when you reach me. rebecca stead. (190)

*sorry this picture is blurry.  i didn't realize how blurry it was until i return it.  but it makes it feel alittle otherwordly which is perfect for this novel, so it works.

i picked up when you reach me because it is a newbery medal winner.  i also enjoyed the cover art.  i had no idea what the book was about, but that made for a better read.  (so if you haven't read it, stop here, seriously everything will spoil this book for you!)

when you reach me is the story of a girl, miranda, and the letters about her life she had to write due to secret notes she has received.  the letters are from a stranger and are suppose to help save her friend.  a series of random things happen to her prior to the notes appearing. first, her best friend sal stopped talking to her.  this happened after an even stranger event, a boy just randomly walked up to sal, as he and miranda were walking home, and punched him in the stomach.  a crazy homeless man appeared on her street corner, talking to himself, and doing high kicks. the kids are kept in at lunchtime at school, because a naked man is seen running around down the street.  all of these things seemed really odd, but they all come together in the end.  (i have to admit i missed the foreshadowing of the naked man, i just assumed it was random little anecdote.)

in the end it is discovered that all of these weird events and the notes have to do with time travel!

before i go on, i have to share that what i loved most about this book was the inclusion of madeline l'engle 's a wrinkle in time.  a wrinkle in time is miranda's favorite book in the story.  she carried it around and is constantly rereading it.  it is due to this book that marcus and miranda first discuss time travel.  marcus pointed out that there was an error in the book.  if meg and charles wallace had returned 5 minutes before everything had occured wouldn't they have seen themselves land in the garden before they left?  this is true.  marcus was right.  and future marcus was right because he time-traveled back to safe sal!

i won't go into detail about what occurred but in short, future marcus saved sal.  and stead did an excellent job of tying everything together. as i mentioned before, i had no idea the naked man in the street was due to the time travelling.  i loved how everything came full circle, though i was sadden by future marcus' fate but he was an old man and ready for it.

when you reach me had additional storylines.  miranda's mom was picked to go on $20,000 pyramid and part of the novel was her preparation for the show.  since miranda and sal are no longer friends, she became friends with colin and annamarie.  the three of them get jobs at a sandwich shop.  and of course, like any adolescent story, there is always some kind of drama between friends, which occurs between miranda, annamaire and annamarie's ex-best friend, julia.  these additional stories not only added to the story but also distracted from the time travel plot as well.  well played, stead.

the thing that i found interesting, was the issue of race and class and the prejudices that a reader reads with.  i am not sure if this was stead's intent or if i am just super racist.  i mean the latter is true, so that is probably the case.  i was confronted with my racism when jimmy called julia swiss miss, in reference to the hot chocolate, though miranda meant it about her trips to switzerland.  up until then i had not realized that julia was black.  i had assumed since she was rich that she was white.  here is where class became an issue as well.  (class was addressed directly with miranda comparing her home and life to that of annamarie's who is wealthier).  i know how horrible of me, but i mean the girl talked about going to switzerland, isn't that where white people go on a vacay (okay, i am racist, sorry). i then realized i was being extremely racist as i read.  i believe miranda or her mom was described as white, though now i am second guessing everything.  since she was white, i assumed that sal was white.  i also assumed that the boys that caused trouble on the corner was black as was the crazy man on the corner.  also i assumed marcus was black too since he punched sal.  however, race was not mentioned for anyone else except julia, oh and richard (miranda's mom's boyfriend being german).  well explicitly anyway, i just read on a website that it was implied that jimmy was asian but that went over my head. i am embarrassed that i could be so horrible with stereotypes but i am.  again well played, stead for having the read confront the prejudices they have about race so directly though it was presented subtlety.  

overall, when you reach me was a great book and very worthy of it's newbery medal.  if you haven't read it you should.  it has also inspired me to reread a wrinkle in time, which is perfect because the graphic novel version has been sitting on my bookshelf since january.    

the cricket in times square. george selden.

the cricket in times square has been on my to-read list ever since i saw it a stack of books when subbing.  a cricket in new york, i was intrigued!  i found it at goodwill but it sat on my bookshelf until my most recent trip to new york.

as you can see in my photo, the cricket in times square inspired me to take photos of books at the setting of the story.  as you can see, i took a photo of the cricket in times square in times square.  you can see the other pics on my fb or on instagram @booksandlandmarks.

the plan was to have the cricket in times square as my #literarythrowback on the thursday of my trip and to also read it while in nyc.  unfortunately the later did not happen, but i decided to buckle down and read it my first weekend back from nyc.

what a delightful little book.  it is the story of a cricket, chester, that accidentally traveled to new york city by way of picnic basket.  mario, whose family owned a newspaper stand in the subway, found chester due to his chirping and decided to keep him as a pet, despite his mother's disapproval.  chester's new home is the newspaper stand the family runs.  living in the station, chester was befriended by a mouse, tucker, and a cat, harry.  chester was surprised to discover that they were friends since cats from the country normally eat mice. 

mario read that crickets are good luck, though at first, chester does not appear to be.  first while napping, chester dreamt that he was eating a leaf only to discover that he was eating money.  he ate two dollars, mario's mother was outraged and wanted to get rid of chester.  however, tucker helped chester out by giving him the money he had saved up.  tucker was wealthy because he picked up coins that people dropped in the station.  everything was going well, until chester, harry, and tucker had a party in the newspaper stand.  chester played music with his legs (it's the legs that crickets play right?  not their wings) and tucker danced around which unfortunately caused him to start the fire.  luckily, a train conductor put it out the fire before the stand burned down though some newspapers and magazines were destroyed.     

mama, upset by the fire, wanted mario to get rid of chester.  however, chester played a beautiful opera, which coincidentally was mama's favorite.  mama then forgave chester.  chester than began to practice and learn new songs from the radio.  one day, mario's family decided to show their friend/customer, mr. smedley, a musical teacher, chester's talent.  mr. smedley then wrote to the new york times about the talented cricket. and as they say in the biz, a star was born.  chester soon had a huge following, the subway station was packed during his performances.  his popularity also helped the family sell newspapers and magazines. everything was great at first but then like any celebrity, chester got over it quickly. chester then decided to run away back to connecticut, tired of his life of fame.  harry and tucker help him over to penn station to get home.  chester did not say farewell to mario but took his bell which let mario know he had left.  it was sad but mario also know that chester was tired of the fame.

this work was adorable and a very cute read.  though i must add it was a tad racist (not that it bothered me.) since crickets are revered in chinese culture, mario went to chinatown to find a cage for chester.  there he met sai fong, the owner of a store.  sai fong's dialogue, though accurate, was written in a chinese dialect, aka without r's being pronounced.  i mean i found it quite comical and fairly true, but i can imagine others being offend about it.  i didn't google anything but i can imagine.  though i will say that sai fong absolutely adored mario and chester, and i loved how he held a mini feast for the two of them, so it wasn't that offense.  though maybe their love of crickets was too stereotypical.  other than that, a delightful read. and if i had read it before my new york trip, i would have retraced chester, tucker, and harry's ride to penn station from times square.  lol

the butter battle book. dr. seuss. (189)

i picked up the butter battle book in honor of dr. seuss' birthday.  i know, i know, his birthday was back in march, but i am barely getting around to blogging about this book.  what can i say i lagged.  but an accidental book fee (i thought i renewed it online but i hadn't) was the push i needed to finish this blog.

so prior to rereading this as an adult, i remembered the cartoon based on this book versus me reading the actual book. i am not sure where i saw it or how old was, but i do remember that i was really impressed how it was a children's story but also had this deeper meaning (i was unaware of what a metaphor was at the time.)

rereading it as an adult, i recognized the butter battle book as a metaphor for the arms race during the  cold war.  one does not need to dig deep to see that but for a child, it would be something that went over his/her head.  children probably see the lesson of the book as war or fighting being silly, which is correct read as well, and ultimately the message dr. seuss wanted to get across.

the battle of the butter battle book is between the zooks that butter their bread down and the yooks that butter their bread up.  in terms of the cold war, it is a great example of how capitalism and communism are two views that appear to be different but at the heart of the matter simply are a means of economic prosperity.  though i like to see the zook and yooks' buttering as a metaphor for religious ideologies.  at the end of the day, we all believe in god, or eat our bread and butter, we just use different ways of serving him or it.   

there is a wall (see:  berlin wall, iron curtain) that separates the zooks and the yooks.  there is a border patrol that guards both sides of the wall in an attempt to keep the enemy out.  to protect their walls and ideology on bread buttering, both sides build bigger and better weapons, (see:  cold war arms race) though they always ended up creating the same weapons. in the end, they both create a bomb to annihilate the enemy.  the book ends with the guard of the zooks and the guard yooks facing off, allowing the reader to reach their own conclusion about how the battle will end.  i imagine as a child, i was certain that they would not drop their bombs and make peace.  and though the cold war ended up being resolved, the skeptical adult me believes that they will both throw their bombs and end the world out of selfishness.  (i should add i am ready for the apocalypse, not so much because i have lost faith in humanity but because it would be kind of cool to life through the end of the world.)

the butter battle book is an excellent book not only for children but adults as well due to its anti-war message.  it demonstrates how silly (for lack of a better word) war is and how in the end we only end up harming ourselves.  

  

birds of america. lorrie moore. (188)

after reading lorrie moore's self-help earlier this year, i decided to read the rest of her works.  i then saw that bj novak mentioned birds of america in an interview, so decided to start there for my next read.  and yes bj novak aka @picturesoftext totally liked my picture on instagram (he follows me!)

i must admit that birds of america did not wow me right off the bat like i had expected.  i was really wow-ed by self-help, and though the writing is great but spoke to me.  

i valued the mother-daughter dynamic of which is more than i can say about some people, i allowed me to step back and see my mother as a person versus an annoyance.  that sounds harsh but it is true, we are often overwhelmed by our parents that we forget that they are human too with fears and needs.  we, children are so selfish assuming that they are their simply to provide for us since that is the role they have had since birth, we never think of their life before their title as mother.  

i enjoyed the raccoon story of dance in america:

"we have raccoons sometimes in our chimney," explains simone . . . "and once we tried to smoke them out.  we lit a fire, knowing they were there, but we hoped that the smoke would cause them to scurry out the top and never come back.  instead, they caught on fire and came crashing down into our living room, all charred and in flames and running madly around until they dropped dead." simone swallows some wine. "love affairs are like that," she says.  "they are all like that."

so true about love affairs, sometimes people tell us they don't want us and yet we go crashing full head into heartache and rejection.  i am usually the raccoon, professing my love that someone doesn't want, but still tries to pursue them and ending up killing my heart.

i adored the introduction to community life because up until high school, i would mispronounce library.

"when olena was a little girl, she had called them lie-berries--a fibbing fruit, a story store--and now she had a job in one."  and how cute, a story store!  i also enjoyed the tom swifties (which i had never heard of prior to this story) that olena and her co-workers came up with:

"i have to go to the hardware store, he said wrenchingly."

"would you like a soda? he asked spritely."

"this hot dog's awful, she said frankly."

"she's a real dog, he said cattily."

"i like a good sled dog, she said huskily."

so clever!

real estate was an odd little story but i did love that one of the characters sang "you are my lucky star" from singin' in the rain which is my favorite songs from that musical!

great writing but nothing that truly wow'd me . . . until i read people like that are the only people here.  a tragic yet beautiful story of a mother and father dealing with their infant son's cancer.  throughout the story the father tells the mother that she should take notes since she is a writer.  due to this, i googled to see if this was based on moore's actual life (i know, i know, all novels and stories are semi-autobiographical) and it was based on her life.  after i learned this, i recognized that the beauty of this piece is due to its honesty.  the mother, father and baby are called just that which makes the story relatable and less specific to moore though it is a story straight from her life.  she captured the confusion, pain, stress, and emotions of having a loved one in the hospital.  i had flashbacks to when my grandma bea was in the heart hospital as i read.  it really makes you wonder why we suffer so much as humans, how god can put anyone through any of this.  not only the person that is ill but their family members as well.  it seemed insensitive when the surgeon's explained that the mother would suffer more than the baby during this time, but it is true.  i am not a mother but was able to empathizes with the mother in the story since moore did not shy away from all the thoughts that a mother in this situation, good and bad.  thankfully the baby comes out of this story well.  though i did feel as though moore sold her soul a bit with the ending, in which the story closes with "there are the notes.  now where is the money?"  which i mean if moore was being completely honest, let her sell this story for money for her son, i would contribute.  and though it is difficult for anyone to be completely honest, i am glad that moore shared this story.

all in all, an enjoyable collection and look forward to reading more from moore.   

how should a person be? sheila heti. (187)

i can't recall how i came across how should a person be? by sheila heti.  i thought it was via lena dunham's instagram but when i went to look for it, i did not see it there.  however, i know that i read this because of lena just not sure where i read her endorsement.  i did google "lena dunham how should a person be?" and articles about lena and sheila being friends came up, so i didn't make up this connection. (correction made 5.7.14:  ha!  just saw that i found out about this book because it was on flavorpill's 10 books that will fill

the girls-shaped hole in your life article for season 1.  so yeah this is now i discovered this novel.)

i will admit that i was also excited because of the miranda july blurb on the front.  i had high expectations for this book, especially with its description as "a novel from life".  life is one of my favorite nouns, i'm always "sorting out life", "figuring out life", "getting life" together, so "a novel from life" had to be interesting.

and interesting it was, amazing, not so much.  i am not familiar with heti or her life, but this book read just as though it was her life.  i mean from the viewpoint of the writer, it is quite daring, to just record your life via a tape player and then let the world read about the personal lives of you and your friends. as an expression of the self, i find it quite beautiful and artistic.  however, from the viewpoint of the reader, i can't help but feel cheated.  its quite narcissistic and lazy of heti to just use your life so blatantly.  i know, i know, author's use their lives as the basis for their works, which makes sense, however, this was too direct.  i like to be able to read between the lines instead of having it all put out in the open like this.  but again i have to say kudos to heti for her honesty.

the novel as the title suggest is about how should a person be? though specifically it's about how heti should be.  its hard to apply this work to yourself, unless you are a) a writer or another form of artist or b) hang out with a bunch of artists.  this is why miranda july's blurb is true for her, but random person on goodreads who bitched about july's blurb couldn't relate.  i am neither though i do appreciate art and go to museums and galleries, i never have to question who am i and what am i trying to project into the world via my art.  i mean as general question of life, yes i do ask myself (minus via my art), but in the specific way that heti was addressing these questions in her book, i became bored.  i am sure that i could have taken the discussion between margaux and heti about their expressions of their selves in their art and applied it to my life but that required too much thinking.  i mean i am sure the struggle is real for artist, but i felt like just create your art and who gives a damn about how it is perceived.  i am not an artist so this might just sound mean but i was tired of the bitching especially when heti did all she could to avoid writing her play.  then she created this novel based on margaux's encouragement and allowance to use her words in a work, which kind of felt like a cop-out.  really heti couldn't put a play together?

heti is a great writer, i just wasn't interested in her life so directly.  i mean there were some hilarious parts.  for example, "we live in an age of some really great blow-job artists.  every era has its arts form." i also enjoyed the eavesdropping of the girls as at the deli, "what is american cheese anyway? i heard of them say.  her friend replied, 'i think it means there is a chemical in it." and "he was in the tech industry, and she once told me that the had asperger's syndrome.  then she reassured me that silicon valley boys aren't so bad to sleep with because they've read all the manuals." i am now tempted to sleep with some silicon valley boys. and "we tried not to smile, for smiling only encourages men to bore you and waste your time." we have all been there when at bars.

and i must admit there was some beauty:

in their quest for a life without failure, suffering, or doubt, that is what they achieve:  a life empty of all those things that make a human life meaningful.

but for the most part, it was just about heti's insecurities.  to a certain extend it was just girls season 3.  heti and hannah are pretty much on in the same.  in girls, adam plays the part of margaux.  they are both writers struggling with their art from while in a relationship with an successful artist which results in issues in their relationship.  but whereas i could enjoyed this season of girls because there were other characters distract me from hannah's narcissism, there wasn't anyone interesting in heti's novel.  the friend suffering from depression after the ugly painting contest (really?), the hair salon (seriously she felt that deep of a calling there?!?!),  and the asshole she hooked up with (i know sex can be amazing but was his really worth the verbal abuse?!?!?!).  okay i can admit i was a bit intrigued by the asshole, not because of the sex, but because i was in disbelief of the way he talked to her.  i will also add the dinner party discussion about the men going to africa was great.  that is how i feel about bono being in africa and all of his projects.  it's like really bono you have millions and millions of dollars and you are asking me to donate money for a cause so you can feel better about yourself?

maybe i just wasn't in the right head space for this, though i am just as lost as heti is about how a person should be.  in the end though i feel like the she did watching the handball match.  here i though this novel was going to stand for something like the match, but in the end, just like they didn't know what they were playing, heti didn't really know what she was writing.   (that sounds so harsh but really, this book should have just been a blog, one more time, the honesty of it was beautiful, but in the end, i really wasn't that interested in her life.)

foxfire: confessions of a girl gang. joyce carol oates. (186)

i picked up foxfire after i discovered that joyce carol oates was giving a talk at the new york public library during my trip.  i decided to read it in preparation for her talk.  i chose this one out of her catalog because it was also listed on flavorpill's list of books to fill the girls void in your life.  they wrote:

This novel — the tale of a riotous 50′s girl gang in Upstate New York led by “Legs” Sadovsky – won’t exactly approximate the world of Girls, but if we know anything about Hannah, it probably reflects some corner of her secret fantasies (we know it reflects a few of ours). Not to mention the book’s portrayals of young female friendships and bonding — they may be outlaws, they may get in trouble, but these girls love each other.

as seen in the above description foxfire is about a girl gang set in the 50's and i have to admit that due to the time period i difficulty visualizing the setting for the book.  my mind kept on visualizing the time period as the 70's.  i think of the 50's as such a wholesome era even though it probably wasn't, certainly not in this book.  i then started to visualize the setting of girl, interrupted once legs went into red bank correctional facility for girls.  i then also started to see angelina jolie as lisa from girl, interrupted as legs.  you have to agree with me that jolie would have been perfect as her for if there was a movie adaption of foxfire. (omg!!!! i just googled and discovered on the foxfire wikipedia page that a movie was made in 1996 and guess who played legs?!?!?!? angelina jolie!!!!!!!  lol, i swear to god i had no idea that this movie existed when i read this book and made the above comment!)  (also i just looked and the trailer for the jolie film set place in the 90s, but there was another film that i just saw the trailer for that was made in 2012 that looks like a better adaption of the book.)

back to the novel, so living in a gang-infested community, resulted in my disapproval of foxfire.  i understand how gangs are created by individuals from broken homes in attempt to have a family.  gangs are where they find the love they lack, but the violence and crime that are a result of gangs is inexcusable.  

i was quite frightened of foxfire toward the end.  the petty crimes that foxfire started off with, painting that pervert teacher's car and protesting the animal store were invigorating to read about especially since they were girls with limited rights and voices, yet here they were standing up against injustice.  oates created such great imagery for their antics.  i imaged the girls in cat and dog masks ala breakfast at tiffany's protesting outside of the pet store.  i also enjoyed the scene at the train tracks with the painted car.  i have admit that based on these acts, teenage me would have wanted to join foxfire but everything beyond that was too extreme for me. 

i, like maddy, would have bailed.  the turning point for me was when they attacked maddy's uncle, yes he deserved it, but the wildness that occurred as they beat him was frightening.  up until then everything seemed like a fair punishment but their beating of him went too far.  i mean he did deserve it, trying to molest his niece, but i think the lost of self and mob mentality is what scared me. all the other crimes that followed pushed me into the adult category of the book, i started to view foxfire as hoodlums.

before i go on, i have to add that oates created some serious twist and turns in this book.  there were times that i was reading and was like omg!  i can't believe this is going on or what the f***!?!?!  the story was definitely entertaining and intriguing though i wasn't 100% on foxfire's side.

though i must admit that hoodlum an extreme term for legs.  she was definitely a diamond in the rough.  she was a good kid born into a poor situation, as demonstrated in father's story of her birth.  legs was truly unwanted, which given this background sheds light on her wanting to create the foxfire commune and care for her half-sister.  this side of legs makes it difficult to paint her as a harden criminal.  she was very generous as giving what money (regardless of where it came from) to others.  she was compassionate, not being racist towards blacks and befriending the ex-priest.  her heart was in the right place, but due to her lack of proper upbringing she went about things the wrong way.

for example, the hooking, though in a certain light a great means of exploiting men who exploit women, however, it was extremely dangerous.  the girls were lucky that majority of their hooking did not end up like maddie's.  as a female, it was great to see the girls turning the tables on the men that they hooked but being a watcher of "law and order: svu", i only thought of how those hooking attempts could have gone wrong.  even the idea of the foxfire homestead ,which can be seen as the girls finally creating the type of home they never had, is an example of legs' good intentions that were not execute according to plan.  (which is something we will see again and on a larger scale.) as a youth, its a great dream to live with your best friends, i mean college was a blast for me,  however, all i could think as i read that legs was going to turn into charles manson, which she kind of did.  my hippie tendencies causes me to think communes can be lovely places, however, logic tells me that it is one step away from helter skelter.

in the end, legs turned into a crazed cult leader, overwhelmed by a desire for money and to an extend power, she ended up making a stupid (for lack of a better adjective) plan.  in an attempt to get money, legs decided to kidnap and hold for ransom the rich father of her friend, a good christian girl that she met through a program at the correction facility.  they kidnap him and hold him for ransom but due to his faith in god (believe it or not) he does not succumb to fear and thus the girls do not get their money. in the end, a reckless error made by a young girl (in the end they are all just children) shot him, foiling their ransom plan.  due to this, legs becoming a fugitive, some believed she survived though she is claimed to be dead.

foxfire was a very entertaining read, but not necessarily my cup of tea.  maybe it's because i am just too much of a goodie too shoes because unlike flavorpill, i was more appalled than secretly wishing i could be apart of foxfire.  it was sad to see legs end up the way she did.  i did admire her free-spirit and grab life by the balls mentality, but in the end, she turned into a monster.  as a female, i was disappointed to see legs go out like that.  shouldn't we, girls, be allowed to be as reckless as the boys yet still have a place for us in society? though i must admit that legs ending had to be just as mysterious as she was, i mean, i can't imagine her in some 9 to 5 functioning like a proper societal women.  in my eyes, she was in that photo for cuba.  i mean that ending makes the most sense.  legs still inspiring hope for the girls of foxfire.

ps for those of you who are wondering, i did not see joyce carol oates when i was in nyc.  i decided to try to win lotto tickets for kinky boots instead, which i did win!

locomotive. brian floca. (185)

i picked up locomotive by brian floca because it was the caldecott medal winner for 2014.  i discovered this new via nypl's instagram:

i have to admit that i didn't read the book,  partially due to laziness, but i am going to go on record by saying because i wanted to base my judgment on the illustrations alone.  i only looked at the illustrations which in my opinion were great were not medal worthy.  i think the medal should have gone to journey by aaron becker.  the illustrations in locomotive but i found the fact that journey was a picture book sans words made it more worthy. 

from what i saw locomotive was filled with great facts about trains and i am sure would make a great gift for a young boy (i might get it for my uncle karl), but it was not my cup of tea.  the illustrations were nice and i included some of my favorite below:  

(i loved the shakiness of these photos.)

i mean maybe i should read it to give it a full evaluation, but i'm not.  it's already overdue, i own like $1 for it.
but i will say that i am disappointed with both the newbery medal and caldecott medal winners this year.