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What fun! Humorous, affectionate, and downright delicious for booklovers, this sweetheart has me utterly flummoxed for a plot summary. See, there's this little British island, and this author, and a society full of unlikely readers, and they all get happily tangled up together as they try to re-anchor themselves in the year following World War II. Oh, and it's all told in letters, which is a little confusing before you've gotten to know everyone, but hang in there -- you'll want to hug it by the time you finish.
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Wowie, wow, wow. This little beauty just leapt to the top of my wish list. I've had my eye on Carole Boston Weatherford ever since she wrote Moses, but as far as I'm concerned she's topped it with Becoming Billie Holiday. The writing is killer and the format unique: an illustrated fictional verse memoir. And get this -- the title of each poem is a Billie Holiday song. I know next to nothing about Billie Holiday's life, but fictional or not, I'm perfectly content getting all my information here. My sense is that Weatherford was true to her subject; regardless, I don't care to break this book's spell with plain old facts. Straight non-fiction would be hard pressed to duplicate the imagery and sense of character Weatherford's poems convey. To crown it all, I don't think you even have to be a Holiday fan to dig this book. Lady Day had it rough, and her childhood makes for compelling reading. Among other things there's prostitution, rape, racism, and reefer in here -- none of it tawdry, but gritty enough to rule out the elementary school crowd. Would somebody please put a shiny sticker on this beauty?
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Independent Dames
As usual, Laurie Anderson's voice will stop you in your tracks. The narration is jammed with pep, attitude, and a modern cadence sadly lacking in most non-fiction works. Plus, you'll learn a thing or two about a heap of overlooked ladies, all of them as brassy as Ms. Anderson herself. I have only one quibble, and it's really more of a personal quirk. A timeline, vignettes of noteworthy women, and conversations within the illustrations all supplement the main narrative. It's useful and funny stuff by turns, but I get a little flustered with so many extras luring me out of the central storyline on every page, particularly when the voice is so delicious. Less compulsive readers probably have no trouble zeroing in on one element at a time, but I insist on reading the WHOLE page before turning to the next. As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that workin' for ya?"
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Helen Keller: The World in Her Heart
Appealing sensory imagery and artwork couldn't overcome my misgivings about this book's implication that Helen Keller had an internal voice and could think in words before the arrival of Annie Sullivan. Click here for the full lament.
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Could a person of my generation be excused for thinking the gay rights movement is something relatively new? Whoops. (This got me thinking -- it's odd, the way we refer to THE civil rights movement, as if there's only been one group of people struggling for civil rights in America, and as if it's all over and everybody's happy.) In light of that I'm still amazed at how ignorant I was about the history of the gay rights movement, as well as the history and perception of homosexuality in general. Come to that, I was pretty darn ignorant of what's gone on in my own lifetime on this front. Gay America gave me a sense of progression and perspective I didn't even know I was lacking. In addition to the politics, leaders, and milestones of the movement, Alsenas explains the history behind a number of things we tend to take for granted: butch and femme stereotypes, the formation of gay communities in New York and San Francisco, and even words like "queer" and "perversion." Plus, he does it in a way that's informative and engaging. A quirk: Alsenas's narration takes a noticeably less objective tone when it comes to chronicling the events of his own lifetime -- roughly from the 1970's to the present. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand his bias detracts somewhat from the authority of the narration, while on the other it strikes a note of emotional authenticity. Either way, this is an Important Book.
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Alligator Bayou
Tough and disturbing for all the right reasons, Napoli's latest novel probes into an overlooked crevice of American history. I thought I knew a thing or two about immigration and Jim Crow, but this story caught me by surprise. I didn't even know Sicilians settled in Louisiana at the turn of the century, much less what happened to them there.... Yep, that's all I'm saying. (Available in March)
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Frida: Viva la Vida!
A week ago, I'd never read a fictional memoir in verse; suddenly I've got two under my belt. Frida sure doesn't dodge the darkness of Frida Kahlo's life: infidelity, miscarriage, multiple surgeries and an amputation, to name a few. (Matter of fact, it'd make an excellent companion to the 2002 film starring Salma Hayek, as it covers many of the same events.) Bernier-Grand's language might not be as dazzling as Weatherford's but it's certainly nothing to pass over. Kahlo's paintings and their captions round out a captivating, revealing read.
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Sometimes life sucks, even for kids, and we all know it. Trouble is, most picture books aren't about to admit it. And that's precisely why I've gone ga-ga over The Red Tree. Wisely avoiding specific triggers and situations, Tan's abstract, surreal artwork (incidentally, the sort of thing I'd usually turn up my nose at) manages to evoke emotion that anyone who's ever felt depressed, discouraged, or scared can identify with, no matter *why* they've felt that way. It's oddly reassuring, watching someone else drift through all that passive adversity. But the real genius lies in the end, as the child returns to her bedroom at day's end to find hope flourishing without trite sayings or extravagant cheer. I know that all sounds sort of vague and floaty, but I don't want to spoil the conclusion -- you just have to see it. And holy crap, I just paged through this baby again and darned if I didn't realize there's a red leaf in every last illustration. So quite literally, a steadfast shred of hope follows our winsome little character everywhere she goes. How cool.
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I Heart You, You Haunt Me
Got a grain of salt to go with this? Good: Not sure what to say about this one. No complaints, but no raves either. (Unlike the 18 folks at Amazon who've granted Lisa Schroeder with eighteen solid 4- and 5-star reviews. See why you needed that salt?) Anyhow, this certainly wasn't a waste of my time; I like a verse novel to clear my palate every now and then.
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The Pigeon Wants a Puppy
Oh pigeon.... I regret to announce that I may have gotten my fill of this feathered imp. It's not that he's become any less charming or expressive or cunning. It's not as if the end of this latest installment didn't make me snork. I just feel like I know the drill by now. Maybe I'll switch to Elephant and Piggie for a while. (This from the girl who's been watching the same two old movies for the last 10 days. I've said it before: I'm quirky, and I'm a sequel-bigot. It's a dangerous combination.)
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Iqbal
Disturbing for all the right reasons. Kinda makes me wonder about the carpets around my house -- were they made by 12-year-old Pakistani indentured slaves, too? And this has been going on for YEARS. Back in the 1950's, my great uncle didn't have the stomach to bring home a Persian rug for my grandma after watching little kids with bleeding fingers at the loom. Anyhow, back to Iqbal -- this story really hit home when I found this photo of the real Iqbal Masih online.
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Ouch. I have never ever come across a more affecting, realistic story about racism. When the main character's father is a bigot and the dedication reads like so, you know you're in for a serious ride: For Daddy.
Despite the obvious hurt lurking behind this story, the author's treatment of David's father amazed me. The love-hate swing between David and Mr. Church is so complex that no matter what ugliness his father perpetrates, David's love for him remains utterly believable. That's a helluva feat, even for an author who isn't "haunted by [her] father." Those of you who've already read Bone by Bone by Bone will likely holler 'sadist!' for this, but I expected the conclusion to be even harsher. Ghastly, yes, but I was braced for outright horror.
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Smiler's Bones
All right, let's hear it for disturbing books this month! Our latest installment: humiliation, exploitation, and cultural insensitivity. If you'd like to be disillusioned and appalled by Admiral Peary's treatment of a Greenland Inuit boy named Minik, well hey, you'll eat this right up. (Stick it out through the initial back-and-forth stuff in the timeline. It's worth it.)
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Torn Thread
I love a good Holocaust story, but I also have this pet peeve about past progressive tense and passive constructions -- stuff like this: "was/were doing" "could be done" All when a simple, direct "did" would suffice. Both forms turn up throughout this story, which is a bummer for me, because I could hardly see through them. Passivity especially gets under my skin in a book like this, where the plot centers on one group of people committing atrocities against another. For me, it comes off as an unconscious way of dancing around the uncomfortable fact that people deliberately perpetrated these abuses against each other. "We were separated" sounds a lot cleaner and less accusatory than "the Nazis separated us," doesn't it?
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When I Crossed No-Bob
Ever read a book about a poor white trash family? I sure hadn't. (Can you even name a book besides To Kill a Mockingbrd or Gone with the Wind that includes white trash characters?) Talk about an untold story. And God bless it, the voice is killer and the characters endearing. I can't quite get over the fact that for once, the Civil War isn't the turning point in a story set in the 1860's. These people were poor, angry, prejudiced, and without respect before the war, and they're the same way afterwards.
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Greetings from Planet Earth
This is one of those times when it's great fun to come to a book cold. Didn't read the flap, didn't read the copyright page. (All right, the helicopter and palm trees on the back gave me a hint, but that's all.) So the family's big secret made a nice mystery for me to work over through the beginning. Plus I really like it when someone's willing to show how much it sucks to pretend everything's ok when it's not. Theo's space recording project wore on me a teensy bit after a while. It was certainly important to the story, but the references to it eventually felt redundant. Nifty moon-textured endpapers, by the way.
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Gabriel's Horses
Here's a new twist on the Civil War theme: a story set in a border state. That adds a few complications, particularly when your father's a free man, your master's a Confederate sympathizer, and the Union army is recruiting negro soldiers. Casting Gabriel's master as an Englishman added some fresh perspective as well, though at the same time the portrayal of life on Mr. Giles's farm seemed a tad rosy to me. On the other hand, I had no idea that thoroughbred owners used slaves and freedmen as jockeys, so that's surely incentive to treat particular slaves well.
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My Mother the Cheerleader
Most people seem to like this book better than I did. That's ok. The story has distinctive voice, but to me it felt overly reflective and information-laden for the voice of a child. It's also a gutsy story, though, and doesn't shy from ugly encounters with sex, liquor, and racism. It's interesting to see this slice of history from the anti-integration point of view.
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
