Grandpa Green

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

I love love love the artwork in this book!  The layering of curvy pen and ink tree trunks and minor details with the larger swaths and geometric shapes of green watercolor and oil paint foliage really works.  The illustrations make sense with the text and I like the intertextuality at play with Smith’s references to other classic picture books.  The story is accessible and relatable, everyone has a favorite relative who no longer remembers much of the past but is still bound to it by rituals, hobbies and passions.  My only beef is whether the artwork may be enjoyed more by an adult audience than a child.  My son didn’t seem to be quite sure what the story was “about” exactly, as there is no obvious plot or action.  A good one to borrow from the library, but not sure if I'd lay down the clams for a hardback.  Though I would sure love a print to decorate the nursery with!

Long time no type, a lazy year-in-review

Well, I'm back from my ridiculously long hiatus.  I was a bit busy, you know, having a baby and selling a house and moving cities and so forth.  But now that that's settled and I'm back in school (MSLIS) I'm going to be spending a whole lot more time sitting in front of this screen.  I need to have a diversion from all that, you know...working, so I thought I better get this poor ol' blog up and running. 
It's not like I haven't read any books lately.  My library card is smoking from use.  And Tim can attest to the stacks of books around here that never really go away, they simply change form and content.  If I hazard a conservative guess, I would estimate I've read 100 books since last April's post, and I obviously can't review them all. 

But some highlights would definitely be: Pema Chodron's The Places That Scare You, The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (who knew boobs could be so riveting?) and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which I haven't quite finished on purpose because it is so good I want to draw it out.

Speaking of boobs, I also read Stacked: A 32DDD Reports from the Front by Susan Seligson which, as an owner of a pair of 32Ds (34Fs at present thanks to the milk!), gave me a tickle.  She describes being in plow pose in a yoga class and nearly drowning in her cleavage.  I can relate.  There have been moments while teaching yoga that I've had to come out of a pose I was demonstrating to students in order to explain something because I couldn't be heard through a mouth full of doughy breast flesh.  "Then mrurf yur mbows ash clmosh togemer ash moffible..." is a bit indecipherable to even the most attentive yogi.  The book was nothing special, mostly just a light-hearted overview of the ridiculous lengths women will go to to get the giant (albeit fake) melons most men desire and the health consequences.  But it was still a fun beach read.  In the end, Ms. Seligson, gets a topless shot of her own done on  a busy street in Little Italy (I'm not going to post it here due to "internet traffic" consequences) but you can easily find it on Google Images.  She looks pretty good for being 50+ with no work done.  If that's what I have to look forward to after nursing two babies with a set the same size, gravity isn't the terrible enemy we all make it out to be.  And if you've ever had the (ahem) "pleasure" of seeing a pair of middle-age balls...well, let's just say men would be wise to keep their comments to themselves!

Moving on to mouths, I've been cooking my way through Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila, which I got for Christmas (thanks mum!).  I'm drinking her Chai recipe right now, and it is delicious.  Highly recommended.  I made her lemonade yesterday (with Meyer lemons instead of regular) and it's lovely, not too sweet, not too sour.  I know December is a strange time of year for lemonade, but for a lemon-junky like me, it's always welcome.  Plus, you can heat it up, it's good for getting a cloggy nose running!

Another fun cookbook I've enjoyed this year is The Best of Clean Eating.  Best.  breakfast. bars.  ever.  Tim even liked them, and they had dried fruit!  I've also been on a bit of a raw food kick....but more on that another day.  The "girls" have a hungry baby that needs attention.  Happy healthy New Year everyone!  And, of course, happy reading!

Lullabies for Little Criminals

I try not to write reviews of popular books, even though I'm guilty of reading them like everyone else.  I just figure they've been talked about to death.  But Lullabies has to be written about, so that I may exorcise it from my soul. 

Set in Montreal in the 1980s, it is the first-person account of 12-year-old Baby (yes, that's her real name, stay with me), a precocious, wise-cracking little thug who lives in seedy apartments with her junkie dad Jules.

Baby, being an adolescent with no guidance or structure, except for her somewhat regular attendance at school, gets herself in all sorts of shenanigans, often with terrifying consequences.

So what makes this novel different from all the other tragic coming of age stories of children growing up amid chaos, mental illness and extreme poverty?  Well, for one, it is so genuinely funny and entertaining that I read it in two sittings.  The dismal, alarming plot twists are interspersed with hilariously accurate observations about narcissistic prostitutes, eccentric street urchins, cut-and-paste social workers, and lonely drug dealers.  Baby's voice, though distinctly infused with Heather O'Neill's rich, adult vocabulary and fluid syntax is nevertheless believable because it is so remarkably child-like in its expression. 

O'Neill, from what I can tell, knows the streets.  I don't think she could have written the book without some first-hand knowledge of its truth and consequences.  During the 1980s, she lived alone with her dad and sisters in the seedy but magical red light district of Montreal.  She is therefore able to recount and create with a startling honesty and accuracy both the realities of parental instability and the fantasies and resilience of a child's imagination.  The result is a book that both breaks your heart and forces you to marvel at the unique coping mechanisms of the human mind and body to endure unbelievable trauma and humiliation.  An outstanding debut.

"I don't know why I was upset about not being an adult.  It was right around the corner.  Becoming a child again is what is impossible.  That's what you have a legitimate reason to be upset over.  Childhood is the most valuable thing that's taken away from you in life, if you think about it."

The Giant's House

Did you ever get so deeply involved in the story you were reading that nothing else mattered and you couldn't put it down, even to attend to basic needs like going to the bathroom or eating lunch?  You just HAD to know what was going to happen next?

Well, this is not one of those books.  It isn't crap exactly.  But the premise IS pretty silly: lonely 30-ish librarian falls in love with a teenager who happens to have a medical condition that makes him a giant and local celebrity, and destined for an early grave.  The writing isn't bad.  The story is just so tightly wrought, which is also what makes it so terribly BORING.  You can almost feel McCracken hovering over every word, standing behind your shoulder, explaining why she chose each and every verb and adjective.  It is so exacting, so precise.  She spends such care and dignity getting things "just right" she neglected to entertain us at all.

So why, exactly, does it not get my "crap" rating?   I don't understand the "National Book Award Finalist" bit, but I've long stopped figuring out how or why certain authors get nominated for these things, unless of course they are chosen by a committee of information professionals.  Because she absolutely and totally NAILS the mindset of most librarians.  Being a librarian for a few decades herself, McCracken is a bit of an authority in this matter, and it shows. 

So, in other words, if you have no interest in the lives of librarians don't even bother picking up this book.  Unless, of course, you have a thing for teenage giants who like to read and perform magic tricks.

I've picked out the best bits for you.  If you are a librarian, know a librarian, love a librarian...well...read on, for some eerily accurate peeks into the bibliophile brain and heart:

“I am a librarian, and you cannot stop me from annotating, revising, updating.  I like to think that –because I am a librarian-I offer accurate and spurious advice with no judgement, good and bad next to each other on the shelf.  But my memories are not books.  Blessing if they were.”

“Some women become librarians because they love order; I’m one.  Ordinal, cardinal, alphabetical, alphanumerical, geographical, by subject, by colour, by shape, by size.  Something logical that people –one hopes- cannot botch, although they will.” 

“Librarian (like Stewardess, Certified Public Accountant, Used Car Salesman) is one of those occupations that people assume attract a certain deformed personality.  Librarians are supposed to be bitter spinsters: grudging, lonely.  And above all stingy: we love our fine money, our silence. 

            I did not love fine money: I forgave much more than I collected.  I did not shush people unless they yelled.  And though I was technically a spinster, I was bitter only insofar as people made me.  It isn’t that bitter people become librarians; it’s that being a librarian may turn the most giving person bitter.  We are paid all day to be generous, and no one recognises our generosity.” 

“Despite popular theories, I believe people fall in love based not on good looks or fate but on knowledge.  Either they are amazed by something a beloved knows that they themselves do not know; or they discover common rare knowledge; or they can supply knowledge to someone who’s lacking.  Hasn’t anyone found a strange ignorance in someone beguiling?...Nowadays, trendy librarians, wanting to be important, say, Knowledge is power.  I know better.  Knowledge is love.”

“People think librarians are unromantic, unimaginative.  This is not true.  We are people whose dreams run in particular ways…The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.”

“Books are a bad family – there are those you love, and those you are indifferent to; idiots and mad cousins who you would banish except others enjoy their company; wrongheaded but fascinating eccentrics and dreamy geniuses; orphaned grandchildren and endless brothers-in-law simply taking up space who you wish you could send straight to hell.  Except you can’t, for the most part.  You must house them and make them comfortable and worry about them when they go on trips and there is never enough room.”