Remote Corners of the Globe

How much smaller is our world than it used to be? Back in the early 90s, I read Tuva or Bust! by Ralph Leighton. Fascinated by the triangular stamps of Tuva and the funny spelling of its capital city, Kyzyl, Leighton and family friend Richard Feynman decide to visit the country. Not only is Feynman one of the most famous and important physicists ever, he was a larger-than-life character, known for late-night bongo sessions and an expansive curiosity.

In the book, tracking down the most basic information about or photographs of Tuva takes a huge amount of work. Leighton and his friends are searching for books at the Library of Congress and in university libraries around the world. It takes months to exchange letters with colleagues in Tuva -- and almost as long just to find their names and addresses. It takes years for them to get permission to visit Tuva and to make the travel arrangements, in large part because the Cold War was still in full swing in the late 70s and early 80s, with the Soviet Union keeping firm control of which foreigners entered their country and where they went. This story wouldn't be a story now. Finding information about a small remote city and locating people there would take minutes and not months. While traveling to and within the Soviet Union and China was extremely difficult 30 years ago, it's not only easier but common and unremarkable now.

There are still a handful of places in the world that would present similar challenges to the traveler. North Korea comes to mind, as does Burma, which is where Mitali Perkins' Bamboo People is set.

The book tells the separate stories of two boys. The first is an educated 15-year-old who is forced to join the Burmese army. Conditions are poor for these young men, but generally not shocking or horrific. Chicko is bright and manages to team up with another soldier who is less educated but more "street-smart," and together the two are able to endure and even find a few ways to improve their situations. Halfway through the book, Chicko runs into trouble on the Burmese-Thai border, and the narration shifts. The second half of the story is told by a Karenni boy, Tu Reh. His family are members of a Burmese ethnic minority, forced from their home by Burmese soldiers and now living in a refugee camp on the Thai side of the border.  Tu Reh's difficult choices force him to link his destiny to that of Chicko, who represents the very people who destroyed his village. The story is skillful and engaging on many levels. While the setting of Burma, a country that has been largely closed off to westerners for many years, is one that is almost certainly not familiar to most American students, the problems of child soldiers and ethnic warfare are more well-known. More importantly for a work of fiction, the universal themes are the strongest. These boys, on the verge of adulthood, struggle with decisions that affect themselves as well as their families and broader community.

The Fault in Our Stars

I had a hard time picking this book up even though I knew it would be fantastic, but I knew it was sad (teenagers with cancer - ouch). I moved it around the house all summer and then finally on Sunday when I was due to spend a good hour and a half on public transit I decided to bring it along so I would have to start it. Of course, once I got going, the characters were so amazing, the dialogue so right, the scale of the story so perfect -- well, it was no problem staying with it. Good thing I didn't start bawling while I was on the train though. I managed to keep it in check pretty well until about 2/3 of the way in, but I won't tell you what happened then, other than the fact that I was not overly surprised.

In the hands of many other writers, the same story could have turned into melodramatic drivel. I am apprehensive about the film -- I think the film rights have already been sold. The characters speak with a bit of an Aaron Sorkin accent. They are clever and wisecracking in the face of crisis, and say the things you wish you were smart enough to say. They are erudite but not snobby. More importantly, the emotions come off as absolutely genuine, and it puts the notion of one's first love smack up against the prospect of one's last love.

Read The Fault in Our Stars but don't forget the tissues.

Here's another thing I found out I like about John Green - he is a fan of Vi Hart, so it reminded me to look at her Fibonacci videos again. Here is one of my favorites. You don't have to love math to love watching these videos.

Trash by Andy Mulligan

In the book Trash by Andy Mulligan, three boys who are trash pickers in a giant dump on the outskirts of an unnamed 2nd or 3rd world country discover a bag with some cash, a mysterious letter and a code. The police are looking for the same bag, whose contents tie some important people to accusations of high-level corruption. Moreover, the clues within may point to a substantial pile of ill-gotten cash. Mulligan has written a compelling book that combines a detective/cat-and-mouse story with a true-to-life backdrop of  wretched living conditions and omnipresent government corruption.

The book was shortlisted for the Carnegie Award in the UK and the rights to the film have already been sold, although nothing is in production yet. I did enjoy the story, but am interested to get feedback from a kid. It's pretty solidly middle-school level, but the story line is a bit confusing. Not only that, the topics of government corruption might be difficult for younger students to grasp. In addition, the book is told in a shifting first-person narrative. The start of each chapter has a character state his name and begin telling his or her part of the story. In a few cases, more than one character narrates a single chapter.

A Guardian review written by a kid points out these issues. There is a lot to this book, and it's well-written, but perhaps for some readers it would be best in a classroom or book club setting where there is a way to grapple with questions and issues raised by the book.

I Capture the Castle

For years I have come across references to the book I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (who is better known to many as the author of One Hundred and One Dalmations). It's supposed to be a classic coming-of-age book with comedic and romantic overtones, set in the English countryside.  When I saw a blog post about a line in How I Live Now being "borrowed" from Smith's classic 1949 novel, I thought that perhaps now is the time to give it a whirl.

It is charming, and certainly has overtones of Austen and Brontë, and maybe even more of stories like A Room with A View. Gentlewomen living in reduced circumstances, whose only hope for the future may be to make a good marriage. But the storytelling bored me after a while, as much as I enjoyed the characters and the overall tone of the book, I just couldn't quite keep going.

Still, my fond recollections of A Room With A View made me look for the DVD of the 2003 movie version to see how the story ends up. It actually reminded me more of the J. Geils song, "Love Stinks:"

You love her
but she loves him
And he loves somebody else
you just can't win

There are three young men and two young women, and none seem quite able to connect with the ones who they want to or ought to, and there's even a hint of love intrigue among the parental set as well. I loved Topaz (the stepmother) as played by Tara FitzGerald even more in the movie than in the book. She's sort of nuts in an artsy way, but manages to keep the character very genuine. But Romola Garai, who plays the central character and narrator Cassandra, really drives the story. The humor is the book is largely visual, and it worked for me better in the film than it did in the book, where I found some of the pivotal scenes a bit confusing.

How I Live Now

Finally got around to reading How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff to see what all the buzz is about. I am very conflicted about this one.  I can certainly see how it's found its passionate followers, and I definitely enjoyed it. I went back and forth about the way the author did the dialog, without any quotation marks, using odd capitalization, etc. I guess it made the narration more authentic and put less of a distance between the reader and the story.

But that is getting into the details before I even touch the heart of the story. I admit to being both intrigued by and shaken by books that have catastrophic events in the current or not-too-distant future -- the other one that comes to mind is Life as We Knew It. I couldn't even finish its sequel, The Dead and the Gone. I think that the parent side of me has a really hard time reading something that could reflect my child's future. When you read stories set in the past, say during World War II, we know that the war did end, or you can have some hope that we won't repeat some of these horrors, even if that's not what history seems to tell us. But when I read stories that could happen in the future, I get bogged down in the fear of what could come in the future for my own child. It seems strange in a way that the fictional stories are more frightening to me than the true stories, given how awful some of those true stories are. Of course, one of the books I just read was Never Fall Down, which is full of gruesome wartime events. But you know going in that the main character, whose life the story is based on, lives. And in the course of the book he has such an incredible ability to rise above things. He says several times that he was lucky, but I think his story is an example of someone who really made his own luck.

Back to How I Live Now.  Of course elements of it remind me a lot of all those British orphan stories -- or stories in which adults play only the most peripheral roles: the kids figure all sorts of things out on their own, deep in the English countryside in a verdant, timeless setting. It also made me think of Numbers, which has a love story between troubled teens crashing through British villages and fields, escaping from adults who don't understand them, against a backdrop of fears of international terrorism. It also made me reflect back on Goodnight Mister Tom. The latter is a modern-day classic in England but not well known in the states. It is set during WWII and involves a young boy who is sent out of London to the relative safety of the country. It turns out that the real threat to the boy is not the bombs being dropped by the Germans but his twisted mother. So he is fleeing bad family relationships like Daisy, going to the English countryside where he discovers sanctuary, more from the relationships he builds than from the place itself.

Children of War in Southeast Asia

I picked up Patricia McCormick's latest, Never Fall Down, and had left it sitting on my table for a couple of weeks. It was not the easiest book to start. It is based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, who lands in a Khmer Rouge labor camp at the age of 11, becomes a child soldier, eventually landing in the United States as a teenager.

As in other McCormick books, there are chilling details, with horrifying tales of the Killing Fields. Moreover, McCormick tells the story in the first person in a sort of patois that takes a little getting used to. I questioned her choice at first, but in the end, it did lend an authenticity to the story that effectively personalized it. Reading the book, you know that Arn will survive, which makes it more bearable, and I did have to skip ahead to some acknowledgements at the end to figure out if some other key characters survived. Arn is more than a survivor though, he is someone who seems to have a force of life in him that not only allows him to live, but that also shines on others and helps them to get by in the face of unbelievable odds. While some survive by shrinking into the background, Arn has an ability to focus on the one thing in each setting that will put him in the spotlight and make him a person that everyone wants to be around. Another element of the book that struck me was how both family relationships and those that are developed in the course of crisis sustain Arn and the others. Sometimes the slightest human contact or support is enough to allow them to, as he put it, "never fall down."

There is a bit of context provided in the end, but I would have liked the publisher to have included a map and a little background information, as few kids, and not many more adults, are familiar with the history of Cambodia in the 1970s.

There seems to be more supplementary information provided with Mitali Perkins' Bamboo People, which is coming up soon on my reading list. Set in modern-day Burma, it tells a story about two young boys on opposite sides of a conflict between the Burmese government and an ethnic minority, the Karenni. From what I can gather, it manages to grapple with issues of child soldiers and ongoing attempts by governments to suppress the educated class (touched on in Never Fall Down) in a story that is suited for middle-school students. I have really enjoyed Perkins' other stories, but they typically had female protagonists and this one has boys and is set in a different place than her others, so I am really looking forward to reading it. It could be a good choice for either classroom use or for next year's summer reading list at our school.

Music Theme Books

I'm looking for books where music plays an important role for the characters and would love to find some good band stories that will appeal to boys.

I tried The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour. The start of the book was promising and it is set in San Francisco, where I used to live. The characters, a girl band and the male best friend of one bandmember (who importantly has access to a van), have just graduated high school and are heading out on a summer road trip. The plot quickly lost steam and the central characters were mostly annoying. The music snob in me was put off by one of the supporting characters sudden enthusiasm for the band Heart. No accounting for taste, I suppose.

Next, I read (and finished) Rock on: a story of guitars, gigs, girls, and a brother (not necessarily in that order) by Denise Vega. Ori Taylor is a high school sophomore who has newly emerged from his older brother's long shadow and is gaining traction with his band, who are entered into a battle of the bands. The primary relationship in the book is the one between Ori and his older brother Del, who has returned home after one failed semester at college. Del is now bitter and withdrawn, rather than supportive and enthusiastic. It's fairly clear to the reader what is going on, but neither brother seems to be able to sort it out until near the end. The plot was a bit thin, but the book was entertaining, and I did like the characters, who are all about 16-18 years old. It's completely middle-school appropriate even though it features older teens. Band geek boys may enjoy it, but there are plenty of girl characters and the focus on the brothers' relationship and some mild romantic themes will draw in some girls as well.

I have not yet read Take a Bow by Elizabeth Eulberg (author of the charming book The Lonely Hearts Club). The description says, "Emme, Sophie, Ethan, and Carter are seniors at a performing arts high school in New York City, preparing for the senior recital and feeling the pressure to perform well and take the next step in their careers and their lives--whether they want to or not." It looks somewhat Glee-like with a performing arts setting, but the real drama looks like it may center on the friendships and romantic relationships of the four characters, appealing more to girls than boys.

The List by Siobhan Vivian

Premise: Each year, a few weeks into the school year, a list is posted all over a high school naming the four prettiest and the four ugliest girls, one for each grade. Who are the 8 girls, how did the end up on the list, and how do they react to getting on the list? Is being named "prettiest" a good thing? What is life like for the "ugliest" girls? And who makes this list each year anyway? If you want to know the answers to these questions, read on.

What I liked: There were 8 leading characters whose stories sometimes only slightly overlapped with each other, they were distinct enough that I was able to keep them straight. When I was first reading it, I often referred to a copy of The List at the beginning of the book. The topic of how people's perception of one's physical appearance affects girls (distinct from their actual appearance, by the way) is ripe for exploration. Because there are so many characters in different situations, it gives the author many facets to explore. None are in-depth, but it could be a great launch pad for discussions. The writing is breezy and entertaining, and each girl has a distinct voice. The author's experience as a TV writer and editor for Alloy Entertainment (Pretty Little Liars, etc.) probably helps give her an ear for dialogue. It's certainly not great literature, but it's not chit lit trash either, and could draw in a pretty wide range of (girl) readers, both reluctant and voracious.

What wasn't great: Well, it is still 8 characters to track. One blog, The Fake Steph Dot Com, pointed out that it made the opening of the story a bit repetitive, since we had to live through eight girls discovering they were on The List and what their reactions were. The ending was a bit rushed and pat. There are a lot of threads to pull together, and some of them were taken care of more skillfully than others.

Classic Re-Reads

Decided to start the summer with a couple of classics I keep telling myself I will go back to - and I finally did!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith stands up well. Maybe it helps that it was not set in the present day when it was originally published in the early 1940s. There were some parts I'd forgotten, but a lot of details stuck by me. I noticed that (small spoiler alert!) after Johnny dies that the book becomes much more upbeat and positive. As much as Francie looks back on her father with affection, perhaps he is a better father as a ghost than as an physical presence. Reading it as an adult, the loss of innocence at each stage of the book sort of takes your breath away. It makes me hesitant to recommend it to younger teens. I am not sure how old I was when I first read it, perhaps high school age. I suppose some of the details went over my head a bit then.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck was a book I read when I was about 18 in the space of about 2 days. I had forgotten plenty of details of the book, but what stayed with me was the character of Lee, the family's Chinese servant. A bit of an enigma, he is the center, soul, and conscience of the Trask family. He was just as interesting and puzzling as I recalled. I had not really remembered the Samuel Hamilton character, nor had I realized that he was based on Steinbeck's real-life grandfather. I need to watch the movie again - also one of my all-time favorite movies. It leaves out some of my favorite parts and characters in the book, but it's such a sprawling story that there's no way Kazan could have included more than a tiny slice in his film. The movie only covers portions of the last 20% or so of the book. I am quite sure that there is plenty of biblical symbolism and other elements that have passed by me even on this re-read, but it was still well worth it. It reminds me in a way of Cutting for Stone, which also involves a good brother/bad brother element that spreads over many years and generations, with people moving from their home lands to a new place.

Hugo Cabret Movie Preview is Here

The movie is due out at Thanksgiving time - looks like it'll be a biggie! Here's the preview.

1930s/40s England

Without quite meaning to, I've read a few books recently that together paint a picture of life, particularly for children and families, in Britain in the 1930s and early 40s.

The first was Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian. It's hugely popular in the UK - in fact it was recently voted favorite Puffin of all time (a popular paperback series celebrating its 70th anniversary), but is barely known in the U.S. Set during WWII in England, the protagonist is a young boy who's been evacuated from London to the countryside to live with a gruff old gent, Mr. Tom. William, as it turns out, has been mistreated by his mother, and finds a much warmer, happier home with Mr. Tom. The book is definitely a tear-jerker, but not always in the obvious spots in the story. But between the British dialect and the historical setting largely unfamiliar to children in the U.S., it has never found a large following here.


Perhaps because of this book, a couple of others caught my eye at the library recently and I've been reading them:

• 1930s Britain, part of what seems to be a very accessible and well-illustrated series from Shire Books in England.
• War Boy: A Wartime Childhood by Michael Foreman. It's a children's book about the author's early childhood during WWII, when he lived near Lowestoft, on the far eastern tip of England. The area was hard-hit by bombs during the war and hosted a revolving door of British and Allied soldiers.

French Milk - eh

Found a book at the library called French Milk by Lucy Knisley. It's about a girl, 22, who travels to Paris with her mother for a couple of months. I thought it would have more coming of age stuff (she does too much whining) or insights about her relationship with her mother (not really) or great insider stuff about Paris (it's pretty touristy). The graphic novel format is well done, but I found the book pretty unremarkable as a whole. Eh.

Still on my want-to-see list is The Class about a French middle-school teacher.