Like most children born in the 1970s and 1980s (and I hope, the 1990s), Judy Blume books made frequent and prolonged appearances in my household. My personal favorites were always the Fudge books. I was (and still am) a lover of scatological and body humor, so Fudge eating his brother Peter’s turtle always appealed to me on a base level. And of course, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was there to ease me into puberty and ask all the awkward questions. I never got around to reading her […]
My Hero
If you didn’t know any better, you might think that Fran Ross’ Oreo was a brand new hip novel from a humorist with a brilliant future ahead of her. It’s intellectual and witty and funny as hell. Yet Fran Ross (1935-1985) wrote and published this gem in 1974, her one and only novel newly reissued by New Directions Publishing. Her views on race and women’s rights are timeless; setting up her story as a modern day version of the myth of Theseus (and the Minotaur […]
Needs more kidnappings. Or plot in general.
I have no idea where this book even came from. I went out into my garage to get something, and it was sitting on a pile of books, and I thought, hey, why not? I suppose I bought it at some point. I hope it was at a garage/used book sale, because it certainly is not worth the price on the back! (Who am I kidding, I probably had a coupon. RIP, Borders.) This started out as promising. Our main character, Lucia, is the […]
“M is for Magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly.”
As I was wandering through my library looking for a new audiobook for my commute home, I decided to check out the YA section. I was looking for something easy and fun. We don’t have many audiobooks for that section (we’re trying to get kids to actually read!) but I was pleased to find this. A book by Neil Gaiman? Nice! Read by Neil Gaiman? Sweet! Is this meant for young children? No, I don’t think so. But older ones could get something out of […]
Different, Not Less
… in my opinion, it’s not really a great idea to see people as one thing. Every person has lots of ingredients to make them into what is always a one-of-a-kind creation. We are all imperfect genetic stews. Willow Chance is 12 years old, a “person of color” adopted in infancy by two very white parents, and a genius. She seems to possess savant-like qualities that allow her to remember enormous amounts of information, understand concepts beyond her years, and pick up new languages easily. […]
An Impressionist Painting in the Form of a Novel
She has come to understand the importance of structuring details around a narrative, the expectation of histories having a beginning, a middle, and an end, though she doesn’t really believe this is the way life works: she does not know the way life works. For CBR6 last year, I reviewed Kate Walbert’s 2004 novel Our Kind and among other things I was struck by the stream-of-consciousness narration. It allowed Walbert to move back and forth through time, building a web of interconnectivity between events and […]
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