squeetus

Pure listening pleasure

book of a thousand days will be out sometime this fall. I will be doing a very brief tour for it, and bringing along Max, Maggie, and my mom. Ay ya ya. More details on that later.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of audio books. Not only in the car, but I keep them on my ipod and listen for stretches during the night when I'm up with Maggie. It's very comforting to find refuge in a story when I'm awake anyway but too tired to focus on a book. They've all been great, so I thought I'd pass along the recommendations:

Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke - Perhaps my favorite so far. Lynn Redgrave does a phenomenal job at narrating this captivating story. (One interesting note, and this is by no means meant as a criticism of the book, which I thought was outstanding--in the book the characters remark how people assume that authors of the books they read are dead, and yet all the books mentioned were written by writers now deceased. I kept noticing that throughout the story, especially given our ongoing discussion about how older books are often perceived as being better than newer books.)

The Wee Free Men - Krivens! I loved this story. You simply must listen to the audio book because the voices of the wee free men and their accents are so delightful, so funny, I often laughed aloud. I'm listening to the sequel right now, A Hat Full of Sky. The main character, Tiffany Aching, girl witch, is truly great. Terry Pratchett is the unquestioned king of humorous fantasy.

America the Book - I'm a fan of The Daily Show, and this audio book, read by Jon Stewart, Stephen Cobert, and other Daily Show correspondents, is really funny and actually quite interesting to boot. Be warned, they do drop the occassional f-bomb.

Peter and the Starcatchers - Funny, exciting, and quite different than I expected. The narrator is Jim Dale, who also does the Harry Potter books. He's excellent.

I also induldged in reading a three-book series this new year. It's a rare pleasure I don't often allow myself because there are so many books by so many authors I want to read. But I'm so glad I did. The books are The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. The first book was a Newbery Honor (and we all know what fine taste the Newbery Honor people have), and the last book was a top ten in the ALA's Best Books for Young Adults. They read like fantasy novels, though the fantastical elements are very subtle, so that the books almost seem historical novels. I've never read stories like these and am still trying to figure out just how Turner does what she does. She is a cunning plotter. The books have been repackaged in gorgeous covers, the first two in paperback. I'm hoping she'll write another in this series. See?! I've become like one of the fans who write to me, insisting on another Bayern novel or a princess academy sequel. I actually tried to find Turner's email address so I could email her! I hope I get to meet her one day so I can gush.

Glam at the grocery

"Yesterday it was my birthday," as Paul Simon sang. "I hung one more year on the line. I should be depressed, my life's a mess, but I'm having a good time."

Not much I can do to celebrate a birthday, as I have an infant who nurses every hour (yes, every hour) and I have to keep her out of public places as much as possible until we get past RSV and flu season. But my mother-in-law came over last night and offered to watch Max and Maggie for one hour while Dean and I ran somewhere to feel like grown-ups. At first we thought we'd go to a nearby Chili's and get some appetizers, but they had a 45 minute wait. The clock was ticking down. Where could we go?

The grocery store. Yup. That's where I spent my birthday.

I know it sounds silly, but it was actually really fun. Just being out of the house, dressed up, and not soaked in baby spit up was quite a treat. And since it was my birthday, I let myself buy stuff that I wouldn't normally buy (some examples: chocolate milk, pumpkin spread, swedish fish, raspberry sticks, dried papaya, pumpkin seeds). Dean and I spent 45 minutes wandering the store and enjoying ourselves immensely. Our standards have certainly lowered.

Earlier this week, I spoke with the delightful Bruce Coville on the phone. His Full Cast Audio did the audio book of goose girl. enna burning is in post-production, princess academy will be out in a couple of weeks, and he let me know that they bought river secrets and book of a thousand days. So lovely that all the books will be audio books! So far, everyone who's read book of a thousand days has said that it's either their favorite of my books or one of their favorites. This is beyond thrilling for me. I simply cannot wait to share it with you all! Other things to look forward to: Bloomsbury will be having a contest with some cool prizes to coincide with the release of princess academy in paperback (I'll announce here as soon as I can), and I should have some fun news to share in the next few weeks. Ooh, I'm such a tease...

Ugh

Just in case any of you are considering getting the stomach flu at the same time as your newborn baby, I'd highly recommend reconsidering. Now before you protest that it sounds like a boatful of fun, think about the loss of sleep, trying to console a poor little baby screaming because her stomach hurts while your own feels pinched in a vice and the whole world is teetering. Imagine running to the bathroom every so often because unpleasantness wants to come out both ends at the same time. Think of being unable to keep down any liquids while at the same time nursing a hungry baby who is nursing even more than usual because she vomits up most of what she eats. And speaking of vomit, imagine being covered in layer after layer of baby vomit and being so weak as to be unable to change your clothes or bed sheets and half-dozing in a cesspool of sour milk...

So, how was your weekend?

All I can say, is thank the heavens for a husband who was at home and for a grandma who carried poor Max away from the vomitous bedlam.

I found the discussion after the last blog extraordinary. So many thoughts on this, I think it deserves continued discussion. Let me link again to my list of texts I'd assign if I taught high school English (by no means comprehensive). And again, I'm not saying that we should throw out the classics. Variety is the key, to my mind. While I love Edgar Allen Poe, certainly not everyone will, and while I abhor Steinbeck, many others adore him. When we present a variety of books in a curriculm (ideally with some of them written with teen-relatable characters and in the vernacular), more teens will find a book to fall in love with and not give up on the love of reading. I have met so many adults who gave up reading altogether after high school because their reading experience in their English classes was so negative. Some of these people rediscovered reading later in their lives by giving themselves permission to read what they loved. Good for you!

Seuss for the teenage mind

I was just reading an article about Dr. Seuss and the creation of "The Cat in the Hat". This paragraph stuck out to me: "In a 1954 article in Life magazine, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey claimed that Johnny couldn't read because the Dick and Jane primers omnipresent in American schools were boring. Hersey challenged Dr. Seuss (who had already published nine children's books) and other authors to write an alternative reading primer that first graders wouldn't be able to put down."

Immediately I thought, And what about high school students? Don't they have the right to read books that aren't boring? There's little comparison between the banal Dick and Jane books and the renowned classics that make up a high school English class curriculm. But still, I find a correlation. Dick and Jane were the unquestioned reading material of elementary schools for years until people started to say, hey, wait a minute, why can't we have other choices?

Literacy at the high school level is very much threatened. Wouldn't it also make a difference to have stories that capture the older reader's interest? Although "Death of a Salesman" and Moby Dick are American classics and tremendous literary accomplishments, I don't know any teens who read them for class and just couldn't put them down. Frankly, I don't know one in thirty teens who when assigned them actually finish them. It could be argued that when the likes of Hemingway and Steinbeck and Hawthorne were assigned to high school English classes, they were the undisputed best books out there. But now there are so many more choices. Again I cry, why not offer teens some variety? Why not put some living authors on the list as well? Some stories with main characters a teenager today can relate to? Some genres besides "classic"? Some kickbutt stories that keep you turning pages while still offering quality writing and endless discussion topics? Why can't teenagers today, like the first graders in 1954, be offered books in school that they won't be able to put down?

Am I beating a dead horse? Sorry, horsey.

Alive and kicking (or thrashing, at least)

Obviously I haven't had much in what one might consider "spare" time recently. For one thing, I could spend all my waking hours just staring at this little beauty of a baby girl. It was the same way with Max. I was lucky with him--I had 12 weeks of maternity leave from work, no other children, and I remember spending the entire stretch of time between two feedings (2-3 hours) just staring at him while he slept. I can't quite do that with Maggie, though she gets her fair share of Mama goggling time. I've been trying as much as possible to make this transition smooth for Max, make sure I shower him with attention so he doesn't feel replaced. So far, he's been amazing. He thinks of her as a pet, I think, and likes to pat her head. If she cries, he asks, "Baby okay? Baby okay?" And she's been included in our games. When he's Tigger and I'm Piglet, Maggie is Roo, and so forth.

I'm glad I gave myself permission to take some time off writing. The stress of unmet daily goals would bury me. Nights have been a real challenge. It's just typical newborn stuff, and those of you who have had babies will just nod your head sagely. She does seem awfully cunning, though, such as sleeping like a log while I'm getting Max his lunch, and then as soon as Max is down for quiet time and I have a chance to nap, she's alert and wiggly. I've even given up chocolate, in case the caffeine in it is making her more alert at night. I'm housebound for sometime (it's RSV and flu season, and I've been warned by the pediatrician to keep her away from people's sticky, germ infested hands for several weeks), so I spend my time nursing, trying to sleep, playing games with Max, staring at Maggie, and shuffling around in a half-dead stupor. Ah, the glamorous life of an author. In cool news, Maggie has received two homemade knit hats from other writers--Linda Sue Park and Jessica Day George. How cool is that? Do you have to knit baby hats to be a legitimate children's author? I'd better learn fast.

Maggie J, Girl Wonder

She's here! I need to go feed her, so just a quick run-by of the stats:

Magnolia Jane Hale

Born December 30, 2006, 2:27 am

7 lbs. 10 oz.

21.5 inches long

Labor: about 7 hours long, 10 minutes of pushing

She's gorgeous! Perfect! Divine! And I'm ravenous and only with great restraint have limited myself to half a box of chocolates. Then again, why limit? Honey, bring me another glass of milk, I'm diving in again!