WTF, Transformers Picture Book. W. T. F.

This kept me up last night. I have very mixed feelings about "sexy" art in comics and graphic novels. Generally, when I voice any concern or read things others have written, the response is that a) these aren't meant to be realistic, b) these books are for adults who know better, and c) the characters are superhuman and should look the part. One friend told me she likes a little T. and A. in her graphic novels. I get that. I read a couple racy comics myself, I am ostensibly and adult and know that these aren't realistic stories or depictions of realistic humans. They are highly stylized and fanciful.

I get that. I'm down with it for the most part. I do think a little basic attention should be paid to realistic anatomy and enjoy the catalog of artistic sins at Escher Girls. 

But when I got to work yesterday, I found a Transformers easy paperback book ready for processing, a book geared towards 4-6 year olds. Here's the front of the book.

Grrrrr, we are tough.

It's nothing much, but it helps the kids who are crazy for Transformers find something to take home. Then I flipped the book over to scan the barcode and saw this:

Why?

Not sure what you're seeing? You're seeing a robot in a classic "boobs and butt" pose. Like this and this. 

Why? Why the gendered robots? Why the sexualized pose? Why why why is it in a book for elementary school kids?

We get tons of requests for super hero books every day. Kids as young as three want Spiderman and Superman and Avengers books, and I say, generally, yay. If it gets kids reading, then I'm generally all for it. We got a fun book of DC characters in the picture book section, and while Wonder Woman is aptly drawn like an Amazon, at least she doesn't look like an extra in a skin flick. 

Tickets for the Gun Show? Yes please!

I've already been branded a joyless feminist before, and I'm down with that. But can we please leave off B&B poses in kids books? Can we not let teenagers find these books when they're teenagers? 

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Warning: Here there be Ramblings -- this book was amazing in so many ways, but in large part, it isn't the plot but the prose that has inspired a feast for critical thought. So I'll say up front, I did love this book and I adored Richard and Alec, but this book has sent me on some exciting rabbit holes of thought I fear won't translate well into narrative, so if you take nothing else away from this post, take this: Read this book. You won't be sorry.

Sometimes, when a book comes into your life, the first thing you think when you come to the end is "Why did I not read this sooner?!" This, after a happy little sigh, is exactly what I thought on coming to the end of Swordspoint. It's not like I haven't had the opportunity. I've known of Kushner's work for ages. She's cited by my all-time favorite author and biggest influence Charles de Lint and by Neil Gaiman as one of the best, and I trust these peeps. For his Audible book series Neil Gaiman Presents, Gaiman writes "Swordspoint is a fairy tale of sorts, but a fairy tale for grown-ups, as if Jane Austen wrote fantasy. It’s an imaginary world where the characters are real people: a Vanity Fair of aristocrats, rogues, orphans, and heroes; a book where the best swordsman in the land can make more money dueling at private parties than he can as a knight-errant." Authors I admire and adore seem to have lined up to write blurbs for this book (at least my edition, for Nook, has pages of praise, high praise. Despite the stars aligning, I had a bit of a hard time getting into this book.
I meant to write earlier about the way cover art can unduly influence a reading of a book, and this goofy cover gave me pause. I'm sorry to anyone who loves this cover, but it's goofy. Not that it would stop me from reading the book in public, although as I said, I got this book for my Nook because I got a load of gift cards for graduation and had to spend it on something. But one of my top ten desert island books, Jack of Kinrowan by Charles de Lint also has a goofy cover with this same art. But it does set up certain expectations for the story contained therein. I shouldn't have worried, because like Jack, Swordspoint itself doesn't have much to do with the cover, at least as I imagined the characters. Those outfits are no good for swordplay.

I finally decided to read this book because I came across it on a list of LGBT fantasy, fantasy being the operative word. Combined with the cover, I was expecting some sort of swords-and-sorcery story. While there were swords aplenty, I found myself distracted waiting for the sorcery. Finally, I looked up the book on the Magical Interweb and found the Wikipedia article which describes the story as "mannerpunk*,"and the fantasy is that Riverside isn't a real place. Once I got that** sorted, I could sink into the twisty story of political machinations, where sex and swords are the best weapons, and I polished the book off in about three days.

And OMG, this book was awesome! Why are there not more books like this?! Alternately, where can I find more? I love that there's not really a villain but humans doing their human thing, grabbing for power, trying to hold on to what they have or who they have. The only person I wholly rooted for in this book was Richard, and even then I wanted to shake him a few times, particularly at the end of the book. And Alec!? Why do you want to hurt me so? I only want your happiness. I may have shaken my fists at the sky a few times at Alec's antics. Also, I couldn't help but picture one of my friends as Alec because he behaves in much the same way, and no amount of charm can make me not want to shake you until you grow up, Alec!

I loved that the characters were just so very human. I loved their complex natures as I loved the clean, sophisticated and sexy prose. I have definitely found a model for how I want my own prose to be in Kushner's writing. Not my blog prose, obviously. Here I allow myself to ramble most appallingly, but I want clean sophisticated prose for my fiction. I feel renewed stirrings of wanting to write again, write stories.

My copy had an afterword by Kushner which described her intention to leave Swordspoint as a standalone novel. In an age of endless series and OMG, so many trilogies, I admire this. The story did wrap up rather cleanly, at least for the characters I most cared about. But I also wished for more books (I know there are more -- I will read them) because the twisty political machine she sets in motion isn't anywhere near ready to stop. Sure, one of the main players has been dealt with in a satisfactory manner. There aren't any loose ends left unaddressed. But you just know that live in the Capital City goes on, the political machine chugs forward, and I really want to know what happens. Also, greedily, I want more Richard and Alec, no matter how comfortable I feel with the ending they get in Swordspoint, because come on. Richard! Alec! ***

Another stop on this magical mystery tour of my train of thought is that Kushner, along with a bunch of other writers and artists, promote a concept called Interstitial art, a fascinating way to deal with things like this book, stories which fall between the cracks of labels. Like I said, Swordspoint is fantasy, but it's also kind of not. I realized that this is kind of the way my fiction feels. I like fantastical elements in otherwise realistic settings. I liked the label "urban fantasy" for a long time, and "magical realism" but labels are slippery beasts. And I feel like writers and artists from my generation are embracing an interstitial mentality a lot more easily in part because our influences come from Kushner's generation of authors and artists and in part because I think digital media is an ideal medium for interstitiality. I wish I'd known this term when I took digital rhetoric because the concept would have made for a fascinating conference paper (although I'm happy with my paper on Nerdfighters). I suspect if I'd gone for an MFA instead of an MA, interstitiality would have been a key term in my thesis defense as well.




*I suspect I might be a genre hipster as I am so over X-punk labels and conventions like steampunk and cyberpunk and mannerpunk. I admit that such labels can be useful, but labelling is so nineteenth century and Dewey Decimal. It's all about tags now, babycakes.
**Holy frijoles, this is awash in Emily Byrd Starr italics. It might be time for a re-read of those books.
***I wonder, is Alec Lightwood inspired by our Alec here?

Tom Swift, Jr. and his Jetmarine by Victor Appleton II




From Goodreads.
My copy had lost its dust jacket.

  Tom Swift, Jr. and his Jetmarine by Victor Appleton II (recommended for 4-6 grade readers)

To say that my father was a reluctant reader* when he was a kid is a gross understatement. Stories of his schoolboy antics would curl the hair of the most stalwart teacher. He was a contrary feller (still is) and he chaffed at the impositions of the school system. I imagine you, dear readers, know one or two kiddos like this. But Dad loved history, especially military history, and he loved Tom Swift, Boy Inventor books, so when I came across this book at my local used book store, I decided to give it a go.

So the plot of Tom Swift and his Jetmarine is pretty movie-of-the-week -- some pirates are disabling ships in the Carribbean, only these aren't like Johnny Depp -- they're high tech wizards who use some sort of improbably device that renders the passengers and crew unconscious so the pirates can take all the valuables (like jewels and uranium -- who sends uranium on a passenger ship??) without a fuss. Only now, at the beginning of the book, they sank a ship, and that aboard that ship was "Uncle" Ned, Tom Senior's BFF. Of course, the Toms, along with their friend Bud, with the might of the US Navy behind them, are on the job.

This book was published in 1954, so for a jaded 21st century gal, some of the inventions and conventions of the novel seemed quaint. Television phones? We have Skype. Loving sexism in the way the Tom Junior treats his mother and sister? Adorable ignorance of a bygone era. But, I have to say that despite the smug modern view I have, I found the science really interesting, if improbable. For example, Tom's jetmarine, essentially a personal submarine, is a nuclear sub powered by Swiftonium, a radioactive element the Swifts discovered in South America. And Tomasite, a plastic developed at Swift Enterprises designed to counteract gamma radiation from the Swiftonium. As I read the story, part of me was all, "yeah right," but it's really no sillier than kryptonite or any other devices used by Marvel and DC characters. And I found myself wanting to call up my friend Alex, who is studying nuclear physics and ask him if any of this was possible. I was getting excited about exploring the science, testing what was possible from Tom Swift's world and what was fantasy, and this is where I think Tom Swift stories have their greatest merit. Not only are the stories just entertaining (and as someone who counts The Librarian: Quest for the Spear among her favorite movies, I have NO room to throw stones), but I can see how the stories inspire readers to imagine what might be possible, what might be invented, and I worry about a profound lack of imagination, or a systematic quashing of imagination. Besides giving my Dad something to read, Tom Swift stories inspired Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and authors  Ray Kurzweil and Isaac Asimov. I don't know much about Kurzweil beyond the term "singularity" and mentions in John Hodgman's book That is All, but I don't think we can deny the influence Apple and Asimov have had in our world. And without Tom Swift, we wouldn't have that immortal phrase, "Don't tase me, bro!" The acronym TASER stands for Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle.

I do wonder, though, if we're past the age of inventions. The Wikipedia article on the series notes that emphasizes "science, invention and technology," and that "the books portray science and technology as wholly beneficial in their effects, and the role of the inventor in society is treated as admirable and heroic." I wondered about the benefits of Tom's nuclear sub. Nuclear technology, particularly with regards to power, is a complex issue, and I'd say Tom Swift stories are not complex. Of course, we shouldn't look solely at fiction when we decide on energy policy. But back to my initial thoughts -- is there really anything left to invent? The answer is, of course, YES, but the follow-up question -- is it worth the time to invent new things or should we consider how we use what we already have? Should we look to the hackers now? And I don't mean people who hack into accounts and steal sensitive information but people who tinker with systems and machines to see how they might work differently.  I'm thinking in particular of the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. The way the kids use the tech they have is astounding and you should read that boo FOR SURE.

Also, as noted earlier, these books are mildly sexist, and one of the things I struggle with at the library is how to handle books with racism or sexism. Like, not problem novels or novels that address the issue head on, but, like this book with Sandy Swift, Tom's younger sister. Sandy is a year younger than Tom and both he and their father taught Sandy how to fly. So how long did Tom get to fly before Sandy? Was he really that much of a genius? Sandy first appears in the story demonstrating a plane for a prospective Swift Enterprises customer. At least she's not stuck at home. And it's not so much the action but the tone of the story that bothered me, although to be fair, Tom Junior was condescending to his parents as well. I suppose that each book with less desirable qualities are opportunities to have conversations, but I worry about pushing them on kids because I don't want to be thought to endorse the ideas therein. And that, for me, extends to authors whose opinions are questionable. Like, I would never tell a patron what I think about Orson Scott Card (jerkfaced loser), but I find I don't recommend Ender's Game anymore.

I guess what I come to, whenever I mull over questions like these, is that the best thing for anyone to do is to read widely and to ask questions and keep asking until you either get answers or refine the questions and get a little closer to whatever answers there might be. And to quote one of my favorite imaginers of things, the truth resists simplicity.

Or this:

And if a Tom Swift novel leads you to the desire to study science in school and maybe on your own, then more power to Tom Swift!

And also also, this. Because I'm a nerd.

Yeah, my brain is a busy place. ;-)

Like the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins series, the Tom Swift were actually ghost written by several people for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging company founded by Edward Stratemeyer in 1906. The Tom Swift series was first published in 1910, and various series were released up through 2007, which fills my nerdy, trivia-loving heart with glee. Tom Swift, Jr. and his Jetmarine is the second book in the second series, which was published between 1954 and 1971, but like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, you don't need to read these books in order. Each is a self-contained adventure.

This article is cross posted at Guys Lit Wire, a blog dedicated to promoting literacy, especially among lads. There are loads of great recommendations, and you should totes check it out.

*But there's hope. Now that Dad has a Kindle and can embiggen the font AND read whatever he wants, free of the shackles of educational oppression (as he puts it), he reads all the time.

A Love Letter to Alice McKinley

Many, if not most of my lady-peers worshiped at the altar of Judy Blume, learning the mysterious ways of adolescence through the gospel according to Margaret and her literary sisters. But for some reason, I didn't read Judy Blume's novels (with the possible exception of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing -- I'm not sure I read that, although I have VIVID recollections of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary) until I was in my twenties. I'm not sure why I passed those books over. Unlike a lot of parents, mine didn't care too much what I read, with the exception of that one time in fourth grade when I read a ghost story that scared me so badly I ran away from (my definitely haunted) home, which wasn't a big deal except we'd just moved to a new town and I got lost and anyway...that was the only reading censorship I ever faced. No more scary books until I could be trusted not to run away from home and the first creak of a floorboard.

No, like my most bookish and wonderful friends, I learned all about the facts of life, birds and bees and the like from books, and for me, it was the gospel according to Alice, Alice McKinley, heroine of The Agony of Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. In this first book, Alice is about start 6th grade in a new town, and it would be fine except she manages to embarrass herself at every turn. The problem, Alice decides, is that she doesn't have a mother to show her the way to be a girl. Alice's mother died when she was four and she lives with her father and her 19 year old brother Lester (who has a moustache) -- they're good blokes, but they can't deal with the details of emerging womanhood. Oh, God, the scene where Alice's dad notices she needs a bra is so spot on. And Alice's first kiss.

I sat down and read this book in one sitting yesterday afternoon. I love Alice's voice. She's maybe a tiny bit wise for her age, but she still worries about great kid stuff. In the episode depicted on the cover, Alice and Lester have gone to the store because she needs some new jeans, but Lester doesn't know enough to get her jeans from the girl's department. I love the look on Alice's face here, because it totally matches her personality. And I have to say that I love these "vintage" covers so much more than the repackaged books we have at the library. The thing about Alice is that she's not some preternaturally sophisticated teenager. She's kind of dorky and awkward but she's got some sass in her, and this Alice has that, not the bland cover model from the newer pictures (or like the copy I brought home which just had a pair of jeans on the cover -- I'm generally all about the minimalism but not at the expense of sass). It's probably just nostalgia, but take a look at the cover for the second book, Alice in Rapture, Sort Of --  Alice is on a date with Patrick, but check out the hair. One of the scenes I most remember from anything I've ever read is the scene in which Alice gets a home perm, and she describes the smell of the solution as cat pee. I got a perm around the time I read this book (in about 6th grade) and I still think of that solution as eau de cat pee (although slightly more burny that cat pee I imagine). One of the best things about the early Alice books is that there's still a lot of innocence in the experiences Alice gains. First crushes and kisses are rapturous -- sort of.

One of the best things about a character like Alice is the way Naylor lets her grow up -- there are now 24 books in the Alice series proper and three prequels. I'll admit that I've only read the first 6 or so. I grew faster than Alice did, and I'm not sure I want to read the entire series. Because of course, as Alice grows, and as Naylor writes, the landscape of teen fiction has changed. The series began in 1985, so I'm kind of curious to see if Alice is still set in the 80s (she's a senior in high school by the last few books, which would be 1990-91ish, but the books have been published yearly since then). And for me, Alice is still a sassy middle-schooler. According to the Wikipedia article, the next Alice book, due out next year, looks like it will be the last as it follows Alice out of her teens into her 60s, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

But the fact remains that Alice McKinley was a huge part of my adolescence, and I'm grateful to have her.

Diana Wynne Jones FTW(eekend)

I had a very productive weekend -- or at least, a productive Saturday. I did some grocery shopping, rearranged my living room furniture, rescued a puppy (I had to take her to the Humane Society as my landlord and my lifestyle don't allow pets at the moment, but she had a collar so I am sure she'll be fine), introduced my friend Amanda to the glory that is The Mummy (oh Brendan Fraser, I will be your librarian ANY day) AND polished off two books.

You might recall that I only started reading Diana Wynne Jones's books in the last year, just after her death. It is a terrible, terrible oversight and I'm so glad I am able to make amends, and I'm so glad I have more of her books to look forward to. I know I would have adored these books as a kid but better late than never. This week I read Charmed Life, the first book in the Chrestomanci Chronicles. Eric Chant and his sister Gwendolen are orphans. Gwendolen is a talented and ambitious witch, and Eric, or Cat, is content to live in her shadow. But when they move to Chrestomanci Castle, things do not go as planned for the siblings.

I think I love Jones's world-building best. She has a knack for picking the best details that bring you right into the world of the story. Her characters are great, of course, but I love the worlds that are just off from the dull, magic-less world we inhabit. More than the world of Harry Potter, Jones's world seems possible if you just pay attention. Magic is built into the fabric of the world in such a way that you might find yourself looking at a second-hand shop with a careful eye, on the off chance that the proprietor might also sell "exotic supplies" as well as antiques.

I also read a short book called My Tattooed Dad by Daniel Nesquens, illustrated by Magicomora. It's the story of a young boy whose father has, as his mother says, "ants in his pants." His father might be around for two weeks or two months, and then one morning, the lad might come down to breakfast and find his father has left again. But when his father is there, he tells the boy the most fantastic stories, often tied to one of his many tattoos. The Goodreads synopsis says, "this extraordinary father's gift to his child--the life of the imagination--is always with him, even when his father is not," and the dust jacket copy says something along the lines that this story is about one of the many ways a man can be a father. I found myself really not liking the dad, although his stories are extraordinary. I worried for the young boy -- how can stories really fill the void of his father's absence? It's clear in the story that the father isn't a typical deadbeat. He's not cheating on the mother, he's not cruel to his family (except in perhaps his absence). Maybe the dust jacket copy is right and this is a story about another way to be a family. I think my own very strong ideas about family kept me from fully enjoying the text, but one thing I enjoyed and can recommend without reservation is the illustrations. This book is absolutely gorgeous. And the story will definitely stay with me as I think about what makes a family, what makes a "successful" family, and what success even means. 

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett & Brett Helquist

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist

If you're looking for something to feed your desires after reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, this mostly does the trick. I enjoyed the story well enough, but for me, the mystery wrapped up with entirely too many coincidences. Coincidences are a running theme in the story, so I can kind of excuse them as a plot device, but not really. GK Chesterton wrote this as part of an oath for the British Detection Club: "Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow on them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?" I am inclined to go with Chesterton on the rules of writing a good mystery. There was an abundance of coincidence and a fair amount of Mumbo Jumbo that spoiled the overall mystery for me. I am often accused of being too picky, but there are a good many mysteries that are written for children that do not rush through the end like this book does.

However, I really really liked the two main characters, Petra and Calder. They are fun, smart kids, a little quirky and weird in the best way. I also liked Brett Helquist's lovely pencil illustrations. I think more novels need illustrations, and there were a few clues to the mystery in the illustrations. While I prefer to have my mysteries unfold in the text, I know that kids often enjoy this sort of "extra content." There's also a code Calder and his friend Tommy invented and a few notes between the boys written in the code that might be fun for kids to work out. And for lazy readers like me, there are enough context clues to guess at the content of the message without bothering to decode them.

Balliett has a few more books featuring Petra and Calder, all of which focus on an artist or piece of art, which is great. I hope that reading these stories might stoke kids' curiosity about fine art. And while I will probably satisfy my J Fic mystery needs with a re-reading of The Westing Game, I'll be sure to keep these books in mind when I have patrons asking for mystery novels.

Shadow of Night, or, Edward, Eat Your Heart Out

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness  O. M. G. So. Good!!!! Allow me a moment to fangirl here and tell you that I freaking loved this book! I love Diana. I kind of want to be Diana, minus the vampire husband, because I am not up to the task of adventuring around the world and through time and such, and I am not up to the task of dealing with the possessive nature of vampires, but sure as shootin', Diana is more than a match for Matthew Clairmont. This is what I love best about the story and series (so far). There are no wimps in this book, but neither are the characters preternaturally wise or good. They are messy and complicated and passionate and I kinda got tired just reading about them. But they mess up and try to fix things. I totally identified with Matthew's need to keep control on the world around him, although my own needs are far less murdery and violent when thwarted, so that's good.

Besides Diana and Matthew, Harkness has a knack for well-wrought secondary characters which I envy and strive to emulate. Jack and Annie, man (although for the first few chapters in which they were introduced, I kept picturing the protagonists as depicted on the cover art of the Magic Treehouse series because that's what the kids at my library call the books -- the Jack and Annie books). I would adopt those tykes in a second. And I think Gallowglass might just be one of my favorite characters in the series, my penchant for Norse/Scotsmen notwithstanding. 

My second favorite part of the book was the depiction of 16th century Europe. I am doubly resolved to go to Prague one day and I would love to go back to London and look over the city with an eye to matching locations from the book because the other times I visited, I just hit highlights of buildings, like St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, and now I'd like to explore neighborhoods. Third favorite part is when Diana and Matthew make fun of popular vampire fiction. Tee hee. ^_^

I read this on my Nook*, and one thing I noticed with e-books (brought home with this novel) is that I don't really know how fast I read a book when I'm just swiping a screen. I don't have that dread that characters are in peril and there's only thirty pages left and WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN OMG OMG??? Nope, I merrily flick the screen and read along until...there are no more pages. I flick the screen again. There has to be some mistake. There has to be more. The author would not be so cruel as to make me wait until the third book!? I wonder if this happens to other people when they read on e-readers versus traditional books? I know that I have stopped reading a book as it got closer to the end because I didn't want to leave the world of the story just yet or read the inevitable, terrible conclusion. I was unprepared for the end of this book for several reasons, but I think having no actual pages in my hand to gauge my reading made the shock worse. I actually squeaked aloud and said, "But I don't want the book to be over!" Luckily I was at home on the couch. Which leads me to...

Now, I don't want to give away any of the plot, and you can get a pretty decent summary on Goodreads or any other site. But I do want to vent a little bit, but because that venting is very spoilery, I will place it after this picture of an angry kitty. You have been warned.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

Emmmmmmmm!!!!!??????!!!!! Why, Deb, why????!!!!????

Okay, I kind of know why you had to off Em. She's a brilliant secondary character, but she's one of the humans. You couldn't kill off a vampire off screen, so to speak, nor could you really kill off Sarah as she's Diana's blood relative, nor could you kill off the daemon couple whose name escapes me at the moment because we just met them at the end of Book 1 and we haven't seen their powers yet and there's the baby. Em is the only logical choice, fictionally speaking, and I get it. I do. I even admire your work because I've yet to kill off anyone, let alone the perfect secondary character. But come on! At least do it on screen. That was sneaky and mean. I sincerely hope we get some explanation at least. I'm reasonably sure there will be some vengeance and I've got some terrible suspicions as to who won't survive Book 3, and if it's Gallowglass, I might hate you forever, but I won't trouble myself with that just now. I'll just say this.

Well played, Deb, well played.

*I got a review copy of the book from Net Galley.

Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony & Rodrigo Corral

Chopsticks is more a concept than a novel. Ostensibly the story is about Glory, a teenage piano prodigy, and Francisco, the boy next door. They have a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque love, Glory is buckling under the intense pressures put on her by her father/teacher Victor, Francisco, an immigrant from Argentina, isn't fitting in at his new school, etc. etc. etc.

I am torn about this book. On the one hand, it is very pretty. The story unfolds through photos of Glory and Francisco, pics of the paraphernalia of their life, screen caps of their IM conversations, mix CDs (and I LOVE me some mixes for sure), Francisco's art. The photography is dreamy lo-mo style (although with the ubiquity of Instagram, it feels very hipstery, but that is another topic entirely) and it suits the story. But the story itself is very thin. In part, I think the reader is supposed to fill in the story her/himself using the picture clues, and that's cool, especially since the art is really good. And yet.

I like the idea of a concept book, but when it comes down to it, I am a traditionalist. Despite what the cover says, this isn't a novel. I wouldn't even call this a graphic novel, though it's closer to that than a regular novel. It's a story, but because the reader is expected to fill in much of the story, some annoying style choices stand out more glaringly than they might in a traditional novel. For example, Glory has something of a nervous breakdown and is sent to Golden Hands Rest Home, an institution specifically for piano prodigies who've had nervous breakdowns. Leaving aside the idea that there is a whole institution for pianists (how much of a prodigy can Glory really be if there are enough prodigies to warrant an entire institution when they go crazy?), the name, Golden Hands Rest Home, is pretty ridiculous. Like it was a retirement home for old Broadway chorus line dancers or retired Atlantic City blackjack dealers.

I can't pinpoint one thing that made me feel unsatisfied with this book. I was rooting for Glory and Francisco the whole time, and in that respect the ending was satisfying, but I think I've seen some really good examples of graphic storytelling, like The Arrival by Shaun Tan, that set the bar really high for this book. Still, I would definitely like to see more of this sort of book. And I didn't check because I don't have Internet access at home, but I think there is sort of bonus content you can find. As I haven't looked, I can't tell you how it enhances/detracts from the book, but for me, I don't think I missed anything, and that is what bonus content should do for sure. I hate it when books leave essential information out and put it online, because there is not universal access and it's not fair, especially in children's series like The 39 Clues, to put vital info online. Not that the 39 Clues books were incomplete as books -- that was just the first series with a large online component that came to mind -- the books work pretty well on their own. But universal access is another issue entirely. And to get back to the matter at hand, I think Chopsticks is worth a read through but it was more like an appetizer story than a full meal.

July Book Challenge

If you read many blogs, you might have noticed that challenges abound in Blogland. I haven't taken up anything more strenuous than reading list-type challenges or X-books-in-Y-time-period challenges. But today I came across a challenge on Book Riot that sounds kind of fun. It's a photo-a-day challenge with bookish prompts. Since I just uploaded Instagram to my Fancy Phone (I know, I'm not much of an early-adopter) and am having fun messing about with my picture settings, I thought I'd take up the challenge.

The first prompt is a photo of a favorite home reading spot. Since the weather has been so gorgeous, I have been sitting out in the yard in a lawn chair a lot.

The hammock is, alas, my neighbors' hammock, so I have made due with a camp chair and a footstool left behind by a previous tenant from one of the upstairs apartments. I sat out here last night, reading a bit, and then chatting with my Mom on the phone. It's been hot and slightly muggy, but luckily there are no mosquitos because I don't live close enough to the river.

The prompt for day two is a snapshot of current reads. Of course I have a stack o' books I'm currently reading.

From top to bottom we have: The Nerdist Way by Chris Hardwick, the study packet for the Foreign Services Officer test, my Nook (I'm in the middle of Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Timeless by Gail Carriger and starting Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner), Mercury by Ariana Reines, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet, Ariel by Sylvia Plath, The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth and The Complete Poems and Plays by TS Eliot (I'm only intending to read Prufrock and Wasteland from that -- part of my attempt to fill in the gaps in my education).

Today's challenge is to take a pic of book browsing, and when I get to work, I need to find a good American history book to help study for the FSO test, so I'll upload a pic then.

Also, I finished A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle and it is a completely wonderful book. You should read it, although maybe not in public because it's kind of sad. I teared up big time when I read it.


P.S. I'll be posting the rest of the July pics to Twitter. If you'd like, you can follow me. I'm @threelefthands