Musings: Biography, Dystopia

The thing they don't tell you about biographies is that usually the main characters die at the end. Thus is the case for Philip Nel's Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature. This unfortunate conclusion, however, doesn't take away from the fact that this is the best biography I've ever read. (Well, maybe it's the only one I've ever read, but I think it's real good nonetheless.)

I was inspired to read this book mostly because it's about a couple who were and are, like, so important to my field. The copy I've been hoarding in my apartment is weirdly the only one available in the Minuteman Library Network. So, that's a thing. This biography did a good job of paying equal attention to both Johnson and Krauss, instead of focusing on them as a unit. How novel: a couple comprised of two individuals who retain their personal identities despite years upon years of marriage. Happy, happy, as my dear friend Phil Robertson would say.

Anyhow, though I think we all knew this in the depths of our souls, this book confirms that there is an art to biography. Nel's got it, and he had me so in love with these people that I was weeping by the end. Particularly pleasing is the discussion of the relationship the couple had to illustrator Maurice Sendak. I don't think anything tickles me more than when famous, important people interact with one another and I feel privy to it.



And, to take a completely rando turn, let's talk about The Hunger Games. I know what you're saying. You're saying I go back on my word, that I am a liar, a cheat, and a woman not to be trusted. And you're right. But here's the thing: I know I said that I wasn't going to address the series, but whatever. The times, they are a changin'.

It all began when I realized how much freaking time I was wasting on my commute to and from school. So I decided I should start listening to books on CD. What a smart way to address all those books I didn't want to take time to read, I thought. First, I listened to some Judy Blume book, which was fine, and this summer I got my greedy Dudley-esque sausage fingers on The Hunger Games audio book. The jury's still out on how I feel about listening versus reading. Surely, I prefer to read, but I can see how listening is a useful tool. So, HOURS LATER, Jake and I finished listening to the first book and I think it's fair to say that we are a weeny teeny tiny bit obsessed. Does listening to a book on CD lose its charm when you've stopped listening to it in the car and started listening to it on your laptop? Maybe. My commute trick was certainly foiled, to say the least. I pretend that it's 1940 and we're listening to the radio or some other technology dinosaur.

Then we watched the movie, and I have no comment on that at the moment. Jennifer Lawrence is growing on me, though. Bless her heart. I'm still a little salty with her because she eight days younger than me and I'm a piece of shit and she's a millionaire. Smell me?

Yada yada blah blah, now I have a dystopia craving. Needless to say, we've checked out from the library both the Catching Fire audio book and the book book. We shall see what happens. Say tuned, or whatever.

White Weddings and Fairy Tale Adaptations

It's been longer than usual. And because apologizing would be useless (let's be honest, Tracy, who reads this silly little blog?), I won't do it. But I will offer some explanation:

Though I quit my dead-end black hole of a retail job, all of my newly "free" time got lost in a tornado of picturebooks, nineteenth century novels, the Bible, soul-searching, and self-loathing. What's a girl to do? Nothing. And that's what I did. Though I somehow managed to complete the semester, a paralysis of the creative juices and of the positive energies took me over. It was not happy times. Worry, hand-in-hand with loneliness, is consumptive.

I haven't entirely snapped out of it, but I have enough to want to share with you some of the things I've been reading of late (we're talking since March, give or take).

Many moons ago, I read a (huge) excerpt of Chrys Ingraham's White Weddings: Romanticizing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture for an undergraduate class at Pitt. I decided to take up the whole thing, and, though a tad dated (black and white pictures, analysis of 90s movies), it's wunderbar. It articulates so well how ingrained marriage (most specifically the marriage of white, heterosexual folks) is in our culture. Look for wedding references in (what Ingraham calls) the tertiary wedding market. It's kind of icky when you think about how many toothpaste, cellphone, and fast food commercials embrace the theme of wedding-as-backdrop or wedding-as-vehicle-for-consumption. America.

At a similar time, I had reread Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted for a class project, and then went on to read Fairest. Certainly Ella has a marriage plot, but it's way more progressive than, let's say, any Disney movie ever. Anyway, Ella Enchanted stands out and alone. It is arguably my favorite book from childhood, and probably even adulthood. A remake of the Cinderella story, it is refreshingly girl-empowered. However, it does make some problematic stances on food and eating (but, so does The Hunger Games, eh?). In short: it's the best. The movie, on the other hand, truly repulsive. I've never been more disappointed.

Fairest is pretty decent, also. This one is a kind-of Snow White adaptation. It's nothing like Ella, because really, it couldn't be, but it takes place in the same world, and there are some tacky-yet-pleasureful allusions to Ella. Fairest is the first novel for girls that I recall having a big protagonist--big as in "tall and fat and decidedly the opposite of dainty." (Examples of other books that have fat or big girl protagonists are welcome.) And though the reader never really knows the extent of Aza's bigness or ugliness, she is certainly no standard beauty. Despite this, she gets to become a princess.

I dig it.

I wish she didn't have to be fat and ugly though. But, it's fine. At least she wasn't Cinderella perfect or even Jennifer Lawrence perfect. Oh, and she's adopted. This book seems to have all the things I craved in a novel when I was ten. Or eight. Or twenty-two.

Yet the cover for Fairest is really ridiculous. What's that about? Ugh.

(Late) Reading Reactions to the Election

The election (which did indeed happen months ago) inspired me to get my hands on all the Obama things. And by things, I mean books. So I got from my library two picturebooks: Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope written by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Bryan Collier, and Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters written by Obama himself and illustrated by Loren Long. I also borrowed his first book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

The three books take different angles, yet all tell parts of the same story. I have mostly good things to say about Dreams from My Father. It was honest--and not in that "I'm running for political office" kind of way. Though some customer at work argued with me that Obama knew he'd be elected president in 2008 when Dreams was published in 1995, I don't think he had that kind of outlandish foresight. Unless our government is more corrupt than we could possibly imagine and Obama was notified upon his graduation from Harvard that he had been chosen to be president in fifteen years, this customer is an idiot.  Dreams from My Father isn't a necessarily "safe" book, politically speaking. Obama not only draws attention to race (something I've been less than pleased about him skirting in his presidential career), but he also admits to dabbling in agnosticism, cigarettes, alcohol, and "reefer" (by the way, he did inhale). The book dragged on a bit at times and occasionally felt choppy. Big whoop, though, the darn things made me have feelings. Even the gee dee preface made me cry. The best part about the book was the perpetual searching for identity. Obama--and the character of himself that he creates--isn't a personality-less void; instead, he is a young person trying to make sense of his heritage and his privilege. He also struggles with ideas about families. To quote from the book a teeny tiny bit:

What is a family? Is it just a genetic chain, parents and offspring, people like me? Or is it a social construct, an economic unit, optimal for child rearing and divisions of labor? Or is it something else entirely: a store of shared memories, say? An ambit of love? A reach across the void? (327)

Though Obama and I obviously don't share identical backgrounds, I can totally identify with the struggle to piece together an identity. What (adopted) twenty-something wouldn't? In short, the book is worth the read. And will maybe make you weep. And definitely appreciate our president a little more.

Son of Promise, Child of Hope is not-so-loosely based on Dreams. As I was reading it the second time, after just finishing Dreams, I was struck by how similar the two were. Grimes admits in her acknowledgements and in her bibliography that her primary source was indeed Dreams from My Father. But I didn't like this book nearly as much as I liked Dreams. The illustrations aren't my favorite, and the whole book has kind of a religious tone. There's a biblical illusion or two and a weird church scene, that sure, has basis in Dreams, but it's definitely been taken to the next step. Yick. Basically, Son of Promise, Child of Hope borders too much on weird American Dream ideology stuff. And it really really wants to emphasize Obama's Christianity--which I don't care about. 

Moving on to Of Thee I Sing. This book is absolutely stuffed with liberal ideology--more, perhaps, than I could even stomach. But after rereading it after Dreams, I found myself more sympathetic. Obama does a good job of including all kinds of people in his book: Georgia O'Keeffe, Albert Einstein, Jackie Robinson, Sitting Bull, Billie Holiday, Helen Keller, Maya Lin, Jane Addams, Martin Luther King, Jr., Neil Armstrong, César Chávez, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.  The book reeked of the liberal humanist tradition, which isn't a bad thing, I suppose, but when I read it, I just couldn't get the bad taste of obvious ideology out of my mouth. Either way, I see yuppie parents reading this to their children. I also see parents like mine reading it to kids like I was. And, I see teachers reading this book to their students. So, there's that.

Now, you may have noticed that a book I did not read was The Audacity of Hope. If I couldn't handle the American Dream stuff and nonsense in the other books, how would I even dare to delve into this book? (This from the girl who sat alone on her couch staring at the boob tube and weeping with joy on election night.) Maybe someday I'll read it when my political views have become less youthful and more resigned to the liberal humanist tradition. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

On Native American History Month

According to the Powers that Be, November is Native American History Month. What that means, I'm not entirely sure. And though some would argue that a month is not a long enough period of time in which to honor the diverse populations of peoples who fall under the category of "Native American," I think that it is important that we at least set aside our country's overwhelming whiteness and consider cultures that we don't usually pay much, if any, attention to.

In my personal quest for identity, I have tried (but usually failed) to recognize the teensy tiny bit of me that isn't the spitting image of Whitey McGee. But there is a drop of non white blood in me. This doesn't seem to matter though, since I am arguably the most Germanic-looking person in the whole wide world and people literally laugh at me when I tell them otherwise. But I'm telling you, guys, I know it for a fact. It is part of my freaking birth story that I am one thirty-second Cherokee. At the very least, my great great great great biological sperm or egg donor was a full-blooded American Indian. 

But that doesn't matter. I don't have much right to claim that heritage. 

But let me move this conversation out of the personal and back into the political (if that is indeed possible). Without a doubt, Native cultures are problematically presented in all forms of media. It just so happens that I ran into this blog whose author is more equipped to discuss all the various ways in which this happens--especially in the realm of children's literature. Some pervasive examples of the problematic way in which Native Peoples are portrayed include dressing up "like an Indian" for Halloween and the recent fetishization of all things branded "Navajo," especially at Urban Outfitters. Also, take for example the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. Admittedly, I haven't been there in several years, but damn, that place--even when it was still brand new--was terribly unorganized. I felt that it didn't try to distinguish tribe from tribe or culture from culture. It just lumped all Indians into one giant category. Very frustrating. 

I've read a lot of books about American Indians for a history class a couple years back. There was no textbook--because let's be real about what kind of historical information usually exists within textbooks; rather, we read a slew of historical fiction including Waterlily, On the Rez, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water: A Novel, Stone Song: A Novel of the Life of Crazy Horse, and Choteau Creek: A Sioux Reminiscence. We read these books chronologically in terms of when the action was taking place in the novel, which was very interesting. Also important to note is the fact that the great majority of these books were about Lakota people, including the Oglala. Here's your prescription for a better life: read these, stop celebrating Columbus day, and call me in the morning. 

But those are adult books. 

The blog I linked to earlier--American Indians in Children's Literature--is concerned, like me, mostly with books for children. But on her site I couldn't find any anything about Tomie dePaola's picture book The Legend of the Bluebonnet. So I guess I'll talk about it a little bit here. This is an important book to look at because, in addition to Native American History Month, it is also Picture Book Month! 

I (and we've established here that this "I" is about ninety-seven percent white) like this book. I think it's a good retelling. The book does not claim to be written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola. Instead, it is "retold and illustrated" by its author. I'm a big fan of the Author's Note, in which dePaola says 

When doing a book based on a legend involving real people, it becomes a drive to find out as much as possible about their customs and way of life in an effort to portray as accurate and full a picture as possible. 

How anthropological! And I think Tomie really did his research. He specifically notes that the people in the story are Comanche; they aren't generic "Indians." And, he seems to know that Comanche live in tee-pees and wear their hair long and in two braids (two facts that Google supported more than thrice). I think a really great paper could be written about the illustrations in this book and how they represent, or misrepresent, the culture at hand. Or a paper that decoded the different variants of the legend would also be fun to read. OR A BLOG. Any takers?

The only weirdness that I can find in the text has to do with the stake that appears on the front cover of the book and one other time within the text. It has a shield or maybe a dream-catcher of sorts on it with a moon and stars. I'm not really sure what to make of this since I can't find anything about it in my (albeit very limited) research about the Comanche. 

The book also has some very interesting messages and interpretations concerning childhood. Without giving too very much away--the protagonist in the book makes a big sacrifice and saves her people. This maybe is a little bit like our culture's idea about children as the only hope for the future, etc. dePaola even mentions in the Author's Note that he believes the story to be 

a tale of the courage and sacrifice of a young person. [The protagonists's action] represents the decisive sort of action that many young people are capable of, the kind of selfless action that creates miracles. 

So we can see a little bit here that dePaola has his own ideas about children, and that they generally reflect our culture-at-large's idea about children.

Anyway, another book you and I ought to read this month: The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. I just requested it from the library, so maybe you'll get to hear about it soon.

And for class Monday I have to read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Maybe I'll tell ya'll about that next time, too. 

Fancy Nancy

To list and/or talk at you about all of the billions of books I've read since September would be too great a project for me to attempt. Instead, I'll just tell you about the books I read while sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor of Barnes and Noble.

To escape the giant Nook displays and over-sized discount coffee table books, I went to the children's section, where I always go, because it looks colorful and feels safe. Though it was almost nine o'clock (P.M (Eastern Standard Time)), there were children there and their mommies were reading them gimmicky Halloween stories. That made me miss my parents. I browsed in the chapter books and then the picture books. I got teary and weirdly nostalgic. And then I came across and read Love You Forever, and got even tearier.

Then another, much cheerier book caught my attention: Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet. Now, I had seen some of these Fancy Nancy books before and they looked pretty to me, certainly, but I discounted them as a modern fad (like Pokemon or Harry Potter). But there was a mermaid on the front. A mermaid. So I read the book cover to cover, standing awkwardly in front of the shelf. Then I wanted to read more. Maybe there were more mermaids (there weren't). I plopped down on the hard carpet and pulled all of the in-stock Fancy Nancy books off the shelf and read them alphabetically. I've decided they're alright. The illustrations are truly lovely, though. They are so watercolor-y and soft. I especially love Nancy's orange hair, which is always piled up so curly and messy and Miss Frizzle-y on the top of her head. 

These images do not do the covers justice. In real life, they are glittery! And the covers are made of this slippery, slicksmooth paper.

Besides the picture books I read on the floor of Barnes and Noble, there are also I-Can-Read Fancy Nancy books and all kinds of other paraphernalia. It can be so overwhelming, especially for a collector of Fancy Nancy things. Just Google her. There are toys and dolls and even birthday cakes. As far as the books themselves go, they are maybe a little girly and didactic. But so pretty.

Fancy Nancy isn't the best thing to happen to children's literature since Peter Pan, but she sure is exactly how I imagined myself to look whenever I played dress-up. And I like that.

Winter is Coming: Opinions on (A) Game of Thrones

When my roommate put a gun to my head and forced my watch HBO's Game of Thrones, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't read the books. Why read a book when you've already committed the worst crime possible against said book by seeing the film adaptation first? By insisting that I would never hold in my hand a copy of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books, I felt that I was excusing myself from any blame.

And after ten plus hours of lying on our stomachs staring at a laptop screen on the longtime un-vacuumed carpet in our South Oakland living room, I fell in love with the show. But I stuck with my convictions: I loved the TV series, but I felt a strong responsibility to never read any of the books.

Fast forward several months and the rest of Season 2 and I've added Game of Thrones to my favorite TV show list on Facebook. And then the roommate whose fault it is that I even gave this show a chance comes to visit Jake and me in Boston and finishes reading the first installment of the series while here. Something came over me and I borrowed it from her. The horror!

And then I read it.

I think it's fair to say I wouldn't have picked it up organically in a bookstore. It's fantasy through and through, thus not my usual taste. Though, I have been adapting to the genre a little. It's arguably "high" fantasy, but I'm dealing with it by focusing on its historical and literary borrowings. For example, it has a lot of hints of Arthur, the War of the Roses, and Lord of the Rings. All of those things I am able to stomach.      

                 

That being said, the book was long, but I found that the HBO series was near faultless in its rendering of the first novel. The various points of view translated very well to screen. That impressed me. Otherwise, I felt only a small urgency to continue with the series (in terms of reading, not watching). I did buy the next book in the series, A Clash of Kings, from Target. I fear I won't get to it until December (winter is coming...).

All in all, I would suggest the series if you are a) really into fantasy, b) really into British history and literature, or c) if you really need to know what is going to happen next. When it comes down to it, I certainly plan to read the rest of the series within the next 365 days. I'm glad I picked up the book, but for a gal like me, it seems that this is the one instance in which the television series seems to have given the book its necessary justice.

Summer Reading

It's been a while, dear reader! You'll have to excuse me. I've been a little busy graduating from college and whatnot. I just found out this morning that I passed philosophy--so you can all stop holding your breath. 

So now what? Working at Justice, that's what. It's not as bad as it looks. The worst part is coming to terms with moms who say to their daughters "Just pick out anything you want, honey!" I was never allowed to pick out anything I wanted unless we were at the library. Maybe this is a clue as to why I dress like a 50-something who can't be bothered by fashion and have chosen to dedicate my life, more or less, to reading the same sort of books I read when I was eight.

Christy and I went to the Carnegie Library last week and I forced her to waste a half  hour of her life in the children's section. I checked out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Magician's Nephew, and Redwall.

This one because I don't think that the book gets enough credit. Though the movies are pretty good adaptations (I have a weird soft spot in my heart for Tim Burton and who doesn't love a good Gene Wilder meme?), I think it's a shame that so many Roald Dahl books have been made into movies. As a rule, I didn't see the movies until after I'd read the books. This wasn't the case for most kids though, which I consider to be a bummer.

I can't remember if I've actually read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I know that it was read to my second grade class (and then we watched the movie). So, I'm reading it again. I also have never even touched the sequel, so I'm giving that a shot too. 

The Magician's Nephew is the first in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Ugh. As you are all aware, fantasy isn't really my thing. You use that information to conclude for yourselves how I might possibly feel about an allegorical Christian fantasy. 

Ah, Redwall. As a middle schooler, I just could not get into these books. I had a really hard time suspending my disbelief. I had (and still have) lots of questions. Do humans exist in this world? Is it like Beatrix Potter stories? How do the little animals make glasses for themselves? If so, they obviously can't be the glasses that we think of in modern times because they do not not yet exist. It's just stressful for me. If you have any insights on this, please let me know. I'm talkin' to you Hannah and Sierra, especially. I remember you ATE THESE BOOKS UP. And I hated them and preferred to read realistic fiction. Such a little weirdo I was.

Anyway, I'm reading the first in the series (and that is all because there are like one million of them (not really, only twenty-two) and I can barely stomach this one). But don't think I hate all books about little rodents. I remember quite well Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. One of the best books I've ever read. So there, I'm not entirely prejudiced against talking animals.

Oh, there's a movie of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh too. I don't really remember it but it really doesn't do the book justice at all. It seems I'm frustrated with film adaptations today. So sorry. Also, I vaguely remember an animated Redwall TV series on PBS. Needless to say, I didn't really like it. Any thoughts on that from Redwall fans?

* * * 

This morning I was devastated to hear about the loss of author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. I can't even begin to describe how important his works are to the children's literature canon. I can't really say any more on it, but please read here. It's a beautiful tribute. And this, a way to remember.