Guest Post by Joey Pinkney
I’ve been peeking in on Joey Pinkney’s blog for awhile now. It’s a book blog too. We’ve been playing follow-tag on Twitter for ages… you know we follow each other, for whatever reason someone un-follows someone, and then a while later says “Oh Hey, That Person Looks Neat,” and then we’re back to following each other again… I’m sure you’ve played it with a few people too.
So this time I said something about it. The guy is super cool about being pleasantly called out on this game we’ve been playing… a game I only noticed because his profile picture is unmistakable and I genuinely enjoy his posts.
After a little chat, he agreed to guest blog for me. Yay! I love having guest bloggers and doing interviews. It makes me feel like Oprah. Meet Joey:
Southern Strife Book Review by Joey Pinkney
Title: Southern Strife
Author: Valerie Stocking
“Southern Strife: A Novel of Racial Tension in the 1960s” is Valerie Stocking’s sophomore effort. The notion of “sophomore slump” does not apply. This novel is a powerful portrayal of America’s not-so-distant history in dealing with the false concept of this country being a melting pot.
“Southern Strife” is refreshingly offensive. I say that because Valerie Stocking sculpted the characters in a realistic manner and not in a way that would fit in a neat, little box. Stocking’s portrayal of racism within the pages of “Southern Strife” is like an honest parent’s portrayal of Christmas. (“Honey, there is no Santa Claus. I bought you those presents under the Christmas tree…”)
The author uses Willets Point as a microcosm of the effects of racism on both black and white people in 1960s America with twelve-year-old Joy Bradford uncomfortably stuck in the middle. With her scotch-loving aunt being one of Willets Point’s key socialites and her narcissistic mother seeking the affections of her divorce lawyer who is also the leader of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter, Joy’s experience with racism is more than casual.
“Southern Strife” is much, much more than a story about racism. There are many points and counterpoints cleverly woven into the fabric of this novel. Coming in at a healthy 435 pages, “Southern Strife” is not a short read. There were a few lulls in the plot here and there, but that is to be expected in a book of this length. The author makes great use of non-linear storytelling. As the time periods ebb and flow, situations become more clear yet more complicated.
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Baby Bear
Title: Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?
Author: Bill Martin, Jr.
Illustrator: Eric Carle
Publisher: Puffin
The Kiddo has definitely picked her favorite for the week, and Oh-My-Lands, if I never have to read this book again it would be too soon! It’s actually not that bad, I’ve just read this book about seven times a day for a week straight, and that’s at a minimum. She’s at the age where she likes familiar, predictable, and oh so repetitive things.
She likes being able to tell me, “This Red Fox,” except fox sounds like something else entirely, something unprintable and disconcerting coming out of your two year old. The x sound is not her forte. She’ll get there, after all, she hears it enough.
Her favorite animal is the Striped Skunk. I’m not sure if it’s the stark black and white contrast of the picture or the way the phrase sounds, but that’s definitely the page we go back to over and over again.
She likes to explain to me that the Mule Deer and the Striped Skunk are like Bambi and Flower. That is important to her, knowing that I know that she recognizes that these are similar but not the same thing.
I like that book goes through one particular region. When you open the book, the first thing you see, even before the title page, is that Carle has painted a forest. It seems insignificant, but I think it’s a nice touch that sets the tone for the animals to come. It says, “this is where you are going, the animals you discover live here…” Then we start meeting them and it’s like taking a trip to Colorado without even leaving her bedroom.
One day, I’d like for us to build a Baby Bear diorama. I think she would really like reciting the book while sliding a paper doll of baby bear past all his friends and on towards his mother.
Polar Bear, Panda Bear, and every other Bear book by Bill Martin are definitely on our To Buy list. If you’re still on the fence, check out this other reviewer’s take on it: http://www.daddyfiles.com/baby-bear-baby-bear-what-do-you-see/
Music To Write To
Every writer has their zone, and sometimes the zone changes. Due to the nature of my sucky laptop, I’m prone to laying prostrate across the floor so I can pile things on the charger to make it stay plugged. Currently, said pile consists of my husband’s bible, my journal, whatever book I happen to be reading, and a Noah’s Ark statue of my daughter’s.
It’s not a comfortable way to write, but I’ve made it work… with music.
Nothing reminds you of college like being too poor to buy yourself new tech gadgets, laying on the floor writing half the day, and eating sandwiches off chipped plates while laying and writing. So, when writing this way, what other music would I listen to than the artists of my so-called youth?
I bought this album as a wide-eyed freshman in college.
David Ramirez
That’s a long term commitment as far as music loving goes. As a moody listener, there are a lot of musicians I’ve outgrown over the years. Some songs just aren’t the same when you’re not twelve, or eighteen, or a newly wed, or whatever it was you were when you were in love with something that just can’t move you anymore.
Click here to download from iTunes.
Christine Hand will grow with you though. At least, she grows with me. We’re roughly the same age, went to the same university for awhile, have liked the same guy, and though we’re in no way the same, I feel like whatever music she has out that’s ‘new’ in the moment, always falls in line with my own existence. Her latest album has a beautiful maturity that I hope I’ve reached. It definitely puts me in the mood to strive to write with that same beautiful maturity.
In addition to Christine’s own songs, there is a Bob Dylan cover on Girl on a String. Who doesn’t like Bob Dylan? And who doesn’t like hearing his songs performed well? This album can feel comfortable sitting on your shelf with the likes of Norah Jones and Joni Mitchell, and like John Mayer at the Crossroads concert playing with the likes of B.B. King and Eric Clapton, you’ll be impressed with how well she fits right in and holds her own with the greats.
Christine Hand plays along side her husband, my friend, Adam Jones, and her father. The dynamic is pretty neat, but I’m a sucker for family bands, as you’ll see if you ever check out my cd collection from the ’90s where I thought Rebecca St. James was the coolest for bringing her brother on tour with her and I was distraught to discover that the White Stripes weren’t married anymore. I’m also a long time fan of The Jackson 5 and a completely head over heels for the fact that Nine Inch Nails moved on to become How To Destroy Angels, only to include Trent Reznor’s wife.
Check out Christine’s website here: http://www.christinehand.com/
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Dinosaurs!
I read Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark
We had to stop a few times to draw a rhinoceros onto our ‘R’ page, check out whales and their sizes in relation to dinosaurs in our encyclopedia, and to correct behavior as she climbed in my living room window sill that is about three and half feet off the ground. We even had a brief whistling lesson after reading how the wind was whistling around the tree house. Overall, she enjoyed it, so we moved onto the Research Guide
Mary Pope Osborne and her husband Will Osborne joined forces and started writing nonfiction companion books to the fictional Magic Tree House adventures. When I first discovered this, I started purchasing them in pairs, vowing to use them as fun assignments while home schooling. I’d like for kiddo to grow up in the habit of reading a nonfiction title that somehow relates to every fiction title that she devours, expanding both her facts and her imagination. What better way than to start with research guides to her first chapter books?
Why am I reading these to her so early? Frankly, it’s quite hilarious to watch a two year old run circles in your living room chanting, “Fossils! Minerals! Dinosaurs!” at the top of her lungs, while her dog (who happens to be the biggest one we own) lays in the center rolling his eyes.
Chapter three of the research guide Dinosaurs talks about iguanas and how Gideon Mantell though the dinosaur teeth he and his wife found were giant iguana teeth. Of course, we had to stop to re-read I Wanna Iguana
All in all, we had a good ‘school day’ this morning, something we have been working on being more diligent about now that kiddo is two and it has actually managed to get too cold to venture out as much.
March
Title: March
Author: Geraldine Brooks
Publisher: Penguin Books
Length: 280 pages
When I first selected March for the HPB Humble Book Club, I wasn’t fully aware of what I was getting myself into. I knew two things: it had been on my TBR for quite sometime and it had been quite popular with private book clubs in the area. By the cover and Geraldine Brooks reputation, I assumed it was some kind of historical fiction and that it was most likely to be something I considered good. I had not yet discovered that it was the story of Mr.March while off at war and Marmee. I did not realize I’d be reading back story on characters I’ve loved my whole life.
Geraldine Brooks’ writing is impeccable, amazing. It should be, she won a Pulitzer for this incredible book. I love the story.
I was ten when Susan Sarandon appeared in Little Women. It was not the first version of the movie I saw, nor the last; but as I watched the movie and re-read Little Women for the first time she became and still remains my favorite Marmee.
The problem is, I had an image of these wonderful people in my mind, an image I held onto for years and years. From the first time I read the book to the last time I re-read the book, through every movie adaptation, Marmee and Mr. March, though less present than the other characters, were pillars of perfect parenting, virtue, and strength. Brooks doesn’t take that away exactly, but she makes them so human it’s a bit disconcerting.
It’s like the first time you see pictures of your own parents at parties when they were young, before you were around. Or, the moment you come home at the proper time after prom to discover they are nowhere to be found and when you call them they are at some event you were unaware of, laughing and joking. In those moments you think, ‘Wow, they have a life.’ Marmee and Mr. March weren’t exactly having a party, most of the book is about the devastation of slavery and the civil war. Still, that moment you read about Marmee and Mr. March making passionate love in the woods before they were married, a tryst that resulted in Meg, you think: ‘No! I didn’t want to know that about them!’
At the same time, there’s something magical about the way Brooks has managed to weave a new tale from and into an old one. To take a small little quote about the girls missing their father who was so far away where the fighting was and turn it into a very distinct and unique piece of work, to read the telegram insisting Mrs. March go to her ill husband and have a whole life story revealed, it’s simply breath-taking and a bit of genius. It is all very excellent. It just isn’t what I had imagined for them myself.
Granted, many say Brooks based the story off of Louisa May Alcott’s own family life, as Alcott had written Little Women with the same background in mind. With that said, it stands to reason that Brooks book probably honors the author and her own imagination well.
Still, I go back to my eight year old self (the first time I read Little Women) every time I re-read the book. The magic of books is that they may always take you back to a moment, a bit of time in your life where your mindset was a certain way, the feeling you had the first time you read those lines… like a song that gives you chills decades after it has made you cry. Geraldine Brooks’ March, though beautiful and epic, doesn’t fit with my eight year old Little Women reading self. There’s a disenchantment there.
The book is a dichotomy that flusters me to my core. To love a book so much and to be equally indignant about it is frustrating.
I plan to read Eden’s Outcasts
There will be a meeting to discuss March at Half Price Books in Humble at 7:30 pm. Join us!
If These Walls Had Ears
Title: If These Walls Had Ears
Author: James Morgan
Publisher: Warner Books
Length: 275 pages
“A house is man’s attempt to stave off the anarchy of nature. Ripping up that floor had allowed a disturbing glimpse into the house’s secret life. It’s more comfortable not to know about such things.” – pg. 88
James Morgan may have been speaking about Billie Murphree’s floor rot from undercover water, but no words used in description of a house have ever hit me harder or rung so true.
Barely two years into owning our own home, my husband ripped up our living room carpet. We had lofty ambitions of laying tile or hardwood floors. We had tiled the living room of a town home once and it had turned out quite nicely for the low cost of $400. Those were the days when we thought home repair and renovation fun. Now, it’s just a necessity. No sooner had the carpet been pulled up, we discovered what we un-lovingly refer to as The Grand Canyon in our foundation.
Upon further inspection, the enormous crack ran from one end of the house to the other, from the outer wall where my rose and herb garden touches our driveway, through the kitchen, under the bar, across the living room, down the hallway, into the bathroom, and right out the outer wall against the side yard where I hope to make a courtyard one day.
We were devastated. We had bought our dream home, except for the master bathroom which will forever irritate and haunt my poor husband, only to find that it wasn’t a dream at all. Our dream home was a wreck, a fixer upper, a money pitt – it kind of still is.
We had $15k worth of foundation repair done at a discounted price – the company is run by a saint – literally, he’s a Gideon, and I’m quite certain he felt sorry for us. He even gave us plenty of time to pay him off and didn’t charge us interest. No sooner had we paid our bill in full, we discovered the breakfast room was now sliding into our back yard and had to have more foundation repair. Our back fence, our back door, my daughter’s window, nothing in this house is safe. It’s fragile, it’s old, it’s exhausting. We had to dig up our front yard and repair plumbing ourselves, we’ve had work done by professionals under both bathrooms.
Oh, and our insurance company is worthless, they paid for exactly nothing.
Yes, Mr. Morgan, a home is man’s attempt to stave off the anarchy of nature. Nature riots in many ways: mud sliding our from under our apparently unstable foundation, a shake slithering up through the crack in our living room, the rain rotting our fence, the winds of Hurricane Ike displacing our other fence and blowing out a window pane in our back door. Our sidewalk to our mail box sunk into our front yard, a storm took down our light post. It never ends. It’s never over.
Despite the issues, despite the debt, despite it possibly being the biggest mistake of our married lives, I’m in love with this house. We’ve been through ups and downs, trials and errors, hell and we’re not quite back, but it’s my home. Technically, it belongs to the bank, but we live under the illusion that it’s ours, and the illusion has a safe feeling to it, until the next time something breaks…
“In a house you never can tell where the next trouble will erupt. A door knob will suddenly come off in your hand. A heating duct in the belly of the house will lose a screw and pop out of its fitting. Even if you think you know the trouble spots, you’ll be taken by surprise. A piece of upstairs trim will swell up and warp, and the next thing you know, the rain will be leaking in downstairs and two walls away.” – pg. 109
Still, for whatever reason, everyone loves old houses. I remember when we were house hunting I specifically asked for a house in an older neighborhood surrounded by trees. “Nothing newer than the ’80’s,” I told my realtor, “No cookie cutter neighborhoods.” “Why, oh Why?!” I inevitably cursed later when we had to shave down parts of our interior doors so we could open and close them because the house had shifted yet again. “Why?!” we yelled when a brick just came out of our stoop, just slipped right out from under our door and lay across the porch where a welcome mat should have been. “Why?!” we screamed when a board from our deck in front of the garage door collapsed.
Because like Morgan says,
“Old houses look like home to us. They appeal not to our practical side but to whatever romantic part of us traffics in hopes and dreams, or wallows in nostalgia. They’re flirts, old houses. They get painted up real pretty – the way this house was when I first saw it – and they show off a lot of front porch and invite you in for a little French dooring, and the next thing you know, they’ve snared another sucker.” – pg. 180
Morgan’s book is endearing, nostalgic, and beautiful. It speaks to home owners, future home owners, and anyone who has ever fallen in love with a building of any kind. If These Walls Had Ears really speaks to my heart. There’s even an Andi that shows up briefly and takes part in 501 Holly’s biography. It makes you hope that in another fifty or so years someone will write a sequel to this old house’s life story.
The only part I didn’t like, despite a very beautiful quote in it, was the epilogue which summed up the lives (or the divorces and deaths, rather) of all the people who once lived in 501 Holly. It was depressing to say the least.
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Math Adventures
Title: Sir Cumference and the First Round Table
Author: Cindy Neuschwander
Illustrator: Wayne Geehan
I think everyone who has talked to me for longer than a minute and a half about children’s books knows how much I adore Brian P. Cleary
So a two year old who still stumbles through her ABC song, can only manage some really intense stripes when writing, and can only identify circles and triangles isn’t really ready for a book about circumferences, diameters, the concept of a radius, parallelograms, diamonds, and all that, but that’s when it is perfect to start reading these stories. By the time she needs the information, I want the stories thoroughly engrained in her mind.
Sir Cumference is a knight, married to Lady Di of Ameter, father of a short-stack son named Radius. With their help, King Arthur is able to come up with a plan to keep his knights on their best behavior as they discuss the well-being of Camelot. Add to the cast of characters a carpenter named Geo of Metry, the books instill all the basic concepts of geometry in the disguise of some exciting fake King Arthur folklore. Start reading the books to your kid from birth through early elementary school and you’ve got one math savvy child without even trying. As a home school mom with a serious distaste for math, I want my kid to enjoy it and make her life a lot easier than mine was by the time her high school curriculum comes along.
For slightly older kids, I’d say ages 5-10, the book easily lends itself to hands on activities. Paper projects, baking projects, even wood working if you were bold and wanted to make an actual play table, the story takes you step by step through cutting a rectangle down into all the various shapes. And, of course, it’s a series. Click the Sir Cumference link to purchase from Amazon. Click the collection image to go to another blogger’s reviews.
Other Sir Cumference
Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi
Sir Cumference and All the King’s Tens
Sir Cumference and the Viking’s Map
Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter
Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland
Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone
(As an Amazon affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.)
Young Adult
Confession:
I have an illness. I see an indie film and no matter how awful it looks, I feel the urge to give it a shot. It’s an indie film, which to me means it’s an underdog, and who knows, what if it’s a hidden gem of awesomeness?
Take that and a love for authors, books, stories about authors of books, and Charlize Theron in all her hotness – how could I pass up Young Adult on Netflix? I just couldn’t.
Oh dear God, give me that hour and thirty-three minutes of my life back.
That’s not fair, the movie is good for what it is. It is well done. It has a bit of wit to it. The director of photography did this brilliant thing with a cassette tape and player and the beginning that I totally loved.
But I really don’t think it is possible for a character to stress me out anymore than Mavis Gary just managed. I mean seriously, what was wrong with that crazy lady?! Everything! That’s what!
She is an alcoholic who drinks way too much diet coke first thing in the morning – out of the bottle. She is chronically unsatisfied, sleeps around, divorced, 37, at the tale end of writing glory (she was a ghost writer of a young adult series that is a few years past its prime selling years), and oh yeah the most important part: she’s chasing down her married ex-boyfriend who just had a baby with his wife. It’s a pretty ballsy role for Theron, and she pulls it off brilliantly; I just want to strangle the whole demented story, if strangling a story could ever be possible.
The best part, the part that does make the movie worth a damn, is Patton Oswalt. I sort of love him. A lot. He is an awesome supporting actor that shows up in everything, but I know him best as Joel Mynor in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. He is Mavis’ voice of reason in this little fiasco of a man hunt/coming of age story. Can you call it a coming of age story if the protagonist is 37? I think not, but I promise you, it fits. And in the end when the Patton Oswalt’s on-screen sister asks to go back to the Mini-Apple with Mavis, I desperately wanted her to say ‘Can’t I’m taking your super awesome brother.’ Of course, that didn’t happen because despite the Esmeralda/Quasimodo dynamic, Young Adult’s own Quasimodo character was way to good for the likes of the star beauty.
Oh dear God give me that hour and thirty three minutes of my life back – except don’t. Even though it was kind of painful to watch, it resonates a bit. Check it out. Let me know what you make of it.
The Prominence League
Title: The Prominence League
Author: C. David Cannon
Publisher: Lucid Books
Genre: Young Adult
Length: 197 pages
C. David Cannon is friendly, jovial even. I don’t know if he is like this all the time or if he was just on a high from his first official book signing, but I would consider him quite pleasant.
His book, on the other hand, is not jovial. Instead, it’s a social commentary on freedom, discussed in the form of a dystopian fiction piece. ‘Ah, yes, a dystopian society young adult novel… you’re a sucker for those,’ I can hear the blogosphere groan. I AM! I am a sucker for those, because they’re inevitably so darn good!
“I think to myself that I am tired of being a captive. I am tired of living under their tyrannical guidelines, being monitored every minute, and rationed food and resources. I finally admit to myself that the President was right. I have been caught up in the adventure, and cannot turn back now.”
Like Carriane, you’ll get caught up in the adventure too, and you won’t want to turn back.
Fans of Invitation to the Game
The Prominence League, though a completely different story with a totally different style, continuously reminded me of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Those are values you expect to find in a Chinese man who fled to France in the 80’s to publish copies of his own illegal work, but not in a fifth grade teacher in suburbia. For that, I find Cannon refreshing.
At the Half Price Books Humble book signing, Cannon told a story about his fifth grade class and how he read chapters to his students. He talked of a running joke they had together about how often a character passed out at the end of each segment. If the book has one flaw, it would be that Carriane McAdams does indeed have a hard time getting from chapter to chapter while remaining conscious. Summoning my middle-grade self, however, I found I enjoyed the game of ‘how does she get conked out this time?’ It gave the book an interactive air and kept it from feeling too dark.
I would have liked to see the book about a 50 pages longer, develop Carriane’s relationship with her own environment and Caleb prior to his disappearing act and her re-education. I would have liked to see her spend more time in training, get a better understanding of what that training feels like to the characters, but wrap up the novel exactly the same. There is nothing wrong with how Cannon handled his story, it is highly entertaining, and I think it would make a strong impact on a young reader. The opening just moved more quickly than I would have liked, which is probably the same quality that makes it perfect for intermediate readers – he gets right to the point. Cannon’s book would be a great gift for enticing kids to love the written word.
The Prominence League Two and Three are yet to come. When they do, I would be psyched to purchase a Prominence League Omnibus complete with all three books in one volume… hint, hint to the marketing department at Lucid Books.
Anakalian Whims 
Happy Birthday Pride & Prejudice
January 28, 2013 at 11:24 pm (Reviews) (200 Year Anniversary, book to movie, books, happy birthday, illustrations, jane austen, Pride and Prejudice, review, romance, satire, social commentary)
“[…] Jane Austen is the greatest writer ever – because she was the first storyteller to make me care about an old-fashioned love story.”
– Adam Jones
I have to say, I think Jane Austen is one of the greatest writers ever, but not because she was the first to make me care about old-fashioned love stories. I always liked those.
In fact, the first time I read Pride & Prejudice I was too young to catch all the subtle things that make Austen great, I think. I read the book because I thought Emma was funny. It’s easier to recognize the humor in Emma, P&P takes a few more reading years under your belt. At least it did for me.
What is so awesome about Jane Austen is that shallow readers may enjoy the romantic notions of it all (hence loving the books in elementary school when I was devouring them along side Anne of Green Gables) and still have more to offer as you age. The greatest of writers can be enjoyed by the young and reveal themselves over time with multiple readings. I think I was twelve or thirteen before I realized that most of Austen’s work is pure satire and subtle hilarity.
Even though I adore the Bronte sisters, the mastery of language and social fantasy Pollock talks about is what makes Austen’s work accessible to a much wider audience. Wuthering Heights is all dark secrets and emotion, whereas Pride & Prejudice is social commentary, comedy, romance, and more.
Look at Darcy, the most introverted socially awkward geek of all time. The only reason he is considered desirable by such a wide array of women is because he has money and a pretty face. Without those two things, he would be Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory. At least, that’s how I read him. Apparently, I’m not the only one or the movie made in 2005 starring Keira Knightley would have been a bit exasperating. Instead, it has become a favorite on rainy sick days.
So Happy 200th Birthday Pride & Prejudice and well done, Jane.
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