Monthly Archives: April 2010

Series Launch: Single Voice

Today is the launch day for a new YA series from Annick Press called Single Voice. What’s different about this series is that the featured novellas were originally published in France and talks about the tough issues that some teens face in a way that doesn’t hold back.  So far the series includes six novellas, two in each volume in a back-to-back flip-book format.

Annick Press was kind enough to let me participate in the launch by reviewing Just Julie by Nadia Xerri-L.

Just  Julie.
By Nadia Xerri-L.
Annick Press
2009
67 pages
Source: Publisher

Confused. Lost. Out of control. That’s the perfect way to describe Julie emotionally.  Alex, her favorite brother, has spent the past two years in jail, awaiting trail for murder. Julie may know what really happened on that fateful night when a boy was stabbed in a bar but who can she tell? Not her family who wants to believe that once the trial is over everything will go back to normal. Julie is alone with her secret but soon she has to decide to tell what she knows or stay silent forever.

When I read the book the first time, I just plowed through it. At less than 70 pages with lots of spacing, it was easy to do so. I was interested in the story and I wanted to know more about the main character. The readers get a glimpse of Julie’s family life but those characters aren’t fleshed out as much as I would have liked them to be. Her father is controlling, her mother’s passive, and her other older brother, Felix, is so invisible that I really didn’t see a need for him to be in the story.

There are parts of the book that I felt were jerky, sentences and paragraphs that I didn’t understand that were left in the story. But overall I felt the book was a good one. With the story so interesting, I’m sure young adult reluctant readers would gobble this book-and the rest of the series-up.

Here’s a passage in the book that I postmarked:

To have the right to be noticed, you have to have something special about you, a little extra, a little sparkle. I don’t have that little sparkle. Even if Alex helps me with my outfits. You can buy that sparkle; you can’t put it on in the morning. And ever since I was born, that something special, that something extra-I’ve just never had it.

Other blogs that are participating in the Single Voice series launch:

Up the Tower of Books

Hey! Teenager of the Year

GreenBeanTeenQueen

Cindy’s Love of Books

The Book Muncher

Poem in Your Pocket

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, a way to celebration National Poetry Month. I’ve been participating in this for the past few years. Here’s the poem that’s going in my pocket today.

Haiku
By Sonia Sanchez
(written from Peking)
let me wear the day
well so when it reaches you
you will enjoy it

What poem are you going to put in your pocket today?

Reading Journal: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie2007
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
240 pages


Note: Last month Aarti over at Booklust and I had a long discussion about Native American literature. We both talked about how little of it we read and we wanted to change that. Starting this month we’re reading at least one book by a Native American author. It’s not a lot but it is a start. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was chosen because it’s a book that’s received rave reviews. Instead of doing a more formal review of the book, Aarti and I decided to just have a discussion of the book and an interview that Alexie did with The Iowa Review in 2000. The interview isn’t available online but if you know your way around your library’s database, you can get a copy of it.

Short review: Arnold Spirit a.k.a Junior is a Native American teenager with a host of medical problems. Because of this he’s basically an outcast on the reservation. When he receives his textbook in class, Junior soon realizes that it’s the same textbook his mother received thirty-five years ago when she was in school. But leaving the reservation to go to another school means Junior will be labeled a traitor by most people on the reservation. What happens is a funny and thought-provoking journey.

Aarti: I’m so glad we set a date to read this one together, Natasha, as it was such a good book and I don’t know how long it would have been lapsing on my shelf if we hadn’t made a joint effort to read more Native American literature!  I thoroughly enjoyed Junior’s story- it was witty, funny and heart-warming- just as all successful coming-of-age stories are.  I loved how generous and kind Junior was- it was so refreshing to read about a teenager who didn’t have a lot of internal drama or angst.  I also loved how different all of his friends were.  What did you think of the characters?

Natasha: Because we see the character’s through Junior’s eyes, there weren’t any that I hated – though the guy that showed up at the grandmother’s funeral was an ass! I was just amazed at Junior’s acceptance of his family and his loved ones. It makes me wonder now that more time has passed since I read it, was this willingness to see and accept everyone for who they are, more apart of who Alexie is as an adult than who he was as a teen since so much of the book is based on the author’s life.

Aarti: I wonder that, too! I wonder how much of this story is true to Alexie’s life.  If he really did attend an all-white school from the reservation (and walked 22 miles sometimes to get there!), that is very impressive!  I think Junior had a lot of confidence and gumption- he went after what he wanted, and I think that drew a lot of people to him.  I agree that man at the funeral was completely ridiculous, but that whole scene was so funny!  It really hit home for me that a lot of people who may be considered experts may be nothing of the sort.  And the theft aspect of the war dance costume was pretty significant, too.  I think the way Alexie hit on Native American treatment at the hands of the US government was very telling- he only really hinted at it, but made his opinions very clear.

Vasilly: The funeral scene did the same thing for me too. I don’t think I can ever look at a person who’s a different race from a culture as “the” expert ever again! In the interview I sent you, Alexie talks about writing from a woman’s perspective and also about whites writing from an Indian perspective and more. Part of the answer he gave about whites writing from an Indian perspective is that they don’t know anything about being Indian but Alexie knows about being white because he had to know if he was going to make something of himself. It goes back to what we’ve talked about being: having to adopt “white” characteristics to have a better life. This is a really interesting author. I’m hoping to read his short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven soon.

Aarti: Yes, that is a great interview that I’m still reading through, and it definitely touches on many of the aspects we’ve talked about before- for example, how so many different cultures have terminology for people who are “colored on the outside, white on the inside.”  Here, it was an apple (red on the outside, white on the inside).  I said that for Indians, it’s a coconut (brown on the outside) and you said for African-Americans, it’s an Oreo (black on the outside).

This is the first half of the discussion. You can find the rest of the discussion over at Booklust.

Book Review: Savor

Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life
Thich Nhat Hahn and Dr. Lilian Cheung
304 pages
Publisher: HarperOne
Publication Date: March 9, 2010
Source: Publisher

In everyday life, we often get lost in forgetfulness, operating on autopilot for most of our waking hours. Our mind chases after thousands of things, and we rarely take the time to come back to ourselves. We end up feeling overwhelemed and alienated. . .

It’s pretty easy to spend a day doing all the things you need to do and then  in what seems like minutes, find the day gone with not much to do the things you love to do. From experience it’s also easy to get a bite to eat here and there, so you can finish your to-do list without slowing down to enjoy.  Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life talks about becoming more present in our lives and slowing down to see the beauty around us while losing weight.

Savor is divided into three parts: dealing with weight control, mindful actions, and individual and collective effort. I found the first part to be the most helpful for me. What makes the book so different from other weight-loss books is that the focus isn’t on being overweight but on being more aware of your body and its needs. Instead of looking at weight as a problem the authors want readers to look at their body as a whole and with compassion. Doing so gives readers better long-term results than just looking at weight gain as a specific problem.

The authors also understand and stress  that you have to be ready and willing to change. If not, don’t bother. It’s better to wait until you are ready before starting any lifestyle changes.

I have to agree. When I first received this book to review, I tried reading it but wasn’t in the mood for it. It wasn’t until I started becoming more aware of my eating habits and love of snacking, that I was ready to read Savor. The point of Savor is to get people to sit and savor whatever it is they’re doing, whether it’s reading or just watching tv. The goal is to do one  thing at a time.

Thirty years ago, hardly anyone would have expected to receive a reply to a phone call or letter within the same day. Yet today, the pace of our lives is utterly harried and spinning out of control. We constantly have to respond to external stimuli and demands. We have less and less to stop, stay focused, and reflect on whatever is in front of us. We have much less time to be in touch. . . with our thoughts, feelings, consciousness. . . And our lives suffer because of it.

To me if you’re ever read one diet book, you’ve read them all so the second and third parts of the book don’t really stand out. We all know that it’s healthy to eat smaller portions, whole grains, and not skip meals. The third part of the book talks about meditation, becoming more aware of where our found comes from and that everything and everyone is connected.

Overall Savor is a solid read. I think the first and last parts are worth reading the book for. As Lu wrote in her review, it’s not a perfect book but one that many people can learn something from.

Reading Journal: Good Poems

I’m happy to be one of today’s stops for Serena’s National Poetry Month Blog Tour in celebration of National Poetry Month.

When I want to read a good poem, there’s a few volumes of poetry that I go back to over and over again. One that I really enjoy is Good Poems, an anthology of poems edited by Garrison Keillor. The book features poetry read on Keillor’s radio show, “The Writer’s Almanac”.  Readers will find greats like Mary Oliver, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Hayden Carruth, and William Shakespeare side-by-side with lesser-known poets like Ginger Andrews and Erica-Lynn Huberty. In his introduction Keillor wrote,

“What. . . makes all good poems matter, is that they offer a truer account than what we’re used to getting. They surprise us with clear pictures of the familiar. The soft arc of an afternoon in a few lines.”

I agree. There’s nothing better than a work of art that explains some aspect of life without obscure references to dig through or miles of description that leaves me trying to figure out what the work is about. The poems included in this anthology are easy-to-read and understand by poetry lovers and those who don’t read from the genre often.

Keillor divides the collection into nineteen sections by theme such as yellow, elders, lovers, music, language and lives. I found myself loving certain sections more than others but found most of the poems satisfying. I found poets that I haven’t of before like Charles Bukowski. After reading Bukowski’s “The Way it is Now” which starts out,


I’ll tell you
I’ve lived with some gorgeous women
and I was so bewitched by those
beautiful creatures that
my eyebrows twitchd.
but I’d rather drive to New York
backwards
than to live with any of them
again.


I laughed so hard, tearing the poem out of my book and mailing it to an ex-boyfriend who was having women troubles at the time.

Did I mention that I’m on my second copy of this anthology? I tore out and mailed off so many poems in this collection that when I wanted to reread many of my favorite poems, I couldn’t. This is that kind of book. The book that you’re going to find many poems to love, pages to mark up or add a post-it to. There’s so many great poems that I would love to give you a taste of like Anne Sexton’s “Welcome Morning” whose last line makes me shiver because I know I’m reading the truth or “The Orange” by Wendy Cope about the sharing of an orange between friends. Instead I’m share “The Portrait” by Stanley Kunitz,


My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I cam down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.


  • Good Poems

  • Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor

  • 504 pages

  • Publisher: Penguin

Book Review: Wench

Wench
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Published in 2010
294 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
Imprint: Amistad
ISBN:  006170654X

Six slaves sat in a triangle, three women, three men, the men half nestles in the sticky heat of thighs, straining their heads away from the pain of the tightly woven ropes. . .

What made me check Wench out from the library was all the positive reviews I’ve read about it but what made me read it was a library due date. I don’t read many books about slavery but felt like I needed to give this book a try.

Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are three enslaved women who travel to Ohio with their masters every summer to stay at Tawawa House, a resort. What makes Tawawa House so different from others in this pre-Civil War time is that white slave owners can share their cottages with the slaves they’ve forced to be their mistresses while leaving their wives at home. One summer there’s a new slave owner visiting the resort and the women met Mawu, a slave who dreams of escaping from her master and becoming free especially when freedom is so close; Ohio was a free state though swarmed with slave-catchers. The women hear Mawu’s talk of freedom, but have no idea what to make of it. To be free means so many things particularly the ability to choose their own destiny but it also means leaving behind their children and other loved ones.

Though the book gives the reader a few insights into Reenie, Sweet, and Mawu it mostly follows Lizzie, a house slave and mistress to Drayle. Lizzie became Drayle “mistress” at the age of thirteen and produced two kids by him. She swears Drayle loves her though he refuses to free their children from slavery; though every time he does something nice for her, she has to repay the favor later on whether she wants to or not. After spending time talking to Mawu, observing what both Reenie and Sweet go through with their owners, readers observe a slow change in the way that Lizzie thinks but not enough to satisfy.

Perkins-Valdez is a talented author who succeeds in getting readers to place themselves into this horrible time in American history. I didn’t connect to Lizzie at all but I did connect to the experiences of all four women: incest, rape, being used as a toy, the sale of their children, betrayal. . . Throughout the book I couldn’t help but think what would I do if I lived at that time, in this situation or that one.  The character that I connected most to was Mawu, a young woman who’s had her children sold from her over and over again by a man who wants to possess Mawu in every way possible. Who sees her as a challenge, not as a human being.

Though I know these characters are not real, after reading the last sentence and closing the book, I couldn’t help but wonder would they be okay.

Other reviewer’s thoughts on this book:

Books for Breakfast

The Book Book

Read-a-thon Mid-Event Challenge

Mid-Event Survey:

1. What are you reading right now? Tofu Quilt by Ching Yeung Russell
2. How many books have you read so far? I’ve read 4-ish books so far:
The First Part Last by Angela Johnson
Black is for Beginnings by Laure Faria Stolarz
The Good Neighbors book 1: Kin by Holly Black
The Good Neighbors book 2: Kith by Holly Black
still reading The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I don’t know. I have a lot of great books in my read-a-thon pile. Maybe The Absolutely True Story of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie or Falling In by Frances O’Roark Dowell.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? No, just included the kids in my read-a-thon plans.
5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Having kids there are bound to be interruptions. I just dealt with them and went back to reading. I think the trick is not to put too much pressure on myself.
6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? Nothing so far. I know with every read-a-thon I’m going to meet and make new blogging friends.
7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Nope. It’s pretty perfect.
8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? I was both  a reader and a cheerleader, and there’s nothing I would do differently.
9. Are you getting tired yet? I did get tired the last hour, so I stopped reading to cheer people on and also clean up around the house.
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? One of the tips I can’t give to people enough is to relax, have fun, and remember to read short books.

Read-a-thon update: Hour 8

I can’t believe it’s the 8th hour of the read-a-thon. Time is going by so fast. If this keeps up the read-a-thon will be over in no time. I’m having fun reading and cheering others on on Twitter and through blogs. Right now I’m reading my third book: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. It’s going slower than I expected but I am starting to enjoy it. The kids were reading with me, but they’ve all given up. I’m just glad that they woke up to join me.  I think during the next hour I’ll change books and start on some of the picture books that I have laying around that I need to read. Happy reading!