Dennis Foon

Another good Canadian kid, Dennis Foon, well he is now I guess after he realized that Vancouver was a far better place to live than Detroit.

Foon is a playwrite and novelist, who has done some interesting things in his life, see: http://www.dennisfoon.com/foon/biography.html.

Skud is told in the distinct voices of 4 very different teen boys. It is about bullying, gang violence, thoughtfulness, friendship, relationships and more. I really liked it. It is nice and short and easily read in a day or 2.

Green Thumb Theatre comes around to schools with plays about youth and their troubles, and they are well respected for doing so. Their work is valuable.

14

Hunger Games

I liked this book despite its lack of any redeeming qualities such as moral message or historical interest. It is plot driven, exciting, and a little distrubing since it involves children fighting to the death in a Roman gladiator type contest broadcast to a large audience via television. It was a bit of a guilty pleasure for me; I hoped the central character would win even though it meant all the other kids in the contest would have to die.

Katniss is not even that endearing as a character, being cool hearted and arrogant, but she has a strong sense of duty to her family, and is a fabulous hunter and provider even though she is only about 14 years old. They grow up fast in the future USA (called Panem), where the proles have no power to fight the power, and the government is cruel and faceless.

Suzanne Collins borrows her ideas freely from other and better books set in god-less societies such as Brave New World and 1984. These stories are somehow intriguing while they warn readers. Oh yeah, the movies Network, Mad Max, Death Race 2000, Running Man, They Shoot Horses Don't They? and many others assisted Collins I'm sure. Also, a book which I have not even heard of until just now called Battle Royale (1999) appears to be the plot of Hunger Games (2008). It is set in Japan and could be a metaphor for the ruthless competitiveness in society. It was made into a movie and then a graphic novel series. It was rejected for prizes because of its violent content.

I've noticed a popular trend to 'Lemony Snickett' character's names to parallel their personalities or their jobs. An example in Hunger Games is Effie Trinket, one of the sponsors for Katniss in the game. She has a pink wig, is shallow and self absorbed. She is a trinket. Also, Peeta is a baker, get it? Pita?

I am sometimes troubled by the portrayal of the post apocalytic future world by unimaginitive writers as being the USA. Governments have fallen, new borders, powers, and nations have been created, and yet too often they haven't expanded past the borders we know today. To me this either narrows the story's scope of the world, or points to the authors' ethnocentrism. I don't see the point of changing everything, but not really.

The reading level is YA, grade 7 and up, but the idea of an ultra-violent reality TV show pitting children against each other is adult level. It is quite the phenommenon really; consider this Hunger Games role play at a Manilla book fair. Its great! Kids go around pretending to kill each other for the games. I'm disturbed.

Dust, by Arthur Slade

Another YA book I read last year. I had forgotten about it until a student asked me to recommend a mystery yesterday, and said he didn't read much. I thought that was a way of saying that he wanted something fairly small and not too challenging. 'Dust' fit the bill.

Arthur Slade was born in Moose Jaw. Dust is set in a prairie town during the Depression, so the title fits the setting.

It is a good mystery, and a fun read because it gets a little out of control near the end. It is about an 11 year old boy who is not fooled by the 'Stranger' who seems to be offering something too good to be true, -rain. The people of the town, desperate farmers mainly, are easily victimized by the stranger and Matthew Steelgate remains, -but what can a kid do against the powerful stranger? Read it and satisfy your curiousity!

My first attempt at writing on this Blog. The book is The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, a Canadian author of American parentage. I enjoyed the book. For me it was hard to put down and I was sorry when I had finished. The story follows a young African girl, Aminata Diallo, from 1745 to London in 1802. She is taken from her home into slavery, transported to North Carolina, sold to a Jewish man from New York, lived through the American Revolution, went to Nova Scotia, back to Africa and then to London England. While in the United States she marries and has two children.
"This is the magnificently told journey of a free African girl turned into a woman and a slave. It is authoritative and brilliant. You feel you are turning pages of history, the pages of truth." Austin Clarke, author of the Polished Hoe.

nell to bairds

Looks like I am on the Baird Book Blog.

Today, Cecil and I went down to the Farmer's Market and he bought a self-published fantasy book by David Korinetz. We''ll see if it is any good, stayed tuned.

The Watchmen

Wicked Awesome, teens, adult, deep thoughts, great story line, everything but not an easy reader, take some time and give it its due, read the images.

On another note, it continues to perplex and confound me how little seems to be known in literary circles about comics. As Harvey Pekar stated: "comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures" Pekar is well known in the genre of being the writer of American Splendor, though he is not an artist.

One of the side bar links took me to an article in the NY Times in which G.G. Gustines reviews A.D.: After the Deluge, by Josh Neufeld, a graphic novel about Hurricane Katrina and in New Orleans. It is written from the author's personnal experience. Gustines seems to think that this is a new type of writing for the genre of comics, which is an uninformed view, especially considering that he is a professional book reviewer. He states that After the Deluge is: " the latest example of the expansion of the graphic format to include non-fiction and reportage as well as superheroes and fantasy."

This negates any book told in the sequential art form that does not fit his 4 categories. Pitiful writing Mr. Gustines. He has obviously no idea of the scope and breadth of the genre, nor its history. I think Alison Bechdel wrote Fun Home as an autobiography; I think faithful followers of the BBB know that Nakazawa's work is reportage and autobiographical, as is Joe Sacco's; I think David B. is world famous because of his excellent work about his life and his epileptic brother (Epileptic, Pantheon); I am very sure that Larry Gonick did several very famous books in comic form about world history, making the subject fun and accessible; Has he not heard of Art Spiegelman for goodness sakes? I think he won a Pullizter Prize for Maus. His latest work is In the Shadow of No Towers. I wonder if George Gene Gustines can figure out what that's about. Chester Brown's Louis Riel?

Of course there are lots more but my ranting drains me, oh well, thanks for tuning in.

Checkout The Watchmen, its fiction, its great.

CMB

David Sedaris

Even though I said I would document books I read this past year since I became a librarian, which is not a long period of time, I cannot list off the top of my head what I have read. When I remember I must record it immediatley or loose it, which is what happened here. I read it in the fall of '08.

Sedaris is a very entertaining writer. I have only read Me Talk Pretty One Day but I think all his stuff is similar. He writes stories from his own life, everyday happenings that are not unlike what most of us experience but somehow in the hands of a skilled author end up being rather amusing. On his homepage, it mentions that he: "lifts the corner of everyday life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface." His stories are referred to by others as essays, which I guess differentiate his political and social commentary from his growing up and family stories.


He is a little like Garrison Keelor or Stuart McLean in that tradition of story telling although considerably more caustic and without the type of radio show that make Keelor and McLean such identifiable personnas such as they are in 'The Prairie Home Companion' and 'The Vinyl Cafe,' respectively. However Sedaris is a recognisable public figure due to his many appearences on TV and radio talk shows, items on Youtube.com and work for the NY Times (he became kind of famous on the NPR).

This is certainly adult reading, not for content but for style; I feel you'll relate better with more life experience. I think Me Talk Pretty One Day is a good intro to Sedaris because it is an interesting and alternative style of an autobiography, full of charm, wit, and humour.

CMB

Wow, I remembered how to 'insert link' and went a little link crazy in this one!