I requested UContent through Library Thing’s Early Reviewer program, so I can blame only myself if the book wasn’t intended for me. It turns out that “Information Professional” really means librarian and those of us who are book lovers, blog writers and information junkies don’t make the cut. There is a touch of condescension while the author defines his audience. To be fair, though, Tomaiuolo doesn’t exhibit any more professional self-importance than any other expert in any other field would exhibit—perhaps less, while making clear his audience is the professional librarian.

So was there anything here for me? You bet!

Tomaiuolo defines UContent as “the production of content by the general public [such as bloggers] rather than by paid professional and experts in the field”, and not generally considered a reliable source of information. But Tomaiuolo recognizes that there can be nuggets of information out there that can be used by “information professional.’

The material is presented in a logical manner. Each chapter considers a separate UContent source. Topics include blogs, Wikis (including the grand-daddy Wikipedia), podcasts, online product reviews, self-publishing, and citizen journalism. The author also considers information sources within Facebook, Yahoo!Pipes, Flickr and custom search engines. He explains tagging & folksonomies, as well as cybercartography.

Tomaiuolo discusses in some detail the source of information in each category of UContent. His research appears to be extremely thorough (there are copious endnotes in each chapter). He includes an interview in each chapter with a professional in a related field – a professor of journalism, a self-published author, and so on. He also includes well-established on-line sources that will provide updated information before another print edition of this book could be published.

Next, Tomaiuolo performs a surprisingly balanced assessment of each subject’s use, and its relevance for the information professional. He describes how libraries might contribute to the Content (for example, having blogs or being on Facebook) and also how librarians might find relevant information and use it in their own environment, both for their own use and use by the public.

Each chapter of UContent is a veritable goldmine of information. I enjoyed reading it through like narrative non-fiction, although it isn’t that. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about using the Internet and finding information thereon, but Tomaiuolo taught me lots I didn’t know (what is/are folksonomies anyway, and why should I care?)

This book should become the bible of UContent reference for libraries. It is also a first-rate handbook for students doing research using the web. You’ll want to buy it and refer to it frequently. It’s well worth the investment!

For the rest of us non-professionals, it’s a valuable overview of web content for any blogger or generator of other UContent, plus it’s interesting to read, and it’s full of useful data. For us, I rate it a solid 4 stars.

(Thank you Library Thing Early Reviewers)

For Canadian readers:
UContent: The Information Professional’s Guide to User-Generated Content

Falling Into Green is billed as an “eco-mystery” and features Esmerelda (aka Emerald) Green, an ecopsychologist who uses horse-back riding, among other techniques, as patient therapy. Esmerelda quotes a report that says: “Ecopsychology acknowledges the environment as an important part of the human psyche.” Indeed, there are environmental concerns woven throughout both the mystery and the lifestyle of the protagonist.

I had a hard time liking Esmerelda (‘Ez’) Green. She comes across as a self-righteous fanatic about environmental issues. Her reasoning seems faulty to me.

Wondering why materialism has come to mean the same thing as beauty. I realized that if the idea of beauty is also connected to health, and subsequently cancer, we may all be jumping off a cliff. Really. How can we expect to survive if our health is connected to a beauty that seeks to find itself in the money derived from polluting ourselves?

Huh? How did we get from materialism to cancer?

Don’t get me wrong – I ‘m concerned about the planet too. I recycle, compost, hang my clothes to dry six months of the year, heat with wood instead of fossil fuels, and buy natural fabrics when I can. I drive a small car albeit not an electric one, I support wind power projects, buy locally when I can, and reuse rather than buy new if possible. But Ez rubs me the wrong way. She doesn’t seem to realize that there’s always more that all of us can do – her included, and that there are no easy answers to the issues facing the environment. Ez’s old couch with the ‘organic stitching’ just doesn’t impress me.

Note: Falling into Green is written in the first person simple present tense. This is no doubt a matter of personal taste, but I found this irritating, especially when it deteriorated into what seemed like stream-of-consciousness. This was especially the case when Ez goes into a trance (“fusing” with her horse, or hearing her dead mother talking through the jacaranda tree in her backyard).

The mystery hidden in all this judgemental posturing is actually decent. Ez is drawn into the current death of a young woman at the same cliff where her childhood friend killed herself 15 years earlier. She finds the two deaths to be related, and in doing so uncovers an environmentally sinister past & present of a local manufacturer. I think a couple of the main characters (the villains) seem over-drawn but I suppose that’s the price to pay for a plot of global proportions.

According to the author bio “Fischer has long been involved in environmental issues and is passionate about the green movement in the United States.” I would have been surprised to hear otherwise: she has an axe to grind and is trying to hit us over the head with that axe through her fiction.

3 stars for the solid mystery. I won this ebook format from Library Thing Early Reviewers.

Warmer weather has finally come to Nova Scotia and, although it may not stay, I know it will soon be time to be getting out in the garden. With that in mind, I’ve been reading a lot of gardening-related “short stories”. Okay – they’re really essays, but I’m stretching this to give you some variety in Dead Book Darling’s Short Story Challenge.

Introducing the piece The $64 Tomato, The Gardener’s Bedside Reader says:
“Vegetables harvested from the garden have a freshness and fullness of flavor well above and beyond anything one can buy in a supermarket. But how does a homegrown tomato, for example, compare in price to one purchased at the local Piggly Wiggly? In this excerpt from the book The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden (…) William Alexander does the math, with surprising results.”

The results aren’t actually that surprising, given the title of both the essay and the book, but you get the picture. This was an entertaining excerpt of what promises to be an entertaining and down-to-“earth” book. (Sorry – the fresh air’s gone to my head.)

Subtitled Tuck into a slice of Andalucían Life, Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools is a personal memoir written by (former) UK resident Victoria Twead.

Tired of the dreary British climate as she and her husband Joe neared retirement, they decided to sell in Britain and move to sunny Spain. The book begins with (Victoria’s) discontent with England, the process of their decision to make the move, and their search for the ideal piece of Spanish real estate (“The House”). Finding a reliable real estate agent was aided greatly by their serendipitous meeting with another ex-pat who had lived in Spain for some time.

The Tweads found a run-down terrace house with rudimentary bathroom facilities and less-than-that kitchen amenities, in a small village tucked into the mountains. They set about making (extensive) renovations and moving their worldly possessions. They made friends with their neighbours and became acquainted with the villagers and village life, all the while receiving what seems a steady stream of visitors from England.

With a fresh perspective and laugh-out-loud humour, Victoria shares all of this with us. I tremendously enjoyed reading Chickens & Mules because

• Victoria’s voice is down-to-earth. She finds the humour in village life and is not afraid to laugh at herself too. There are also no judgements as to superiorities of one culture over another. I believe this is a key reason the Tweads were successful and happy in their move.

• It was well-written and edited. There are no bumpy repetitions, badly constructed sentences, or annoying typos.

• There are photos! On my Kindle, they are in black and white. On a Kindle Fire, Nook Color, iPad, or other reading device with color graphics, you’ll see them in their full glory. BUT. Only a few of the books on my Kindle have a desk-top component – I’m not familiar enough with the technology to know why or why not—and Chickens and Mules is one that does. THAT desk-top copy of the book has colour photos. The paperback version of the book also has b&w pictures, but you can also view them (and MANY others) in colour on Victoria’s website.

• Victoria includes three dozen yummy-sounding recipes for everything from Spanish Spinach to English Sticky Toffee pudding, with the emphasis on Mediterranean dishes.

I recommend Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools: Tuck into a slice of Andalucían Life to anyone who’s ever dreamed of moving someplace sunny (and who hasn’t it?!), anyone contemplating moving to another country and culture, and to arm-chair travellers, no matter how house-bound; in fact, to anyone who’d like to share a few laughs and a few dreams with a charming couple.

P.S. Victoria is kindly offering a free download of Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools to anyone who’d like to read it. You can get the coupon code and/or subscribe to a free Village Updates newsletter here.

P.P.S. After spending this time getting to know Victoria and Joe, and having viewed the photo of their renovated guestroom, I’d visit too!

For Canadian readers:
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools: Tuck Into a Slice of Andaluc an Life

Kindle version:
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools

The Secret River by Kate Grenville is the highly touted first book in the Thornhill trilogy which centres on the settlement of the colony of New South Wales in Australia. While I enjoyed this book and recommend it, it didn’t knock my socks off.

Perhaps that’s because I read the back story about Grenville’s research, in the non-fiction Searching for the Secret River, before I read the novel.

It was a quandary: I signed up for Amanda’s Truth in Fiction Reading Challenge which requires me to  read  book pairs that are comprised of one fiction book and one related non-fiction book. Whispering Gums suggested that I try these two books and I immediately reserved them at the library. Unusually, they arrived the same day, so I had to make a decision: which would I read first? The non-fiction was an inter-library loan with no renewal allowed & $1 fine for overdues, so it won the toss.

When Grenville first considered the idea of searching her family history, she thought she would write a non-fiction book about her ancestors. However, she found complications in this concept. As she says “When you were a white Australian, investigating your own family history could lead you into some murky territory.”

Grenville is referring here mainly to the treatment of the Aboriginal people – a tragedy repeated as well in North & South America as white Europeans moved to those places to live, displacing the native peoples who occupied the land before them.  Grenville determined that she “might not be able to enter the Darug consciousness, but (she) could make it clear that there was one.”

This approach to the story required that she be able to imagine her great-great-great-grandfather’s attitudes and reactions, of which there was little record. It became apparent to her that a piece of fiction would allow her greater scope in telling the story and taking into account the windows into the cultures of both sides that she hoped to deliver.

Before I started Searching for the Secret River, I was afraid that I might be bored with dry facts and history. Indeed, not. Grenville’s writing is simple and lovely to read, both in fiction and in non-fiction. I particularly enjoyed the genealogy aspect of her search as I also have, in the past, traced my family tree. Her descriptions of the thrill of standing on the very dock on which her ancestor worked, or in finding the court records which contained his “voice, speaking directly across nearly two centuries! The actual phrase he used!” brought back similar elations in my genealogical investigations.

Knowing the “facts” then, I began the fictional account, The Secret River.  The story is told from the point of view of William Thornhill, born into poverty, and an apprentice riverman in late 18th century London. Grenville tells us of the temptations of his work:
“He loved the docks for their excess. So many casks of brandy, sacks of coffee, boxes of tea, hogsheads of sugar, bales of hemp.
With such a quantity, how could a little be missed?”

Thus, Thornhill is drawn into thievery which leads to a sentence of death – or exile in Australia. He & his wife Sal and their young son make the long journey down under. Once there, they face the challenge of building a new life in a strange climate and unknown country, inhabited by mysterious black people whose culture is unlike anything they have experienced.

The author has done an excellent job of providing insight into the lifestyle of the aboriginal people and the culture clash that occurred between them and the new settlers. She also helped me to understand how the British culture that the Thornhills and their countrymen tried to establish permutated into a new set of values – one that by necessity took into account the very land which they tried to subdue.

But, having read the back story, I knew how the novel ended and that compromised the suspense that other readers might feel in the plot. Having said that, I still maintain that it was a very good reading experience.

If you haven’t read either of these books and both interest you, you’ll probably enjoy the fiction account more if you read it first. There’s always the possibility that you’ll then be bored by the build-up to its writing in Searching. But if you enjoy history, genealogy, or just observing the birth of a really good story, you’ll still want to read the non-fiction as well. Four stars to both.

The Secret River qualifies for the Truth in Fiction Reading Challenge, as well as for the What’s in a Name Reading Challenge, the Global Reading Challenge as my Australian entry, and the Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge.

Searching for the Secret River qualifies for the Non-Fiction Non-Memoir Challenge, the Seconds Reading Challenge, the I Want More Challenge, and the Dewey Decimal Reading Challenge.

For Canadian readers:
The Secret River
Searching For The Secret River

According to Wikipedia, Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter. He is perhaps most popularly known today as the author of children’s stories such as James and the Giant Peach and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.

He was a prolific short story writer, and his story The Landlady won the 1959 Edgar Award for Best Short (Mystery) Story. The Edgar is given by the Mystery Writers of America to honor excellence within the mystery-writing field. In 1980, the MWA sponsored an anthology of two dozen short stories that had won that coveted award between 1947 and 1978. My soft-cover copy of The Edgar Winners, edited by Bill Pronzini is literally falling to pieces from having been read so often over the years.

Just ten pages long , The Landlady is classic Dahl. Young Billy Weaver, newly-appointed apprentice salesman, is sent out from London to Bath on the “slow afternoon train”, and told to find his own lodgings. A Bed & Breakfast sign beckons to him from a brightly-lit window that Billy peeks into. He sees a brightly-colored parrot in a cage, a “pretty little dachshund (…) curled up asleep” in front of the fire burning in the hearth, and a room filled with pleasant furniture.

The landlady immediately answers the door, has Billy sign the guest register and offers him tea. All very cozy.

Of course, because it’s an Edgar winner and because it’s Dahl, you just know things aren’t quite what they appear. But despite the reader’s awareness of that (or perhaps because of it), Dahl manages to create suspense and a chill of horror from the moment Billy enters the house.

Breezy & cheery, dark & macabre. Masterfully suspenseful. Brilliant.

Have you read any of Roald Dahl’s short stories?

#2 for Dead Book Darling‘s Short Story Challenge

Last week marked the 160th anniversary of the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in novel form. This seems like an appropriate time to give you my thoughts on the book (which I read in January.) And will you think me an utter barbarian to mark this anniversary by saying that I didn’t think Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a great book?

Nearly everyone is familiar with most, if not all, of the plot and the characters of this classic. The main character Tom, a slave, is sold by his current owner, Kentucky famer Arthur Shelby, to pay debts. He is bought by Augustine St. Clair of New Orleans, a benevolent man who recognizes the evil in slavery but is not willing to relinquish the wealth it brings him.

Tom befriends St. Claire’s almost-too-good-to-be-true young daughter Eva, who dies, causing her father to determine to free his slaves. Before he follows through on this, he’s killed in a bar altercation. Mrs. St. Clair reneges on her late husband’s promise and sells the household slaves to a trader. Tom ends up with Simon Legree. Legree is a tyrant who eventually has Tom whipped to death because he stood up to Legree and refused to stop practicing the Christianity he was taught at the Shelbys’.

There is also a subplot involving Eliza, a fellow slave of Tom’s. who overhears the plan to sell Tom & her son Harry and makes an escape to Canada.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a puritanical Christian and an active abolitionist, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin reflects her values. The main theme of the book is an anti-slavery message. Stowe felt that “the most dreadful part of slavery (…) is the outrages of feelings and affections—separating of families, for example”, and she portrayed slavery as evil and immoral and as fundamentally incompatible with Christian theology.

That theology provides the secondary theme for the novel. It is this ancillary subject that gives Uncle Tom’s Cabin a “preachy” feel. At times, Stowe changes the voice of the story to be able to insert sermons on the saving nature of Christianity, and the evils of slavery. I’m not opposed to either message but the preaching irritated me at times. Especially did her Christians Tom and Eva have their heads in the clouds—and both received ‘visions’ before they died. That aspect was overly melodramatic for my taste.

Therein lies the biggest problem. This book is written in the style of a nineteenth-century sentimental novel. These types of books are characterized by wordiness (extreme at times) and outrages of feeling, both traits ever present in Stowe’s masterpiece. In fact, some critics have gone so far as to say that, if it had not been for the anti-slavery theme, Uncle Tom’s Cabin would have been just another sentimental women’s-lit novel of its day.

A second problem with this novel is, of course, the stereotypes it helped to popularize – the loving, all-knowing mammy or the pickaninny image of black children, set by Topsy. Stowe makes such sweeping generalizations as “cooking (is) an indigenous talent of the African race”, “the negro is naturally more impressible to religious sentiment than the white”, and “they are a race that children will cling to and assimilate with”. Uncle Tom himself had been criticized for his long-suffering devotion to his white master, and accused of “selling out” to whites. To be fair, and in fact, it’s a different master-slave relationship that drives Tom to suffer stoically as he does—that of his master Jesus Christ.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the top selling novel in the US in the entire nineteenth century. It was second only to the Bible in total sales. A book read by hundreds of thousands, and that spawned plays seen by millions most certainly affected the overall thought of society, for good or for bad.

Whether Lincoln did or did not actually say to the author “so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war”, it’s clear Stowe’s novel strongly influenced American society. It deserves to be read for that reason, if for no other.

This satisfies a whole passel of reading challenges including What’s In a Name, Classics with a Twist, Southern Literature, eBooks Reading Challenge, New Authors and Mammoth Book, as well as some alphabetical type challenges.

Kindle edition:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin FREE

Emmanuelle’s challenge over at Words and Peace requires me to pick up and read books that were published in the first years of my life.

I originally thought I would complete this challenge by reading adult books, but the challenge logo puts me in mind of snuggling up with a book as a child – and so I’m reading some of the books I might have read then.

My birth year, 1954, saw the publication of Horton Hears A Who!, by Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss. This is Seuss’ 11th book and the second (and last) in the series featuring the lovable elephant.

In the book, Horton’s huge ears, which have hearing superior to all of the other animals, hear a small voice emanating from a dust speck that floats by. The speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called Who-ville, inhabited by microscopic-sized inhabitants known as Whos. He rescues the dust by placing it on a clover, but the news that Horton is hearing voices spreads throughout the jungle. In order to save themselves, the Whos must make themselves heard to the other animals, and that requires the efforts of every Who in Whoville.

Dr. Seuss’ books are beloved for their lively rhymes, wacky vocabulary, and beyond-imaginative drawings.

And while kids are enjoying all that, they’re learning life lessons. In Horton hears a Who, these include:
• the importance of not giving up, no matter how tired you might be;
• the value of each person’s contribution, no matter how small, to the overall effort of the group (although this bordered on promoting nationalism); and, of course,
• a strong anti-prejudice message, that could be applied to size, color, (dis)ability, or any other factor which could set anyone apart as “different”.

Geisel’s birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association. Although I’m not a big celebrator of birthdays, I thought it an appropriate day to feature a book that I knew and loved as a child.

This past week, I mailed an animated video of Horton Hears a Who! to my grandson Steven. I hope that after he’s watched it, he’ll be open to hearing the story read to him over the phone.

In addition to the Books Published in the First Years of My Life challenge, this also qualifies for the Illustrated Year’s Picture Book Challenge, and several TBR & off-the-shelf challenges.

Afterthought: Wikipedia says:
Geisel’s pen name is regularly pronounced /ˈsjuːs/ SEWSS, an anglicized pronunciation inconsistent with his German surname.

He himself noted that it rhymed with “voice” (his own pronunciation being /ˈsɔɪs/ SOYSS) and Alexander Liang (his collaborator on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern) wrote of him:
You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice[37] (or Zoice)

Geisel eventually switched to the anglicized pronunciation because it “evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children’s books to be associated with—Mother Goose” and because most people used this pronunciation.

So what’s YOUR favorite Dr. Seuss book?

For Canadian readers:
Horton Hears A Who!

Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? by Susan A. Shea is simply the most delightful picture book I’ve read so far this year.

In snappy rhyme, the book compares objects that grow with those that “rust, fade or break.”

If an owlet grows to be an owl, will a washcloth grow to be a towel?

Each double spread asks a similar question and the right side page opens in some way to reveal that the “non-growable” object did indeed grow. Even young children will recognize the silliness and be amused.

There were several new words for Steven: (fox) kit, (goat) kid, calf, and so on. The rhyming was catchy and moved quickly, the book was interactive on each page as Steven answered each question, growing more emphatic with each passing “NO!”

But the pictures are what clinch my five star praise for this book. Some were downright ingenious.

Highest recommendation for reading to children 2 – 5.

For Canadian readers:
Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow?

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert was originally published in 1989 and has been re-released in a twentieth anniversary edition.

It’s a great abcs teaching tool for young children: small letters climb the coconut tree in alphabetical order until the tree collapses. Parents (capital letters) come to collect them and sort out their injuries (again, listed alphabetically (stubbed-toe E, black-eyed P).

The rhyme is extremely catchy and has had me pounding out a beat around the house for weeks:
Chicka chicka boom boom
Will there be enough room?
Up, at the top
Of the coconut tree?

The illustrations are simple, bold and colorful.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is hard to resist! Four & one-half stars.

For Canadian readers:
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

The children’s classic, Madeline, written and illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans, was first published in 1939. The story of the “twelve little girls in two straight lines” proved to be a success, and Bemelmans wrote many sequels to the original during the 1940s and 1950s. The series continues to this day, written by Bemelmans’ grandson.

Steven and I read the very first Madeline in which we’re introduced the feisty little girl in the Paris “sleep-over” school in the “old house in Paris that was covered with vines.” We both found this book charming: Steven because of the poetry and I for the delightful depictions of 1930s Paris.

Steven learned some new phrases (‘broke their bread’, ‘rain or shine’) as well as about appendicitis, and seemed to really enjoy the story. The illustrations, of course, are mostly the black & white & yellow of the first publication. When more color was/is used, it makes a marvelous impact (Paris in rain and sunshine or at night during the ambulance ride).

This enchanting book rates a solid four and one-half stars.

For Canadian readers:
Madeline

“First published in 1992, There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen won the Mr. Christie Award for Best Canadian Children’s book. With hilarious new illustrations by Sydney Smith and Sheree Fitch’s zany rhymes, this edition will introduce the bestselling book to a whole new generation.”

I was delighted with this book, but Steven, at three, not so much. He liked the rhymes which are catchy and change meter often. But some of the terms went too far over his head.

Monkeys of every kind in every room: gorillas in a grand ballet – pirouette, arabesque, plié, sauté, monkeys square dancing — promenade, lemonade, do-si-do, orangutans tangoing and so on. There lots of subtle and not-so-subtle humour that’s meant, I’m sure for 4 – 9 year-olds.

Both the rhyme and the illustrations clearly convey the mayhem in Willa Wellowby’s house and there’s such detail in the pictures that an older (than three) child could pore over these for hours. There’s a lot of story packed into this slim volume.

Despite Steven’s reserved reaction (I really think he’s just too young to appreciate this), I’m giving There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen four and one-half stars.

If you’d like to hear a little more of the rhyme in this book, check out my February poetry post.

For Canadian readers:
There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen

I’m always a bit impressed with children’s books that are written and illustrated by the same person. Frans Vischer works as an animator at Disney and Fuddles, intended for children ages four to seven, is his first picture book. He has modeled Fuddles after his own pet.

Fuddles is a spoiled house cat who dreams of being a great adventurer and so sneaks out of the house one Sunday afternoon. He soon finds that the great outdoors isn’t at all as he imagined it would be and as darkness settles, he finds himself lost and scared.

Vischer’s illustrations have an almost water-color quality about them. During Fuddles’ time indoors, the cat—he is a BIG cat—dominates the pictures. Outdoors, the spaces are bigger and, by nightfall, we know Fuddles is good and lost.

This story is a valuable moral lesson for young children in the importance of ‘listening to mom’ and being happy where you are. Four stars.

For Canadian readers:
Fuddles

One Winter Night by Jennifer Lloyd and illustrated by Lynn Ray seemed like a highly appropriate book to read during our long Canadian winter.

The story centers on ten little mice who go skating “under moonlight”, and one by one scurry off into their warm nest as they meet larger animals. As the group of mice decreased in number, Steven delighted in the backwards counting from 10 to 1. At the end of the book, we revisit all of the mice sleeping safely in the nest and can count again from 1 to 10.

Steven also enjoyed seeing the various “predatory” animals such as a squirrel and a skunk skate along with the mice. It was also pleasing to me to see the mole and the fox joining in typically Canadian winter games of ice hockey and curling.

While it doesn’t paint a realistic picture as to the laws of nature, this is a fast, rhyming read and suitable for cozying up together in the warm indoors. Three and one-half stars plus an extra half for Canadian content for a total of four stars.

For Canadian readers:
One Winter Night

Curious George, first published in English in 1941, was written by Margret Rey and illustrated by her husband Hans (H.A.) Rey. They wrote an additional six Curious George titles published between 1947 and 1966. These are often called the ‘original adventures’, and have been reissued in a 70th anniversary edition.

A second (1984-1993) and third series (1998-present) followed, as well as numerous animated television films, feature length movies and the current PBS TV series.

What can one say about a classic that spawned an entire industry and yet left me feeling somewhat uncomfortable?

When the story was written, it had been little more than half a century since Henry Stanley found David Livingstone in ‘deepest, darkest’ Africa. Much of the continent was still colonized – chiefly by the British, but also by the French, Germans and Portuguese. Movies were still made in which white men were addressed as “bwana” or ‘big boss’.

So the explorer figure of the man in the yellow hat who captures George and takes him aboard ship against his will was a cultural fit. But it made me uneasy.

After George’s adventures in the city, he’s captured again and put into the zoo. “What a nice place for George to live!” I certainly have enjoyed visiting zoos – and still do, and I recognize the role that the world’s zoos have played in protecting some endangered species. Yet, I couldn’t help but think that George had a perfectly ‘nice place to live’ before the man in the yellow hat came along.

Granted, this is the first story, and subsequent adventures (especially those being written today) won’t include the capture, but just the antics of a curious monkey, with whom curious children can no doubt identify. And perhaps it’s not fair to judge yesterday’s stories with today’s sensibilities. Nonetheless, for this first story, beloved classic or not, I’m awarding only three and one-half stars.

For Canadian readers:
Curious George

I intended to post one short story each month this year to keep up with the Short Story Challenge hosted by Dead Book Darling. This then, is January’s entry, just a shade late.

Stephen Leacock was an English-born Canadian who early in his career as a school teacher, turned to writing fiction, humour, and short reports to supplement his regular income. His stories first published in magazines in Canada and the U.S., became extremely popular around the world. The Canadian Encyclopedia asserts that it was said in 1911 that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada.

His short story A Lesson on the Links: The Application of Mathematics to Golf is included in the book My Financial Career and Other Follies which I will be reviewing in the next couple of weeks. In it, Leacock pokes his usual gentle fun at the duffers of the day (this was first published in 1928).

An excerpt:
Here is a very interesting calculation in regard to “allowing for the wind.”
I have noticed that a great many golf players of my own particular class are always preoccupied with the question of “allowing for the wind.” My friend, Amphibius Jones, for example, just before driving always murmurs something, as if in prayer, about “allowing for the wind.” After driving he says with a sigh, “I didn’t allow for the wind.” In fact, all through my class there is a general feeling that our game is practically ruined by the wind(…)

It occurred to me that it might be interesting to reduce to a formulae the effect exercised by the resistance of the wind on a moving golf ball. For example, in our game last Wednesday, Jones in his drive struck the ball with what he assures me was his full force, hitting it with absolute accuracy, as he himself admits, fair in the center, and he himself feeling, on his own assertion, absolutely fit, his eye being (a very necessary thing with Jones), absolutely “in,” and he also having on his proper sweater, — a further condition of first-class play. Under all the favorable circumstances the ball only advanced fifty yards! It was evident at once that it was a simple matter of the wind, which was of that treacherous character which blows over the links unnoticed, had impinged full upon the ball, pressed it backward and forced it to the earth.

Leacock then applies various mathematical formulae, factual or specious is beyond me, although they sound convincing and concludes:
(T)aking Jones’s statements at their face value the ball would have traveled, had it not been for the wind, no less than 6½ miles.

If this makes you chuckle, be sure to check out the whole story, and more of Leacock.

If you’re Canadian, what’s been your exposure to Stephen Leacock? If you’re not Canadian, is your reaction “Stephen who?”

For Canadian readers:
My Financial Career and Other Follies

In the sweet Arkansas summer of 1956, preacher Samuel Lake brings his family to his wife Willadee’s ancestral home for an annual get-together.

Samuel is a man of principle, and that principle has cost him his job. Samuel was not to be swayed. He had a way of looking at the world that worked for him, and he was convinced that it would work for all mankind. At his church’s annual conference, he is assigned no new parish.

Add to his sudden umemployment, the untimely death of Willadee’s father, and eleven-year-old Swan’s (yes, that’s right: Swan Lake) friendship with a traumatized eight-year-old neighbor boy and you have the foundation of this story.

There are several sub-plots: Willadee’s sister-in-law’s pursuit of Samuel; the emotional emergence of Willadee’s eldest brother, Toy; the horror brewing in the neighbors’ house; and the childhood games of Swan & her brothers.
“Mama”, (Willadee) said, “It doesn’t matter what Bernice does. It’s what Samuel does that counts. And he’s too good a man to let go of his principles.”

These story lines all weave together, and then into the main plot, seamlessly.

But the over-arching theme of The Homecoming of Samuel Lake is the battle between good and evil. This appears in the main plot as well as the sub-plots. In the end, good does prevail but not before tragedy strikes, as is often the case in real life.

Jenny Wingfield has told a beautiful story about one man’s faith in humankind. She intersperses her story with common sense wisdom such as:

“We always ask for what we get, boy. One way or another, we ask for it. And one way or another, we get it.”

“There’s a lot in my life that’s not the way I’d like, but every bit of it is just what I’ve signed up for. You decide what you want, you get what goes with it.”

She has provided an immensely readable novel that will restore your faith in the concept of a “good man”. Swan Lake and her daddy will capture your heart.

Recommended for lovers of women’s fiction, and those who believe in the fundamental good in people.

This books is the first I’ve read for The Southern Literature Reading Challenge. I’m also counting it as the North American selection for The Global Reading Challenge as I don’t recall ever reading anything before that was set in Arkansas. It was also a book win that arrived prior to December 31st, so it qualifies for the Books Won Challenge while at the same time keeping me within the rules for the TBR Double Dare.

For Canadian readers:
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
Swan Lake

This year, I’m reading one play each month to participate in the Read Shakespeare Challenge hosted by Risa at Breadcrumb Reads. The plays were chosen by poll and then assigned to months by Risa. Thus, in January I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play I likely would not have chosen to read otherwise.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays, probably written around 1594. Because it is bookended by the wedding of the nobles Theseus and Hippolyta, some scholars have suggested that it may have been written as entertainment for a great wedding, just as Quince’s play was written for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. The wedding most favored in this hypothesis is that of William Stanley, Earl of Derby, whose father and brother had been patrons of Shakespeare’s company. Those nuptials in January, 1595 point to the 1594 composition date.

Most of you already know the basic plot of this play, wherein four young people in various states of requited and unrequited love repair to a wood near Athens one midsummer’s evening. There, complications arise with the fairies, a love potion, mistaken identities – in fact, quite a farce. In the end, of course, all is sorted out, everyone loves the right person and the nobles’ wedding becomes triple nuptials, at which Quince’s tradesmen perform an unwitting parody of a play.

I’m not fond of the fairies/supernatural aspect of the plot; I have limited patience for a farce; and I am uncomfortable with a marriage in which one of the partners is only there because he has been bewitched. Certainly, Shakespeare did a large disservice to women in his portrayal of the groveling Helena.

That said, I admire how Shakespeare wove these stories together and presented Quince’s play within a play.

I was amused at the cat-fight between Helena and Hermia:
How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak!
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

I laughed out loud at Lysander remark at Quince’s Prologue:
He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true.

I loved some of the poetry. It was truly beautiful.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

And I appreciated that Shakespeare could write bad poetry deliberately to make a point (as in Quince’s play).
What dreadful dole is here?
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck, O dear!

These are rather brief thoughts on the play but as a bonus I’ll comment on the 1999 movie with Kevin Kline, Rupert Everett, and Michelle Pfeiffer, that I watched to continue my research. Here’s my advice on that: give it a pass. Although I enjoyed watching Stanley Tucci as Puck (proving that I can enjoy watching Stanley Tucci in just about anything), the movie left me cold. It was set at the “turn of the nineteenth century” (which I understood to be 1799-1800), but which is evidently the 1890s. The director couldn’t seem to decide if he was dealing with fairies or with satyrs, complete with orgies and naked (albeit in chest-deep water) nymphs; the classy cat-fight degenerated into a mud wrestling match; and somehow all four human lovers shed every stitch of clothing before awakening the next morning and being told by Theseus (act IV, scene i) to stand up (giving that statement a completely different shade of meaning from the original play.) Note: There are other versions of the movie you could try. It’s popular fodder for Hollywood and was also produced in 1996, 1968 and 1935.

All told, I’m glad I’m finished with A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

What about you? Did you love it?

For Canadian readers:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Kindle edition:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (with notes and detailed explanations for students)

How do I begin to convey the horror that was the Halifax Explosion of 1917?

The largest man-made explosion up to the atomic bomb. Two thousand dead, more than six thousand wounded & blinded, and a fifth of the city left homeless.

How did I grow up in central Canada without having been taught about this? Why is this tragedy—worse in many respects than the sinking of the Titanic five years earlier—virtually unknown and unremembered outside Atlantic Canada?

Let me start getting you acquainted: In December 1917, World War I had been raging for three years and Halifax, Nova Scotia was well established as the major port city on the North American side of the Atlantic. From Halifax, left troops and supplies that were delivered all over Europe. It has a deep & generous harbour, and the added bonus of Bedford Basin, just north of the Harbour, fully protected by land. The Harbour and the Basin are connected by a slender strait known as The Narrows. At its narrowest, the passage is less than 500 yards across.

The French ship Mont-Blanc was loaded in New York City in early December with nearly 3,000 tons of explosives headed for the war in Europe: picric acid, TNT, and gun cotton, as well as barrels of benzene stacked three deep on the decks.

“The weight of the cargo, plus the weight of more than a million pounds of coal needed to power Mont-Blanc’s steam engine, slowed the ship’s speed so much that she would be unable to keep up with a convoy of ships crossing back to Europe from New York. Recognizing that traveling with a convoy with give Mont-Blanc the best protection from German U-boats, harbor authorities advised (Captain) Le Médec to travel up the coast to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Larger convoys, arranged by Canada’s Royal Navy, departed from Halifax’s protected harbor. Perhaps one of them could accommodate the slow-moving Mont-Blanc. If not, the authorities in Halifax could give Le Médec instructions on the safest routes across the Atlantic.”

While travelling through The Narrows in Halifax at 9 am on December 6th, the Mont-Blanc was rammed broadside by a Norwegian ship that was leaving empty from Bedford Basin, and the contents of the Mont-Blanc caught fire and erupted. The resulting explosion created a shock wave that travelled out from the ship at about 5,000 feet per second, a force strong enough to crush the internal organs of any living thing in its path, and a temperature at the core of over 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It toppled train cars, cracked hulls of ships, leveled buildings and smashed windows.

“As devastating as the destruction already was, more was yet to come as the outward-spreading shock wave gradually dissipated. During the initial blast, the tremendous pressure of the shock wave so completely pushed air molecules away from the blast site that it created an almost airless condition, like a vacuum, in the area surrounding the explosion site. Unless air is prevented from doing so, it always flows into a vacuum. So, as soon as the outward movement of the air wave slowed, a new gust of air rushed back to fill the partial vacuum around the explosion site. “

Truly, a blizzard of glass.

“Then for ten minutes the gigantic cloud pelted the devastated area with a black rain made thick with benzene residue. The slick liquid coated everything and everyone with greasy soot that penetrated clothing and stained people’s skin black. Along with the rain, debris, including boulders and broken pieces of the Mont-Blanc that had been flung into the air by the explosion plummeted to the ground.”

But that’s not all: the force of the explosion created a tsunami, the crest of which was 40 – 45 feet high that swept homes, factories, businesses and people away.

In a matter of minutes, nearly 2,000 people died, over 6,000 were wounded, and over 9,000 left homeless. Seventy children were orphaned and two hundred more left with only one surviving parent. For some, that parent was a father serving in the trenches of France.

Then: the rescue work began.

[C]ries for help and screams of pain filled the air. Injured people, thousands of them, were everywhere: walking or lying in the streets, crouched outside the wreckage of buildings, trapped aboard ships, buried inside collapsed buildings. (M)any of the survivors who had been outside found that their jackets, coats, and shoes were missing, blown off by the force of the shock wave.

Wounded had to be attended to, the dead laid out for claim by relatives, injured animals had to be humanely destroyed. The following day, a blizzard, this time of snow, hit the city and made it next to impossible for additional relief supplies and personnel to reach the devastated city for 48 hours.

Help to deal with the effects of the explosion, when it could come, originated not only from Atlantic Canada and other Canadian cities, but from the U.S., particularly the state of Massachusetts and the city of Boston. In fact, “every year since 1971, in Boston, Massachusetts, the city lights a freshly cut Christmas tree that towers above Boston Common. Each year’s tree is a gift of thanks from Nova Scotia to the people of Massachusetts, in remembrance of the help they gave to a suffering city.”

I realize that I haven’t yet commented on the book Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 but I think the fact that I felt compelled to convey the horror of the story it presents is telling of its quality. It’s written for middle grades, simply and powerfully presenting the tragedy. Several real-life families are followed through the morning and subsequent days. There are many photographs and archival materials. Walker has carefully researched and presents the material in a factual way that allows readers to draw their own conclusions about why the ships collided.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Halifax explosion of 1917, I highly recommend Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917

For Canadian readers:
Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917

This book is the first I’ve read for The War Through the Generations Reading Challenge. It also qualifies for my 12 in’12 Challenge, What’s In a Name Challenge, Mix-It-Up Reading Challenge, Non-fiction non-memoir Challenge, the New Authors Challenge, and the Dewey Decimal Challenge. I’ve also used it to fill the “B” slot in both the Eh-Zed Challenge and the A-Z Double Whammy, as well as in the Read Your Name Challenge. Whew!

And last, but not least, this is a stop on the Literary Road Trip.

Witness what happens when a blogger ventures outside her usual reading genres and takes on a REAL challenge – and then tries to write an intelligent review of the book involved. That’s my situation with The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett.

What can tell you about this fantasy novel? It contains the story of tribes of very little people who live in a carpet, amid the dust balls, and above Underlay. One of their major landmarks is Achairleg from which they mine varnish. Metal is obtained from a dropped and forgotten penny, and wood from dropped matches.

There’s the requisite battle between good and evil, and the added dimension of an inner struggle among the good guys as to whether tradition should rule the day.

I must say I admired Pratchett’s sense of humor as evidenced in this quip:
It only cheered him up a bit when one of the wights gave Glurk an axe. It was his grandfather’s, although the handle and the blade had been replaced a few times.

Or in this dialogue between the clan leader and his wife, upon discovering that their tribe advisor has another name:
“And Pismire’s a philosopher, he says.”
“I never knew that. What’s a philosopher?”
“Someone who thinks, he says,” said Glurk.
“Well, you think. I’ve often seen you sitting and thinking.”
“I don’t always think,” said Glurk conscientiously. “Sometimes I just sits.” He sighed. “Anyway, it’s not just thinking. You’ve got to be able to talk about it entertainingly afterwards.”

In a forward to the 1991 edition of this book, Pratchett acknowledged that he wrote the first edition when he was 17 and, when his publisher decided to reissue it, majorly “tweaked” the story. He says: “It’s not exactly the book I wrote then. It’s not exactly the book I’d write now.” So I can’t even say for certain how reflective of his other works this book is.

Wikipedia tells me that The Carpet People has been described as “The Lord of the Rings on a Rug”. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of either the statement or its meaning. Brace yourself for this revelation: I have never read Tolkien, never seen one of the movies, and have never had a desire to do either.

I did, however, read Pierre Berton’s The Secret World of Og when I was an adolescent (and again as a young mother along with my daughter) and found it delightful. As I read The Carpet People, I often thought that my ten-year-old self would have enjoyed it immensely. But I’m done with my fantasy days (I know – my loss) and, having read “at least one” Terry Pratchett, have met the terms of the Terry Pratchett Reading Challenge and hereby pronounce it completed.

P.S. This had got me thinking, though, about hidden life forms in my carpets. Maybe it’s not such a kind idea to be doing any vacuuming. Hmmm….whatever works.

For Canadian readers:
The Carpet People
The Secret World of Og (A Canadian classic)