It's All About the Book

Last night at the library, I was asked to recommend a funny book for a fifth grader. I immediately thought of two authors that crack me up every single time I read them — Barbara Robinson and Jean Shepherd. These two women have written the Holy Trinity of funny kids books and I *highly* recommend them to kids and adults alike….

A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd.

Yep. The one and the same as the ubiquitous movie that is shown 24 hours a day from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The adventures of Ralphie, Flick, and the Old Man are absolutely hilarious. Fans of the movie will find the book very similar, and anyone who grew up in the 1950s or 1960s will appreciate the “historical” references. I am especially fond of the Old Man and his forays into the basement to deal with the “clanky old son of bitch” furnace that never stayed lit, or the pack of neighborhood dogs that ate the Christmas ham.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

The Herdmans are one of the funniest (and saddest) literary families ever. We all know or knew a family like the Herdmans, where it seemed like there were a million kids in the family, and they all ran wild. The Herdmans joined the cast of the local Christmas pageant just so they can get free donuts, but end up learning a little bit about themselves and what Christmas is all about.

AND…..

The Best Halloween Ever by Barbara Robinson

The Herdmans are back, but this year they’ve ruined Halloween. The town cancels Halloween because the Herdmans routinely ruin it by setting fires and stealing everyone’s candy. The school faculty attempt to salvage some of the fun by putting on a Halloween party & haunted house, but the Herdmans crash…with unexpected results.

Three of my all-time favorites. Share ’em with your kids or read ’em to yourself. Either way, you will laugh until ya can’t laugh no more….

I started a whole bunch of books over the Christmas holiday. Finished some, put some aside. Here they are…

• The World According to Martha – Pretty much a book of quotations masquerading as business advice from Martha Stewart. Nothing earthshattering, and nothing that changed my life forever. The thread count of sheets sold at K-Mart really isn’t at the top of my Most Important Things To Know list, but I did enjoy reading her philosophy on working hard and being the best. I can’t help it. She fascinates me!
• Kringle by Tony Abbott. The story of Kris Kringle, even though everyone knows he was raised by Tante Kringle and the Kringles, the first toymakers to the King. Almost finished with it. Scott stole it away from me just when it was getting good. Kringle’s caregiver had just been stolen by goblins, and he had finally made his way to the nearest city, only to find it a heap of smoking ruins. Should finish it tonight….
• Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door by Lynn Truss – An utter, bloody waste of time. The author had some success with Eats Shoots and Leaves which was her lament on the state of grammar in the 21st century, but she totally missed the mark on this one. Totally not funny.
• The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl – a murder mystery set in the young U.S. and featuring such luminaries as Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. I usually like mysteries based on books, but this one has only served to remind me of how much I hated Dante’s Inferno in high school.
• Sweet & Sour Lily by Sally Warner – one of Lizzy’s books from school. I think it’s terribly easy reading for her, but she says no. One of the few early chapter books I’ve read that features a young character who’s father is in jail. Kind of a light read in the vein of Ramona Quimby, but not as well drawn.

The 12/18 Sunday edition of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle had an interview with Francesca Lia Block, creator of perhaps the hippest chick to ever hit young adult literature — Weetzie Bat. I confess I’d sort of forgotten about Weetzie, until I turned to the Books page in the paper and saw Block sitting there, a dark haired waif all in white, commanding the whole top half of the page. Block is back and is dragging Weetzie with her, although Weetzie is now a grown up 40 year old with two daughters and is about to break up for good with her Secret Agent Lover Man, Max. I’m off to the bookstore tomorrow to find this book. I have to know what’s happened to Weetzie, Max, Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys and all the other colorful characters from Block’s surreal world. In the meantime, I thought I’d resurrect a couple old review I wrote of two of Block’s later books…

I Was a Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block

For some reason, Jim Morrison’s L.A. Woman kept going through my head as I read this one. Maybe it’s because Block describes Los Angeles as a “woman reclining billboard model.” Who knows….Anyway, Teenage Fairy is different. Different from the magical unreality of Weetzie Bat and different from the dark fantasy of Hanged Man. But different in a good way. Barbie Markowitz, named for the ubiquitous doll, has little magic in her life until the arrival of Mab, a true, real fairy of the fluttery-gossamer-winged variety, but with a definite edge. Mab has sharp little teeth and a healthy sex drive—certainly not the kind of fairy envisioned by Andrew Lang or even Walt Disney. Mab helps Barbie cope with her crocodile stage mother who pushes her into modeling to make up for her own failed career. The Crocodile puts Barbie into the hands of a slimy photographer who specializes in traumatizing his young subjects. Fast forward a few years (after all, what’s time in a Block novel?!) Where we find Barbie a discontented, frightened, young woman. Mab has stuck with her through the years and pushes Barbie to break with her past and get control of her future. How she does that involves New York, a beautiful boy named Griffin, a delectable biscuit boy named Todd, and a lovely little camera.

Block has refined the wild, funky prose she patented in Weetzie Bat and has added some toned darkness to the magic of life in Southern California. Fans of the earlier Block books might find this one a little bitter to the taste, but it cuts the sweetness of Weetzie nicely.

Girl Goddess #9 by Francesca Lia Block

How can anyone resist a book that has characters named Tweetie Sweet Pea, Pixie, and Pony? I couldn’t and I’m glad because Girl Goddess #9 is a not a book to be missed. I have to confess, though, that I am a devoted fan of Block’s work. I am one of those people who thought Weetzie Bat was the best thing I’d read since The Changeling (Snyder) or The Pinballs (Byars). (Aside to Ellin…I know you’re gagging right now!) So, I would have read Girl Goddess no matter what she named the characters. I was skeptical when I started Goddess because I was disappointed in Block’s most recent addition to the Weetzie saga – Baby Be Bop. I was pleasantly surprised, though, when I opened Goddess and found Block had put together a collection of short stories instead of her usual stream-of-coolness story. Don’t worry…the usual Southern California hipness is still there along with the edgy characters and surreal situations. Block opens the book with Tweetie Sweet Pea’s story which is a little bit of a departure for her. Tweety Sweet Pea appears to be about three or four years old, and the story revolves around her awakening consciousness that she has to grow up. Block writes about how Tweety perceives her world changing and juxtaposes the child’s world view with that of her off-beat parents who find their safe, comfy world disrupted by the suicide of a favorite rock singer. The stories continue in this vein…change and growth seem to be the overwhelming themes in these stories, and Block generally does a good job communicating teen angst. However, some of the stories end abruptly and seem unfinished, like Block is keeping the characters in mind for a full-length book. Despite this one weakness, Girl Goddess #9 is an intriguing book that reads fast. You might be left wanting more, but I’m sure Block will oblige with another story soon.

Bad Dog: 259 Outspoken, Indecent and Overdressed Dogs by R.D. Rosen, Harry Pritchett, and Rob Battles is very likely one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long, long time. I suppose it doesn’t really even count as reading since it’s a small book of photographs, each captioned with a single sentence, but nonetheless, it’s a book and books are what I blog. I’m taking a chance even writing about it here, since those of you who don’t know me might get the wrong impression once you see some of the pictures in this book. But, I just can’t help myself. If you find humor in photos of dogs in costumes, dogs making funny faces, wet dogs, and sleeping dogs, or if you have ever dressed your dog up, you will appreciate this book. I fully expect this to be followed by Bad Cat, Bad Parakeet, and Bad Ferret. Just a silly little thing to read when you’ve got a few minutes.

Snakes. Talk about giving me the creeps….snakes’ll do it every time. So it’s a wonder I ever picked this book up. BUT, I’m very glad I did, because it’s one of the strangest and compelling books I’ve read in a long time.

Dusa dreams about snakes. Tiny blue snakes, big gold snakes, snakes writhing all around her head. The dreams put her into fits during which she smacks her mother, froths at the mouth, becomes stiff as a board…literally….and pretty much start to drive her crazy. Until…the Gordon sisters enter the picture. Teno and Yali are well-respected scientists who have devoted their lives to curing “snake dreamers” after their sister died of the affliction. They hook up with Dusa and whisk her away to their uncharted island in the Aegean Sea where she discovers the sisters are much more than what they appear on the surface. Fans of Greek mythology will appreciate this twist on the Medusa story and those of you who just like odd stories will also find this one hard to put down. Gorgons, Medusa and her daughters (some of whom wear “bracelets that hiss”), a beautiful enchanted boy, and girls who turn to stone…what more could you ask for in a story?

Lately it seems harder and harder for me to find a book that I want to read all the way through. And it’s even more rare to find one that doesn’t make me want to read the end first. *Yes, I am a confessed end-reader. It’s one of the benchmarks I use to determine if a book will find a place on my “you have got to read this one! list” — if I can read the end and still want to read the whole book, it’s got a place on my list.* But, I digress….

Maisie Dobbs is one of those books. I was hooked from the very first page…even from the very first sentence…

Even if she hadn’t been the last person to walk through the turnstile at Warren Street tube station, Jack Barker would have noticed the tall, slender woman in the navy blue, thigh-length jacket with a matching pleated skirt short enough to reveal a well-turned ankle.

What caught me was Maisie’s response to Barker, which, paraphrased indelicately, comes out to her telling Barker that it was, indeed, cold enough to freeze the **** off a brass monkey. What cheek! I liked her right away. We then read on to learn that Maisie lost her mother at 14 and was put into service by her well-meaning father. Fortunately for Maisie, she’s found a place in a very well-advanced household, where, when she is discovered sneaking into the manor library at night to read Hume, Kierkegaard, and Jung, her employer arranges for Maisie to actually be educated by the enigmatic Maurice Blanche. Maisie eventually wins entrance to Cambridge, but cuts her time there short in order to serve in The Great War as a nurse, where she falls in love and experiences terrible tragedy firsthand. After the war, Maisie hangs out her shingle as a “Psychologist-Investigator” and begins to take on cases. Her first case takes her straight back to the war, when she becomes involved with a group of wounded soldiers who live away from society at a place called The Retreat. Maisie discovers the truth about The Retreat, and in the end is face to face with her own horrors from the war.

The characters are well-drawn and, for the most part, likable. It was obvious that this was intended to be the first of a series, because there are many unanswered questions and lots of flashbacks and foreshadowing. I’m looking forward to getting to know Maisie better in the next two books.

I’ve been getting messages from some of you worried that I’ll never finish my list. Well, here ya are….

1. Jane Eyre has been one of my most favorite books since I was around 13. I read it first in high school and loved it, then read it again in a women’s studies class in college and loved it even more. There is no book better.
2. Locked Rooms by Laurie King is by far my most favorite in her Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series, which began with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.
3. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is considered to be the first “mystery” novel written. The language is a little hard to wrap yourself around because it is soooo 19th century, but the story is spooky and mysterious.
4. Shattered Silk by Barbara Michaels is one of those books you read on vacation, year after year after year. Michaels’ work is very reminiscent of the old gothic romances that were published by the thousands in the 1970s. A little mystery + a little romance = a good read.
5. Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross is one of those books that suck you in and before you know it, you’ve read half of it in one sitting. It’s a book that makes you wonder…

Every once in awhile, I put forms out at the library and ask people to share the titles of their ten most favorite books. I always find new authors and titles this way, and our patrons love looking at what everyone else likes to read. My list tends to change each time. Here’s the first 5 on my current list…

1. Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey always makes my list. A spectacularly easy read about the mystery of Richard III and the young princes in the Tower. Did he kill them, or didn’t he?
2. River of Darkness by Rennie Airth is one of the best English mysteries I’ve read in years. However, it is currently rivaled by Airth’s follow-up, The Blood Dimmed Tide.
3. A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds is a must-read for anyone who has lost someone they love and wonders about the afterlife.
4. All the Harry Potter books make my list. This is far and away the best fantasy series written since Lord of the Rings.
5. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is my pick for the must-read of 2005. Spooky and delicious.

Love, Ruby Lavender by Deborah Wiles
“Woe is Ruby Lavender. She used to have a fun life, until her Yoo-Hoo drinking, pink muumuu-wearing, best friend of a grandmother up and left for Hawaii to spend the summer with her new (smelly) grandbaby. Now Ruby is stuck in boring old Halleluia, Mississippi, reading to her chickens, sweeping floors at the general store (torture), and being tormented by the curly-haired, tip-tapping Melba Jane who knows a terrible secret about Ruby. In letter after letter, 9 year old Ruby pours out her heart to her grandmother, but there is one thing Ruby cannot tell even her grandmother – the very same thing that makes Ruby take the long way home every single time and that makes her hate Melba Jane more than anyone.”
Ruby reminds me of a young Sweet Potato Queen (and if you haven’t read the Sweet Potato Queen books by Jill Connor Brown, read them now!). She is feisty, funny and just an all-around neat kid. Read this with your 2nd or 3rd grader. You’ll be glad you did!

Leavin’ Trunk Blues by Ace Atkins
In the music clubs on the South Side of Chicago, the blues, once as strong as the backs of the neighborhood’s working class, has lost its hope and its voice. Seventy miles away, locked in a lonely prison cell, waits Ruby Walker. More than forty years ago, she boarded the Illinois Central from Mississippi to what she believed was her Promised Land. She became one of the greatest blues singers the city has ever known, but she lost it all after being convicted of murdering producer Billy Lyons in September 1959. Decades later, a flickering hope emerges to Walker in the form of letters from a Tulane University blues historian named Nick Travers. She agrees to an interview only in exchange for him checking out what she calls the truth behind Lyons’s last hours.
This second Nick Travers novel by Ace Atkins is an adequate follow-up to Crossroad Blues, which was not as violent and a whole lot more interesting. Leavin’ Trunk Blues explores the darker side of the music business and the seamier side of Chicago, none of which appeals to me much. Crossroad Blues had some magic in it that Atkins just hasn’t recreated here. If you really, really love the blues, read this. If not, don’t waste your time.