particularly commas, happen often enough to distract, though not quite often enough to warrant avoiding this book if a sweet romance, not in-period but in a country atmosphere like Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, is up your alley. If you have an e-reader, I might recommend an e-version for the fun of quickly and easily looking up rarely-used words and those used in uncommon ways.

Jane by April Lindner

As I write this on a teeny tiny cell phone screen, FedEx is probably circling my office with a new monitor, but not yet with the requisite parts to run said monitor. This has thrown a great big ugly wrench into my "get stuff done" plans, but has been very helpful in prompting me to continue the great shelf clean-out of 2011.

One of the most recent picks in said book downsizing was Jane by April Lindner (Hachette--Poppy). I was thinking that I might have some issues with a retelling of Jane Eyre, given that I have issues with Jane Eyre; while I did have some Jane issues, I should probably frame this review with the note that I wasn't reading with an eye toward putting the book down, counting pages. Instead, I stayed up past my bedtime two nights, something I can't justify very often, and something I tend to not do when my eyes feel like raisins well before I'd normally be asleep.

I think that retellings are difficult beasts. In retelling, it's easy to get mired down in the original storyline, or to lose the emotional thread in a retelling that goes further astray. The best of the latter are probably not so much retellings--just stories inspired by the originals.

I wasn't excited to find out that Mr. Rochester in Jane has been transformed into a(n) (probably) in-his-thirties rock star, but this worked far better than I thought it would, because it a) gave Mr. Rochester--well, Jane's Nico Rathburne--a reason to have been a bad boy beyond "I felt like it," b) gave Nico a (better) reason to be comfortable with famous friends and not-so-famous staff, and c) mitigated some of his neediness and disbelief that he could be loved for himself, as he's had fans of music and merely image.

Nineteen-year-old Jane is somewhat less transformed, coming to the Rathburne household as a nanny. I have always found Jane, in the original and here, hard to connect with. She feels dour and terse, and maybe too forgiving of that older man in her life.

Before I go off on the updating tangent, Jane has a pleasant length and pacing. That might sound like an odd compliment, but if you've read Jane Eyre and thought the part with St. John would never end, you might understand what I mean. There's much less Gothic horror and more of the traditional romance structure in Jane.

While I'm pleased with the update, I also feel that it magnifies some issues. For example, Jane and Nico's dialog sounds old-fashioned and odd. We don't get as much of Jane's development and feelings of desperate solitude, even when she's not sure where she'll spend her first night alone; she has siblings, and she must enforce separation from them and their unhealthy relationships. Jane also remembers her parents' less-than-perfect parenting skills, but it doesn't have as much impact in flashbacks and memories as it might if it directly affected her present problems. The...guest...in the attic, well, in today's world, adult protective services would probably be involved, and obtaining a divorce in this day and age, in the United States (where this story is set) would not be unduly scrutinized. I have no particular thoughts on--or maybe I find the good and bad balance in--Nico's ultimate karmic "punishment." But maybe I'm really missing issues of faith and morality, social class, and gender roles that by virtue of time period can't be the thematic hinges of this Jane, just a multitude of factors in personality.

I enjoyed the romance focus of Jane, as well as the streamlined story. I'd recommend Jane for those looking for the same. I suspect that teen Jane Eyre fans would like Jane, and those who've struggled with Jane Eyre might be able to return to the original after reading the bones in Jane. Finally, Jane is, I suspect, an entry into the field of "new adult" literature, filling in the gap of protagonists between age 18-ish and adult, and I can't fault that in any way.

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

Well, oops.

I don't use netGalley all that much; I've got a lot of requests lined up, but because I have a hard time (lately, at least) getting to a computer where I have Adobe Digital Editions, I try not to pick anything up unless I know, say, I'll be taking a trip, where I'd rather be carrying one e-reader than several real books. Also, because the ARCs expire off my device (and off my computer), I forget to review what I've read, and then I no longer have the file... And shoot, because I have about 20 half-written reviews waiting for me to polish them up and post them, and I want to get to it!

Thus, it's only after at least a couple of weeks that I stumbled upon a reminder that I read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - Clarion), based on a true story about a boy whose village in Sudan is attacked in 1985. His teacher tells him to run--and after that, he's on the run, on his own, with stragglers from his village, with other boys he meets at refugee camps. He sees gruesome sights along is journey, and there's a wonderful, wonderful moment when Salva and his group run across another group in the desert, and must decide whether to save them--or save themselves. (I can imagine, say, a fifth-grade class really debating what he should do, and how many threads for discussion open from there.) Despite all that's taken away from him, Salva survives, and helps others to do the same.

Interwoven in alternating chapters is Nya's story, set in 2008. She walks for hours each day to carry water to her home, and for part of the year, her family travels far away to dig for water, competing with wild animals and other desperate families. Her younger sibling gets sick. Her family can't earn any money. So, when a strange man shows up in her village with plans to build a well, she has no reason to believe that there's been water just a few feet from her front door all this time.

Eventually, as you might expect, Salva and Nya's paths cross. While I figured out how they would early on, I don't think this distracted or detracted from the story, and if a reader doesn't pick up on hints, I don't think it will ruin the reading experience, but rather, I think it will be a satisfying surprise.

It's really difficult to present history and current events to middle grade kids; their worldview is still very much in development--and I have to say that I learned some information about what was going on in the world when I was little, and about things I've been conveniently able to not know much about. I think A Long Walk to Water is a good introduction to the topic for middle grade readers (who most likely won't encounter it anywhere else in their public school curriculum), because it's simple in its telling, but it doesn't seem like a gloss: the important ideas are here, in terms a young reader will be able to understand and later build upon.

In addition to the fictionalized story, there are notes from the author and now-grown Salva at the end of the book--much appreciated for filling in some of the questions I had while reading.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Sometimes, I come to the end of a book and do not want to talk about it. This is not because a book is bad, but because I have come to the end and I am not done reading. Or, to be clearer, I'm done reading in a physical sense, but not in the sense of making sense of what I've read.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (Penguin - DAW), even days after I've finished reading, is one of those books that's difficult to distill, and I have never seen a summary that does justice to how very complex and compelling it is. If you've seen reviews, then you've seen words like genocide, female genital mutilation/circumcision/cutting (worth a websearch to get more information on use of each term, and reasons for and against each), rape, and war. Yet that's simplifying Who Fears Death.

In a futuristic, post-apocalyptic desert, similar to today's southern Sudan, Onyesonwu's Okeke mother is raped by a Nuru man, making her Ewu--visibly, irrevocably different, and outcast from both the Okeke and the Nuru. Onyesonwu, whose name means "who fears death," rebels against the restrictions of her society, and ultimately, decides to rebel against the rules of her world, destroying her father in order to save not just her loved ones, but people who have not loved her. The story, part fantasy, part science fiction, part magical realism, part many other things and Okorafor's original style of storytelling, doesn't shy away from brutal and graphic description, but difficult real-world themes are interwoven with the magical tale seamlessly. Onyesonwu's story is raw, emotional, and nuanced.

It would be easy to highlight a dozen craft elements that I found impressive, such as Okorafor's ability to make me feel like I'm right there, smelling the smells and seeing the sights Onyesonwu does, but I think my favorite is the recurring theme of transformative dying. Several times, a traumatic experience is referred to as a death, while the character lives on, changed, living a new life. I love the idea of the self being reborn throughout life, and death(s) being not endpoints, but waystations, and this theme brings an optimistic, hopeful note to otherwise tragic moments in the characters' lives.

Originally published on the Sirens LiveJournal.