Library Book-es

Runaway by Wendelin Van Draanen
Abused by several foster families, Holly decides to run away. Her journal tells of jumping trains, sleeping in boxes, and eating trash, and she pours out her anger as poems. She trusts no one, not even the kindly woman who hands out food or the girl who tries to help. But Holly is lonely, and people offer her their home. Can she forget her anger and learn to trust them?

I can't imagine having to find my food and clothes and shelter. I've never experienced anything like that, and at the very least I would become bitter and disillusioned. My family is supposed to help me, but they're gone. The state handed me to other families who were supposed to help by they starved me and locked me up. It's a salvation story: you've hit rock bottom, and someone inexplicably helps you up and carries you on.

----------

The Crown of Dalemark by Diana Wynne Jones
Mitt, accused of murder in the South, has fled North, only to find himself ordered to assassinate the heir to the throne. If he refuses, the lives of his friends are in danger. He joins Moril the musician, Maewen, who has been kidnapped from the future to replace the heir apparent, in their quest to bring peace to Dalemark. But the evil of Kankredin is gathering, and it seems that none of them, or Dalemark, can escape.

Time travel is always hard to sort out, and if the person in question must also play the part of another person, it can quickly become chaotic. This is Jones's style. Her other books seem similarly scattered, but once the ending has been read twice the general feeling is of liking. Jones's descriptions are very powerful.

-----

National Novel Writing Month starts in thirteen days!

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Vincent Lynn

Denver grew up in a rural Louisiana shack, working for the Man to pay off his ancestor's 'debts'. Then, one day he jumped a train to Fort Worth and lived on the streets until he found himself at a dingy mission.
Ron Hall was an international art dealer used to high-line clothes, cars, and checks. But his wife, Debbie, felt called to help the unfortunate, and she signed them up to volunteer at a homeless mission on Tuesdays, despite Ron's protests. Debbie soon endeared herself to everyone at the mission, and Ron reluctantly found himself drawing closer to Denver. Their friendship and faith, however, would soon be tested by heartbreaking tragedy.

If you don't know anything- if you can't read, write, and are in the middle of nowhere- how do you know you are in slavery? There's something of a double meaning in this book: Ron was trapped by his false sense of superiority, and unable to embrace his friends until he lost everything. The old paradox Die to Live. In the same way, Denver was trapped by decades of racism, and we're trapped in sin. But, as a Longfellow poem we read recently in Lit says, there's light behind the clouds, even if we can't see it. Denver and Ron worked through their differences and became as close as brothers, and we can do the same.


Mom and Dad are out of town; we're being watched by Anna The Intern, who is being called Ellen. She brought the Sword and the Stone for us to watch. As The Once and Future King is one of my favorite books, it's exciting. There is also cookie baking happening.

At Last! or, Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George

Sorry about the delay. Our desktop is down and I couldn't post on the laptops until now. It would have been cool if I could say At last! One year later..., but I'll have to settle with Has it really been twenty-eight days?

Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
In fairy tales, the maiden is always saved from a dragon by a knight in shining armor. But it is Creel who saves herself with her own quick thinking, and gets a gift from the dragon's hoard in the bargain: a pair of magic slippers. Creel goes to the city to get a job at a dress-makers, and her slippers constantly attract attention- from a co-worker all the way up to the crown-prince's spoiled fiancee, Amalia. When the slippers are stolen and a war looms, Creel must use her skills and brains to save her country.

A good story. In Andrew Lang's fairy tales, the maiden is helpless, dependent on the dueling abilities of a prince. Dragon Slippers was a happy medium between that and the modern stories where the princess cuts off the dragon's head herself. That's one side of the feminist movement that I don't appreciate: empowering women are ones who are beautiful and buff; Creel is plain but smart, and she is the one who saves the day.

Travel/ Summer Reading Part I

What a summer! It's been way too long since May 27th, and there are a lot of books to report.

First up is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I only took a couple books on the forty-ish round-trip up to Michigan, in the hope that it would keep me a long time. This expectation was fulfilled. It was great.

Imprisoned for stealing bread, Jean Valjean escapes bitter and despairing. An attempted robbery leads to his means of salvation: a little girl, Cossette. The two are thrust into a battle of good and evil. They are tracked by the idealist Javert and the swindler Thenardier and Cossette's suitor Marius, the tensions coming to the breaking point in the uprising of 1832.

The making of a two-sided hero is Hugo's genius. Jean is the beloved philanthropist, yet he cannot bear to let Cossette go. He lives in a paradox: he must have a happy Cossette near, yet being kept by his side makes her unhappy. Jean is the villain and the saint.
Such men seem to appear often in Hugo's world. Marius is great, yet he deliberately tyrannizes his grandfather. Javert has a conscience, so he ruthlessly pursues Jean. I wonder if Hugo saw men as they really are: we all have contrary, hypocritical desires, though we all lean toward the bad. Without divine intervention, we all end up like Thenardier. Perhaps this was why Hugo was a revolutionist: the utopia promised by Napoleon seemed like it would make everyone more like the bishop who saved Jean.

------

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Scout Finch lives in a quiet Alabama town. She goes to school and hates it; wrestles with her brother Jem; and creeps around the local haunted house with her friend Dill. But one summer the town is divided by a seemingly simple legal matter: a black man has been accused by a white man. Unexpectedly, things weren't as simple as they seemed. Family and friends are suddenly more important than they seemed.

A classic. To me, things like that seem obvious: Tom Robinson is a good man, and the Ellers are notoriously bad. Robinson wins the case. I guess it should have been obvious to them as well, but no one thought that way. To try and make a change through all that prejudice and bad feeling would have been mind-boggling. I hope I can do something as needed and life-changing as Mr. Atticus Finch pleading for Tom Robinson.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

Gabriel Syme, recently made a philosopher-policeman, finds himself at a meeting for a group of anarchists headed by the enigmatic Sunday. He is unexpectedly made Thursday, and is involved in a plot to bomb the Czar and the President of the French Republic. However, before he was taken to the meeting, he was made to swear that he would not reveal the group to the police, and when he attempts to frustrate the plot himself the story grows increasingly fantastic.

Chesterton said, "You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came if would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich object have always objected to being governed at all."
In this story the opposition comes from the seemingly innocent and stupid; and the friends are those who seem to be anarchists. Syme's world is continually turned upside down.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson

The evil Fangs of Dang are looking for the Jewels of Anniera that were lost when Anniera fell. Their leader, the ruthless Gnag the Nameless, is desperate to find them, and he seems to think that the small Igiby family has them. Janner, Tink, and Leeli, and their dog Nugget are plunged into a series of adventures with the Fangs, Peet the Sock Man, and toothy cows that will change them forever.

Andrew Peterson has a knack for coupling scary things with funny ones. Who wouldn't smile at the paradox of Gnag the Nameless, even though he sends the Black Carriage that carries people to their inevitable doom? Isn't the idea of toothy cows funny, even though their fangs enable them to eat people? These pairings keep the book from becoming a horror story, yet they're not over the top. It's still serious. Peterson has written a very good book that walks a thin line between scary and comedy.
Peterson also has a really good CD out called Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

When Anne Shirley comes to them by mistake, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables in Avonlea are hesitant to keep her. However, Anne soon charms everyone she meets with her imagination, vocabulary, and enjoyment of everything. Despite tragedy and misunderstandings, Anne grows from a dreamy girl into a beautiful, loving woman.

Hooray! I've read it, and liked it much better than the Children's Abridged version. I might have said this in my last post, but Anne reminds me a lot of myself. I think we'd be kindred spirits, and it's much more fun to read a book if you could be reading about yourself. Though Anne's grudge toward Gilbert seems contrary to the rest of the book. She's very forgiving the rest of the time.
Some classics are only 'classics' because they're old and written by people who wrote other old and likewise boring stuff. Anne of Green Gables is neither old nor boring. In other words, Read this book!

Indeed, Krammy- cnict is kkkk-nickt, with an almost nonexistant T.

Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson

My grandmother gave me this book when she was here last weekend. Upon looking at it, I realized that I had never read the real Green Gables. I read this book and plan to read the others soon.

Before Green Gables: When Anne Shirley's parents die within a week of each other from consumption, Anne is sent to foster home after foster home, eventually ending up in an orphanage. What keeps her going is her imagination: friends like Violetta and Katie Maurice, words such as exquisite and absolutely, and her unfailing belief that one day some one will love her.

Very good. As a person with red hair and freckles, I had fun reading about Anne, but I can't imagine having such a life. It says something about you, that your imagination and love survived during hard times with everyone hating you. I wish I were like that.

School's out!
Already I don't know what to do: there's just so much time.

Puns

I thought of a cool pun the other day.
The thought process goes like this: In Old English, cnict means boy. It's where we get our modern knight. I like knights. But cnict sounds like knit, and I like knitting. I could be a cnictter.
See the cnittion?

More wordplay: sumus, which is the first plural of the to be verb, is a palindrome.

I had a lot of time on my hands.

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

Fifteen years ago, the Ninth Legion of the Roman Empire marched past Hadrian's Wall and disappeared. Marcus's father was the Legion's Centurion. Marcus, discharged from the army by a wound, finds himself wondering more and more what happened to the Legion. He and a friend journey to the north to find the Legion, Marcus's father, and the eagle of the Ninth.

Good. I always enjoy stories with Celts, and this was particularly well done. Sutcliff must have researched incredibly hard for all the details. But I wondered how Esta felt about taking the eagle from the tribes. I mean, it was their battle emblem that gave them the courage to go fight the Romans. As a Celt, wouldn't Esta have wanted to let it stay there so that his people would win?

Sorry it's been so long.