Now that I'm reading lots of kidlit blogs, I find myself needing to make lists, all the time.  

I find books that I need to read because they relate to the ancient Mediterranean, which is my area of expertise  (I so long to have a classroom so I can reward students for hard work by giving them time to read fiction from a library of class-related books that I keep on a shelf.  But instead, I have a cart, which does not have enough room for the books.)

I find books that are not out yet, which I want to give as gifts.

It's so exciting and a little overwhelming, too.

Do you find yourself needing to keep track of lots of lists of books?

I guess Good Reads is the place to do this, isn't it?

This week, I've been thinking a lot about gender and societal expectations.  It started with Vivian's post, "Girl Power, At What Price?" at HipWriterMama.  In that post, Vivian wonders how the pressure to have, do, and be everything is affecting girls today.  It continued as I tried to sum up the first several chapters of Celia Rees's Pirates! for my roommate, and I mused about how common it is to have a story where a wealthy girl loves a man below her station, but it rarely seems to go the other way.  It continued when I read Becky's review of At the Sign of the Star.  Meg Moore, the main character in the book, dreams of a life where she can do more than just wifely tasks like sewing and mending.

All of this came to a head in my mind this morning, when I started thinking about what it means to be a woman, and especially what it means to be a strong woman.  I know I'm saying nothing new here, but it saddens me to think that roles that have been traditionally assigned to women are often rejected as "not enough."  I don't mean to say that people should settle for something in life that doesn't satisfy them.  What I find disconcerting is that when women seek to take on traditionally male roles, they often explicitly devalue traditionally feminine roles in their speech and actions.  When some women suggest that managing households is an inferior task to being out in the world, I feel as though they aren't really helping "the cause."  I'm having trouble expressing myself well here.  I suppose what I'm getting at is that I feel women should choose the work that fulfills them most and that they find most valuable.

This brings me to this week's question:
In what ways do children's and young adult novels shape readers' notions of gender roles?  How can and do they present more options, especially to girl readers, for how to spend a life?

I'm looking here for titles, trends, and examples of literature where girls get to choose who they are going to be, or that explore when and why they don't get to choose who they are going to be.  We have resources like Jen Robinson's 200 Cool Girls of Children's Literature and readergirlz.  What else is out there?  What has shaped the women we are now, and what will shape the girls of the future?  What role does children's and young adult literature play in affecting boys' and men's views of women?  How can we show girls the myriad of possibilities open to them without coloring their view of which possibilities are best?

What do you think?

On Thursday, TadMack at Finding Wonderland issued a few Most Egregious Misuse awards.  She focused on punctuation errors.  I myself hate finding extra apostrophes places, and often find myself wanting to take a red pen to signs.

It’s not just punctuation that is the problem, however.  Misuse of words is rampant, as well.  I recall once in high school a classmate of mine called something a “gregarious error."  She was the subject of much mockery.  You see, it’s always better to use the word that best communicates your meaning.  Sometimes you want a less common word for this, because its meaning is more specific than that of other words.  (See how I avoided putting an extra apostrophe in “its”?  It would have been very embarrassing if I hadn’t.)

In some cases, however, I think people use odd words just to sound more educated, or because they are bored with their usual vocabulary.  This is not okay, if they don’t know the meaning of the words.

For example:
While catching up on my kidlit newsletters I came upon an article about a new line of children’s nonfiction books.  In this article, the publisher of these books was quoted as saying their illustrations “provide an infinitesimal range of perspectives."

Let’s take a look at “infinitesimal,” shall we?

From m-w.com:
 Main Entry: ²infinitesimal
Function: adjective
1 : taking on values arbitrarily close to but greater than zero
2 : immeasurably or incalculably small <an infinitesimal difference>

I don’t think one would want to publish non-fiction that provided only an infinitesimal range of perspectives.  It would be very limiting, wouldn’t it?

A Fuse #8 Production is an awesome blog.  I’ve known this for a while.  Just today, I read a recnt post of Betsy’s that pointed me to my new favorite blog:

The Longstockings!  At The Longstockings, eight writers in striped socks talk about all kinds of exciting things.  I’ve not read any of their books, but the blog has me thrilled and wanting to run out and pick them up.  My TBR piles, if combined, would probably be as tall as I am, so it’ll have to wait.

In honor of Script Frenzy, I’m posting some soliloquies from my favorite scriptwriter - Wm Shakespeare.  He was a Taurus, you know.

First, from Hamlet II.2:

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann’d,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
‘Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

From The Tempest I.1

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

From As You Like It II.7
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V.1
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Script Frenzy is in full swing. Can I knock out 667 words before midnight tonight? I think I can. That's something like three and a half pages. I'm "pants"ing it, as writers say, meaning I have a concept but no outline. I've got a beginning and an end, and the middle will be the exciting part. I apologize if, for the next month, it seems as though I should change this journal's name to scriptitans (which is a real Latin word meaning "writing eagerly and often"). I think we'll be okay though. I can't tell you what I'm writing except to say it's a play. Other than that, it's a secret. Sshhhh! (If you really care to know about it, you can e-mail me, and I'll decide whether to let you into my elite cadre of people who know. Right now I think that cadre includes Little Willow and no one else.)

I shall not be neglecting my readerly duties. Work is (at last) winding down. Unemployment during the summer months is a sad thing, but if you budget for it, it can be awesome.

Things to Come:
A Thinking Blogger Award post (Thanks, Kelly!)
Reviews of the books on my Read in 2007 list
Commentary on other kidlit stuff, depending on what I find in my inbox and publications
Interviews!
My 48 Hour Book Challenge Posts

As the only Japanese girl in her class, Sumiko knew what being lonely felt like.  Still, she was usually satisfied to work on her uncle’s flower farm and attend school.  Then, she was invited to a birthday party!  Sadly, once she got there, the birthday girl’s mother asked her to leave, because she was Japanese.  This incident presents the rest of the book’s plot in microcosm: after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Sumiko’s family is split up and her uncle and grandfather are sent to prison camp, while her aunt, cousins, brother and herself are interned.

Weedflower was my first audiobook ever, and I suspect that has affected my opinion of it.  Simply put, it did not blow me away, but I really liked it.  It got off to a slow start, but the pace quickly picked up, and I found myself caring very much what happened to Sumiko and her family.  I think Kadohata’s greatest achievement with this book is presenting a huge historic event from a girl’s perspective.  What this means is that we get a limited awareness of what’s going on in the outside world; Sumiko only knows what’s going on to the extent that it affects her life directly.  A lot of historical fiction falls prey to its larger context, losing the personal in the grand saga of history, and educating readers in such a way that the narrator/protagonist seems to know a lot of things she really shouldn’t.  Kadohata deftly avoids this trap, but still presents a picture of life in the middle of World War II that makes us aware of what was going on.

I would recommend Weedflower to readers who enjoy historical fiction, especially about World War II, or anyone looking for a good story about how a girl grows up.  I will warn you, though, that it is not a cheerful tale.

Book: Weedflower (Affiliate Link) Author: Cynthia Kadohata  Publisher: Atheneum Original Publication Date: 2006 Pages: 272 Age Range: Young Adult Source of Book: Library [Audiobook] Other Blog Reviews: Fairrosa’s Reading Journal, propernoun.net, A Fuse #8 Production, MotherReader, Jen Robinson’s Book Page

Hi there, remember me?

I’ve been neglectful of this here reading blog.  I’ve been ill and overworked, mostly, and so I have been reading more and saying less.  I am still here, still excited to be part of this whole world of lit(especially kidlit)blogging, and am looking forward to renewing my dedication to it in the weeks to come.  I’ve been reading books a good bit, skimming and scanning blogs, and have my very first issue of The Horn Book waiting to be opened.

After a week-long hiatus, I have a new question for you!

How much and in what ways might readers benefit from or be hurt by contracts like the new boilerplate at Simon & Schuster, wherein a book effectively never goes out of print, but is always available via Print-On-Demand?

This may look like an easy question to answer, but don’t be deceived.  First, you may want to head over to Bookseller Chick and acquaint yourself with what I’m talking about.

In brief: In most contracts, when a book’s sales fall below a certain number, it goes out-of-print and the rights revert to the author.  The author is then free to sell the book to another publishing house.  In the new contract at Simon & Schuster, the minimum sales number would be removed, effectively allowing Simon & Schuster to keep rights to a book until it became public domain.

I’ve often been frustrated by finding a book I want to be out of print; I could see how having print-on-demand as an option would be good for readers.  On the other hand, it’s safe to assume that if a book has been relegated to Print-on-Demand only status, the publisher is not out there trying to get the book into the hands of new readers.  If the author owns the rights to the book and successfully sells the book to a different publisher, that publisher might make a bigger push for sales, thus bringing the book to a wider audience, thus benefitting new readers who might not have been looking for the book.

I’m not asking about author vs. publisher here, just potential reader benefits on each side.  If I’m a person looking for a specific book, it’d be nice to print it up.  If I’m a person who encounters a book I wouldn’t have looked for, but I do find it thanks to publisher action, then the out of print option is preferable.

What do you think?

The Previous Question:
How do readers benefit from author interviews?

Read answers at the original post.

Anyone who knows me well can tell you I have a pirate problem.  On my last day of student teaching, there were pirate festivities.  For Talk Like a Pirate Day and multiple Halloweens, I've dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.  And yelled at people if they left off the "Captain" part.  At the tender age of 7, I played Captain Hook in the Day Camp's production of Peter Pan.  (Written and Directed by me.  I wanted to be Peter Pan but they said my hair was too dark.)

Anyway.  In honor of PotC: At World's End being released today, I give you Robert Louis Stevenson's Pirate Story.

 Pirate Story

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.

Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat,
Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar?

Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea--
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

More Emily Dickinson!

Because I could not stop for Death (712)    
by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me – 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring – 
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –