In May, Colleen of Chasing Ray started a monthly litblog event: on the first Monday of the month, bloggers write about a book that they think is great and relatively unknown.  I haven’t participated yet, because recently I’ve been focusing on getting myself up to speed on some rather well-known books.  I’m still in that process, and so I don’t have any WCOBs for you today, but I want to point you to Colleen’s post, where she’ll be compiling a list of all of today’s WCOB posts:

Zombie Ass Kicking Edition

Enjoy!

LaVaughn is only 14, but she knows more than anything else in her life that she’s going to go to college.  Her mother has said so, and when her mother speaks a thing, it becomes true.  College isn’t going to pay for itself, though, so LaVaughn gets a job babysitting Jeremy and Jilly, the two children of Jolly.  Jolly is seventeen and works in a factory.  As LaVaughn forms a relationship with the family and begins to see the way Jolly’s life has spiraled out of her control, she begins to question herself.  Is it wrong for LaVaughn to take money from Jolly to avoid ending up in the same situation?  If LaVaughn babysits for free, is she sacrificing her future?  Is she allowing Jolly to keep spinning her wheels without making any forward progress in life?  Should LaVaughn feel responsible for Jolly’s situation?

Virginia Euwer Wolff achieves a great deal in Make Lemonade.  She paints a picture of two families in poverty going in drastically different directions; LaVaughn is poor but has a plan for life and a mother who supports her.  Jolly has no one but her children, and lives from one day to the next.  Wolff creates in Jolly a character who is sympathetic and frustrating at the same time.  She shows the tension between LaVaughn’s responsibility to herself and her desire to help others. 

Amidst all this, Wolff uses language that is both artful and accessible.  Written in verse, Make Lemonade feels like poetry but is not at all stilted.  Each line flows into the next, but it’s clear that each line break is carefully chosen.  Make Lemonade would be an excellent introduction to the verse novel for those who may be wary of the genre.

I would recommend Make Lemonade to readers who enjoy verse novels, as well as anyone looking for a story that is uplifting without being saccharine.
 
Book: Make Lemonade (Affiliate Link)
Author: Virginia Euwer Wolff
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Original Publication Date: 1993
Pages: 208
Age Range: Young Adult
Source of Book: Library

Emily Beeson has declared July 16 Tell An Author You Care Day.

I'm getting in on this at the end, with a rather short entry, but I want to participate.

The author I want to thank today is Dia Calhoun.  Ms. Calhoun is the author of The Phoenix Dance, a fantasy novel which captures the essence of Bipolar Disorder by using a fantastical metaphor: The Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Brilliance.

I don't have bipolar disorder; I do have clinical depression.  I have experienced the Kingdom of Darkness and Ms. Calhoun writes about it in a way that I think makes it much more accessible than any explanation I've been able to give.  I have several friends with bipolar disorder; one of my friends with bipolar disorder killed herself this past March.  The Phoenix Dance helped me to understand what she had gone through, what my friends who are still living with this disease deal with every day, and why it is so important that all of us take our medicine, even if it does make us far too emotionally even and affects our bodies in unpleasant ways.

Tomorrow evening I will write up a full review of The Phoenix Dance, complete with my favorite quotes.

For now I will just say:

Thank you, Dia Calhoun, for writing such a moving book that uses fantasy for its greatest purpose: to expose and make familiar ordinary situations by putting them in extraordinary circumstances.

You're The Poisonwood Bible!
by Barbara Kingsolver
Deeply rooted in a religious background, you have since become both isolated and schizophrenic. You were naively sure that your actions would help people, but of course they were resistant to your message and ultimately disaster ensued. Since you can see so many sides of the same issue, you are both wise beyond your years and tied to worthless perspectives. If you were a type of waffle, it would be Belgian.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

I'm leaving tomorrow for a week-long vacation in Florida.  The state of Florida is my favorite place in the world.  The moment you drive across the Georgia-Florida border, life improves, because now you're in Florida.  Florida is a magical place; just ask Piers Anthony.  (For the record, my current home, North Carolina, is also pretty magical; and in a letter Piers once told me that if Xanth hadn't been in Florida it would've been in North Carolina.)  Florida is my heart's true home, and in honor of my trip there and my love of that great state, I am posting the state song today.

Commentary from me is in bold.

Way down upon the Swanee River,
Far, far away,
There's where my heart is turning ever,
There's where the old folks stay.
All up and down the whole creation,
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for the old plantation,
And for the old folks at home. 

The Suwanee River is in Northern Florida.  For some reason the words "Swanee River" are associated with Yoohoo and snack cakes in my mind.  I think this is because in Tallahassee there's a street named after the river, and on that street there is a convenience store, where my parents purchased Yoohoo and snack cakes for me.

Chorus
All the world is sad and dreary,
Ev'rywhere I roam;
Oh! loved ones, how my heart grows weary,
Far from the old folks at home! 

Since a year or so before my sister was born, my maternal grandparents have lived in Florida, and my paternal grandparents have been there since my dad was about three.

Second Verse
All roun' the little farm I wandered,
When I was young;
Then many happy days I squandered,
Many the songs I sung.
When I was playing with my brother,
Happy was I;
Oh! take me to my kind old mother,
There let me live and die. 

When my dad was in library school he and my mom made friends with a couple, and the woman in this couple had a family farm.  It was a cane farm, and every year they'd have a big family reunion on Thanksgiving.  The couple invited us there a few times, and I would run around with all the kids of this family and with my little sister.  It was a lovely place.  I liked watching them make cane syrup.  I also liked drinking cane syrup.  I've recently discovered that I prefer things sweetened with dried cane juice.  Yay, Florida!  Cane is also a major crop of the West Indies, and a source of great wealth for the people pirates plundered.

Third Verse
One little hut among the bushes,
One that I love,
Still sadly to my mem'ry rushes,
No matter where I roam.
When will I see the bees a humming,
All roun' the comb?
When will I hear the banjo strumming,
Down in my good old home?

I never lived in a hut in Florida.  House, townhouse, duplex.  No hut.  I also don't really care for bees, and I'm indifferent towards the banjo.

This is the story of what really happened.  This is the truth.

When Emma moved to Orsonville back in the third grade, Anna introduced herself.  They soon became fast friends, and Emma hasn’t really spent time with anyone else.  Now the girls are in ninth grade, and the glamorous and edgy Mariah has introduced them to her circle of friends, broadening their social horizons greatly.  One night the girls tell their parents that they’re going to the movies when really they’re going to Mariah’s boyfriend’s house for a party.  They get caught in this lie by their parents and make up another, bigger one, to cover it up: they were on their way to the movies but took some time to just hang out by the river.  When they were at the river, a strange man attacked them.  They managed to escape, but never made it to the movies.

When the girls tell the lie, they think it will get them off the hook and that will be that.  Instead, their parents get the police involved, their school holds assemblies to discuss the event, a man is arrested, and the women of the community stage a “Take Back the Night” rally.  

In Harmless, Dana Reinhardt tells the story using each of the girls’ voices.  We get a different perspective from each of them and learn their motivations and see what their lives are like from the inside.  This unique form of narration allows each girl to be a whole character, rather than limiting us to one girl’s perspective on the other two.  We also see how each character changes: Anna, the good and unpopular girl, decides to open up and finally start being a little wild; Emma, the “normal” one, withdraws into herself; Mariah, who has always been rebellious, starts to take life more seriously.  

Harmless is very different from Reinhardt’s first book, A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life.  The tone is darker, though the subject matter is of equal seriousness.  Harmless is, above all else, intense.  It examines what can happen when we lose control of our lies.  It also shows us that people may not be just the way you perceive them.  Mariah’s inner thoughts reveal her to be not at all the girl Anna thought she was.  Emma’s family has secrets she doesn’t share, even with her best friends.  Anna has a desire to be different than she is, but doesn’t express this until Mariah presents her with the opportunity.

Harmless is an excellent book.  I would recommend it to readers who like books that make them think.  It contains language and content that make the YOUNG ADULT label necessary and emphatic: parents may want to read it before giving it to their children.

Book: Harmless (Affiliate Link)
Author: Dana Reinhardt 
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books
Original Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 240
Age Range: Young Adult
Source of Book: Borders
Other Blog Reviews: Big A little a, propernoun.net, interactivereader, Becky’s Book Reviews, Sara’s Holds Shelf, Kids Lit, I’m A Reading Fool
Extras: My Interview with Dana Reinhardt, Interview at Interactive Reader, Interview at Bildungsroman

In honor of my cat-related article up at Associated Content, I’m posting a cat poem today.

Had Tiberius Been a Cat
Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand,
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat.

Matthew Arnold 1822-1888 

Tiberius was the second emperor of Rome.  You can read more about him here.  I’m not sure if this is the Tiberius the poet intended, but it sounds a lot like him.

Associated Content has published my article Unique Websites for Cat Lovers.

When my students ask me, "What can you DO with a Classics major?" I answer:

"Well, you pretty much have two options.  You can either become a Latin teacher... or you can be a world famous novelist."

J. K. Rowling majored in the same thing I did, folks.  But she's got more money.  It's okay, though.  I'm glad she did it, because it means her Latin is pretty darn accurate, excepting the nonsense words.  And I can use things like the subject heading of this post to teach students the meaning of words like "accusative case."

Regardless of our respective tax brackets (which probably have no bearing to one another anyway as we live in different countries), J. K. makes me happy with her books.  They are good and fun and I don't care if she's not Tolstoy.  I don't require Tolstoy from a book.  In fact, I put Tolstoy down a few times, and never finished Anna Karenina.  I'll try again later.

All of this is to say, it's full-blown Harry Potter madness here in lecti-land.  I am in the middle of crocheting myself a fabulous pink wig to wear to the release party in Hillsborough (yes, 

and , I said Hillsborough - y'all have the best party, I'm told).  I designed a Weird Sisters logo to iron on to a T-shirt and then accentuate with fabric paint.  Tomorrow I'm going shopping for jeans to tear up (thrift store!) and wacky socks (Target!).  I'm going to have fun if it kills me.  I am not going to the Raleigh preview for the new movie tomorrow though, as I've decided it's more hassle than it's worth.  It'll be the same movie in a couple of weeks.

What are you doing for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

 

Barbara Johansen's ALA roundup mentioned a museum visit that sent me in search of one of my favorite DC museums, The National Museum of Women in the Arts.  I decided to take a look in their shop and found this:


This is the Women Writers Umbrella.  I love it!  The writers on it are, starting with the very bottom and moving clockwise, Emily Dickinson, Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, Virginia Woolf, Emma Lazarus, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sylvia Plath, and Jane Austen.  It's $27.50.













I also found in their store books by the Guerilla Girls, who I'm now reading all about and finding rather exciting.

There's also this fabulous Emily Dickinson scarf.