Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (1934)
Fiction, Mystery, Classic
5 out of 10

From Goodreads: On the long train ride from Istanbul to Paris, detective Poirot must find the killer of a much-hated millionaire among 13 suspects with reasons to kill.

Shocking as it may seem to you folk, but I've never read an Agatha Christie novel, nor have I seen a movie version of any of her books. Not one episode of Poirot or Miss Marple. I don't much care for mysteries. The only reason I decided to pick one up now is because I just finished watching season 4 of the new Doctor Who series, and there is an episode where Donna and the Doctor meet Agatha Christie.

I figured out what I like is character driven fiction, and I didn't much care for the smug Belgian detective, although I was delighted by the detail that he carried a pair of curling tongs for moustache upkeep. I don't watch many procedurals unless the main characters are flawed and interesting. These days I do watch Castle, and I'm not gonna lie. It's mostly because Nathan Fillion is so darn easy on the eyes.
So while I don't think my time spent with Poirot was a waste of time, I'm probably not going to pick up any more Christie books -- unless I get a Nook or Kindle and have them as back up reading for vacations because it was mildly entertaining. Probably after this semester I will pick up a few as brain detox.

Lives on the Boundary

Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared by Mike Rose (1989)
Nonfiction
7 out of 10


From Goodreads: Remedial, illiterate, intellectually deficient—these are the stigmas that define America's educationally underprepared. Having grown up poor and been labeled this way, nationally acclaimed educator and author Mike Rose takes us into classrooms and communities to reveal what really lies behind the labels and test scores. With rich detail, Rose demonstrates innovative methods to initiate “problem” students into the world of language, literature, and written expression. This book challenges educators, policymakers, and parents to re-examine their assumptions about the capacities of a wide range of students. Already a classic, Lives on the Boundary offers a truly democratic vision, one that should be heeded by anyone concerned with America's future.

This book, first published in 1989, addresses long-standing issues in American education, issues pushed through the media with fear-mongering headlines like "Why Johnny Can't Read." Yes, there are many students in the American education system who are underprepared and undereducated, but the causes are complex and far-reaching, and as such, the solutions cannot be simple kill-and-drill exercises and fill-in-the-blank workbooks, and progress cannot be measured simply with standardized tests.
Even though I do not come from the same impoverished background as Rose, the only son of Italian immigrants, who grew up in tough inner city L.A., I recognized deficiencies in my own education, deficiencies in the language and culture of academia.
Seeing the challenges lined up, it is easy to see why some teachers despair and leave the education system behind. But I believe if educators and especially policy makers shift their focus from the numbers and graphs to the sociocultural context of education, we can make strides in bringing our students up through the school system.

The following passages are sections that really stood out for me as I read the book.

“The schools,” write social historians David Cohen and Barbara Newfeld “are a great theater in which we play out conflicts in the culture.” (7)

[Students] know more than their tests reveal but haven’t been taught how to weave the knowledge into coherent patterns. (8)

Saying complex things forces you away from the protected syntax of simple sentences. But error that crops up because a student is trying new things is a valuable kind of error, a sign of growth. (151)

Mina Shaughnessy: We won’t understand the logic of error unless we also understand the institutional expectations that students face and the way they interpret and internalize them. (171-172)

Many young people come to the university able to summarize the events in a news story or write a personal response to a play or a movie or give back what a teacher said in straightforward lecture. But they have considerable trouble with what has come to be called critical literacy: framing an argument, taking someone else’s argument apart, systematically inspecting a document, an issue or an event, synthesizing different points of view, applying a theory to disparate phenomena, and so on. (188)

This is something that I wish ALL teachers would keep in mind, and that I will strive to keep in mind.
As writers move further away from the familiar ways of expressing themselves, the strains on their cognitive and linguistic resources increase, and the number of mechanical errors they make shoots up. Before we shake our heads at these errors, we should also consider the possibility that many such linguistic bungles are signs of growth, a stretching beyond what college freshmen can comfortably do with language. In fact, we should welcome certain kinds of errors, make allowance for them in the curricula we develop, analyze rather than simply criticize them. Error marks the place where education begins. (188-189)

What young people come to define as intellectual competence – what it means to know things and use them – is shaped by their schooling. (190)

John Dewey: Only in education, never in the life of the farmer, sailor, merchant, physician, or laboratory experimenter, does knowledge mean primarily a store of information aloof from doing. (190)

The Secret of Zoom

The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell (2009)
Juvenile Fiction
6 out of 10
From Good Reads: "Christina lives in an old stone mansion on the edge of a forest surrounded by barbed wire and signs that read TRESPASSERS WILL BE BOILED. Deep within the forest is the laboratory where her father works—and where her mother was blown to bits years ago. Christina is not supposed to talk to the orphans down the road. But when an orphan boy named Taft tells her of a secret tunnel, she finds it and helps him escape. Soon she and Taft discover there is far more to the orphanage and the mystery of her mother’s supposed death than they ever suspected."

I read this book because it is a potential nominee for the 2012 Young Reader's Choice Awards. It was on the School Library Journal list of best books of 2009 and, although it has fantasy elements, there were no vampires, no werewolves, no dystopian landscapes, and no simpering female protagonists, so already it looked good as far as I was concerned.
The plot is a little thin -- plucky Christina and her new friend, the orphaned Taft, uncover devious deeds, discover their courage and save the day, but the thinness of the plot is more a function of the intended audience (8-12 year olds) than a true fault. I think 8-12 year olds will enjoy the book. There is just enough action to keep the story moving, the characters are a nice mix of bravery and realistic childish traits, and yes, there is a happy ending. Best of all, it is a stand alone novel, not one of an interminable series!

To Say Nothing of the Dog

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (1998)
Adult Fiction (Sci-Fi, Speculative, Fantasy, Time Travel)
7 out of 10


From Good Reads: "Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He's been shuttling between the 21st century and the 1940s searching for a Victorian atrocity called the bishop's bird stump. It's part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years earlier. But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump back to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but to prevent altering history itself. "

I really enjoyed this book. As my friend Jen said, it is perfect for someone obsessing over Doctor Who: time travel, Englishness and humor. What I enjoyed most is that the book didn't dwell on the "science" part of the science fiction, but instead, was character-driven. I cared what happened to Ned and Verity and their friends. I didn't care so much about how they moved around from 2051 to 1888 and back. I tend to lose interest very quickly when there is too much technical jargon. The science of time travel, as presented in the book, had just enough detail that I wasn't distracted but not so much that I actually worried about whether it would work or not and could concentrate on the story.
My only sort-of negative comment is why why WHY do all time travel narratives end up hinging on something that happened in World War II? Seriously. If it's not a plot to assassinate Hitler, it's a plot to make sure the war plays out as it's "supposed to," whatever that means. Even my beloved Doctor Who has made good use of the World War II trope, although there are generally Daleks involved, so that's okay. As such, I've looked at a few of Willis's other books, and the stories all seem to hinge on WWII, so I don't think I'll be picking them up any time soon, but I do recommend them freely as I really enjoyed Willis's style and her characters.

Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter

Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (2005)
Nonfiction
7 out of 10


From Good Reads: "Yarn Harlot moves beyond instructions and patterns into the purest elements of knitting: obsession, frustration, reflection, and fun. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's humorous and poignant essays find humor in knitting an enormous afghan that requires a whopping 30 balls of wool, having a husband with size 13 feet who loves to wear hand-knit socks, and earns her "yarn harlot" title with her love of any new yarn-she'll quickly drop an old project for the fresh saucy look of a new interesting yarn. "

Even though McPhee disparages crocheters, I still found this book enlightening and entertaining. I recognized in McPhee a kindred obsessive crafter, even if our mediums are different. I don't think I'm quite to her level of obsession (the essay about the needle and the rental car is hilarious), but I could probably get there. Better than the stories about knitting, though, is McPhee's ability to laugh at herself and her wooly antics. I will definitely be reading her other collections.

My Freshman Year

My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan (2005)
Nonfiction
Rating: 4 out of 10


From Good Reads: "After more than fifteen years of teaching, Rebekah Nathan, a professor of anthropology at a large state university, realized that she no longer understood the behavior and attitudes of her students. Fewer and fewer participated in class discussion, tackled the assigned reading, or came to discuss problems during office hours. And she realized from conversations with her colleagues that they, too, were perplexed: Why were students today so different and so hard to teach? Were they, in fact, more likely to cheat, ruder, and less motivated? Did they care at all about their education, besides their grades?"

I wanted so much to like this book. The premise is fascinating and the research really addresses the issue of motivation, a key issue in education. However, the book read like a field report, and for my tastes, there wasn't enough about her subjects. The book was about Nathan and her observations, about how she fit into this world rather than the world itself. And I suppose that's all the book reasonably could be. But at the end of the book, I found I didn't so much care about Nathan's experience (even though the title, My Freshman Year should have given me all the info I needed). I wanted to know what students thought.

Bienvenue

Or welcome. The purpose of this blog is to get into the habit of writing about literature. I intend to share this blog with students when I start teaching, as blogs and wikis are one of the technologies I hope to use to address the multiple literacies of the modern student.

Each post will include a synopsis from either Good Reads or Amazon or other sites. Then I will review the book.

Books will be rated on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 of course being the best and 1 the worst. Comments are welcome and appreciated.