Reviews: Number the Stars & The Serpent's Shadow

Here’s two more book reviews of books I read earlier on this year. They’re an odd pairing to put together, but so it goes sometimes. Both wonderful books.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Oftentimes, Holocaust books show us what went wrong and how horrible it was. Which it was. But also important is to show what good people did to help fight the great evil of it, and that is what is shown in this book in a clear way that children and adults can understand.

This story takes place in Denmark, already occupied by the Nazis, and it is told from the perspective of Annemarie, a young Danish girl whose best friend is Jewish and how Annemarie’s family does their best to save her friend and the friend’s family.

The book is based on true events; the Danish successfully smuggled many Jews over into Sweden in similar ways to which it is done in the book. That in and of itself is fascinating. But the strength of the book lies in the character of Annemarie and the example she sets of courage in the face of real danger. The truth of life is that what’s easy and what’s right rarely match up and every time they don’t it requires courage to stand against what’s wrong.

As usual for a Newbery Medal Award winner, such as this book (it is a winner), this story should be read by everyone. In addition to the moral lessons learned, there is history to be discovered and characters to understand. I give this book a high recommend. It is short and easy to read and worth every page.

The Serpent’s Shadow by Rick Riordan

To those unfamiliar with Riordan’s more recent books, such as the Percy Jackson series, his books are full of modern culture references that draw in the kids, while covering enough history and mythology to draw in adults. That’s the way I see it anyway.

This book is the final book of “The Kane Chronicles,” similar to the Percy Jackson series in that it asks the question: “What if old mythology was real and active in the modern world?” It’s a question full of possibilities and very interesting to delve into because it allows for both the teaching of old mythology and the showing of how old mythology is still present in the modern world. For instance, did you know that Obelisks such as the one at the Washington Monument, stem from the belief system of the ancient Egyptians?

So because this is the final book of a trilogy, it’d be hard to give you more of a summary than a short version of what’s given on the book cover: Carter and Sadie Kane, brother and sister, are modern Egyptian magicians and are trying to restore Ma’at, or order, in the world, but as things stand chaos is heavily at work and magicians are divided in what they should do. And what’s worse, Apophis, the epitome of Chaos, is set to emerge and destroy the world in 3 days if they don’t do anything about it.

This is an excellent conclusion to the trilogy. If you enjoy Rick Riordan’s style of storytelling you will find exactly that right here. It’s entertaining, funny, and at the same time well thought out and filled with interesting characters, especially the main two who have their own struggles and changes over the course of the series. This is a definite recommend to those who enjoy mythology and enjoy following pop culture, or at least don’t mind it in a novel. This isn’t your literary deep-meaning type book, but it is thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.

Diurnal Motion, Retrograde Motion

Diurnal Motion, Retrograde Motion

What I know, I know from watching.

Where the Sun rises from its grave like a ghost,
there is East.
Where the Sun lays its head like a newborn babe,
there is West.

There is a stoic star that won’t be budged,
not by days or nights coaxing it,
or seasons begging it to change with them,
or years growing wrinkled and wise, saying turn, turn.
there is north and away is south, unmoving.

When the full moon swings highest among the stars like a child’s kite,
I should be sleeping. That is midnight.
And when it sets, that is morning.

The old men of greece were also observers
and they noticed the way planets paused on their eastward journey,
to travel a few months with the westward crowd,
perhaps picking up a lost shoe, or exchanging tales,
and then resuming their path again,
lonely, but without a hint of looking back.

Once, I drove back south to the home of my childhood,
five hours in an empty car, listening to the motor hum
and singing while the moon set, first-quarter.

The house I played in as a child was occupied with others.
The concrete bridges I used to cross had been replaced.
A friend of mine was working three jobs,
and another friend got married.
I was there at the wedding, watching.

But I didn’t belong there anymore.
The whole city had gone to a place I couldn’t follow
and what was lost to me could no longer be found here.
I smiled and spoke with everyone, and then I left,
five hours with the moon flying behind me,
heading north, the Sun setting on my left
and on my right, sitting in silence beside me,
the ghost of where I used to be.

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Every now and again I get to incorporate astronomy into my poetry. This poem started off because I'm writing, or aiming to write, a poem every day this month and today I looked outside and notice that it was a first-quarter moon tonight and how I knew, therefore, that it had risen at noon and that's why it was so high up around 6pm. So I started off the poem with that and just started listing things I knew from observing in astronomy, and then the poem took its own turn that to felt connected and somehow wrapped up everything very nicely at the end, complete with an envelope technique (where something at the beginning also appears at the end.

For those of you who wish to know, diurnal motion means the apparent daily westward motion of celestial objects (caused by the Earth spinning eastward). It's what we see on a day to day basis. That being said, objects in our Solar System also have other motion throughout the year (for instance the planets slowly move eastward night after night, except for when retrograde motion occurs, which is the apparent westward motion of a planet through the sky after during the course of several months).

Review: Interstellar Pig

Interstellar Pig by William Sleator

Without a recommend from my sister, who's recommendations I treasure, I might not have picked up this book; the title sounds kind of crazy, right? But the book is wonderful. First she had me read "House of Stairs" (See review) by the same author, now this, and I'm glad I did.

This book is about a kid named Barney who is having a boring vacation when 3 strange perfect-seeming neighbors move in next door with an odd obsession with a game called "Interstellar Pig." But the more time he spends with them, he begins to wonder if there might be more to his neighbors and if their game is really just a game.

This book is well thought out from the start with all the details being important in some way. The intrigue of discovering exactly what is happening draws you on as the reader, but also watching the character development of the character of Barney over the course of the story. The contrast of him against the other characters is revealing. And then, of course, the whole idea of the book makes you think. This book isn't quite as good as "House of Stairs," but I can still recommend it as a book you won't soon forget.

As a side note, I think that's something interesting about smaller books (this is under 200 pages), they can still have as much or more of an impact than many books much longer than them. It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite books of all time "The Phantom Tollbooth": "people use as many words as they can and think themselves very wise for doing so.... always remember that while it is wrong to use too few, it is often far worse to use too many."

Sunday Ritual

Sunday Ritual

Because my backyard isn’t mine

but shared with neighbors never home,

I must remember to go

down Sunday nights.

It was there on the gravel drive,

returning from a rocky week,

I found the trash cans lounging,

mouths stuffed with food.

How long had this been left rotting?

Neighboring windows were always dark

on the weekends, off drinking

until morning

and if I didn’t roll these bins

the heavy walk to the curbside,

ignoring the stench and the flies,

who would take them?

Long before, I met a kind man out front

playing catch with his wife and son

and I approached to greet them.

He welcomed me to the old apartments

even as they were preparing

to move out in a few days.

It is months now that their rooms have been filled.

Cigarette butts and brown boxes

are tossed from the balcony down

near the garbage in an ungathered pile,

remnants of people moving in.

Or perhaps moving through.

That one night, I dragged both bins

and since made the trip ritual

and I remember what’s gone

and what’s here I try to forget.

The pile curls like a beggar

around the empty containers

every week, pleading with me:

who lives in the darkness next door?

The pile seems to burn beneath

the cone of the orange street lamp,

but won’t budge unless I come down

Sunday, humble Sunday.

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As I write through the month of September, most of the poems I write for the day (since I'm writing a poem per day) need more work before I'd post them on my blog, but every now and again I come across one that just enjoy. This poem could probably use plenty of work (like I think I could have a much better title). But I enjoy it even as it is. To write this poem, I stole the structure from a poem by Li-Young Lee called "Visions and Interpretations." I've always been told that good poets steal, not borrow, so I try to do that every now and again. After that, I took a couple of personal experiences and used the truth of those experience to craft the poem. I say it that way because not everything in this poem is true, but because the truth is more complicated and essentially irrelevant. For instance, I've exaggerate the trash - there was never rotting food hanging out of it. But it is true that I'm the only one who moves the bins each week. It is not true that the man and the family have moved out. The truth is they live in a building that is attached to mine and they deal with their building's garbage bins. It is also true that he did it once for our building before I arrived. Good man. Finally, it is true that there is a pile of move-in boxes around the trash containers that has been there fore weeks after the new people arrived. It irks me that they won't deal with their own recycling, so last week, Sunday evening, their lights were on and I knocked to offer my help in moving the boxes to the curb, but they never answered the door and I didn't move the boxes. I feel I should've just moved the boxes, so next recycling time I'm just going to suck it up and move the pile of boxes. And, of course, it will be a Sunday evening.

Review: Rose

Rose by Li-Young Lee

I read lots of fiction, but I also read poetry. This is a book of poetry that I bought back around 8th grade, give or take, as part of my summer reading. I had to choose between two books of poetry, read it, and write about it. Back then, I still liked poetry and thought myself a poet, but my ability with understanding it and enjoying something from each poem was a lot less. Years passed; Li-Young Lee visited out school and talked to us about poetry and suddenly I became a lot more interested in his poetry and I started find more of his poems online and I have loved many and memorized some. That being said, it has taken me until now to actually re-read this volume of his poetry.

This time around, I am a lot more appreciative of his language and ability to convey emotion. I still don't understand all his poems, but I understand more what is going on and some of the major themes he deals with, like trying to resolve his feelings about his father who has passed on.

Obviously, many of you who are reading this are probably not big poetry fans like I am, but if you enjoy poetry, this volume by Li-Young Lee is very good and the overall feel of the volume leaves you satisfied and knowing more than you knew before. If you don't enjoy poetry, I'd probably tell you to just go online and find a couple poems by Li-Young Lee, but the book might not be for you.

Review: Princess Academy

Many of you are probably laughing right now. What!? A guy reading a book that deals with princesses and has princess in the title? Of course, there have been books like "The Princess Bride" that have captured widespread audiences, but this isn't the type of action book to elicit that. It is, however, a Newbery Honor book, an award given to books that contribute great things to children's literature. I have a personal goal to read all the Newbery Medal books and as many of the Honors as I can because I believe that the values promoted to children should also be promoted to adults. If children need it growing up, we could probably use a reminder now.

And let's just say I'm enough in touch with my feminine side to enjoy a story about girls wanting to be princesses, and manly enough to not care what others think about it.

Anyway, to give a rough synopsis of this book, Miri is a girl living on Mount Eskel, a remote and poor territory of the kingdom where they mine linder from a quarry to make a meager living. She struggles with wanting to work at the quarry along with the other girls, but her dad won't let her. She feels  like an outcast. This year, however, the chief delegate of the kingdom arrives and makes a surprise announcement: it has been foreseen that the next princess will come from Mount Eskel and so, in order to prepare, a princess academy will be formed in order to instruct the eligible girls and prepare them to meet the prince.

What we find in this book is an encouragement towards education, understanding, and sticking up for others. We find girls who start off in competition learning to get along. We find courage, creativity, and empathy. I'd say this book is primarily character driven with Miri at the center of it all. She really is an admirable character and she learns many things along the way.

There's a tiny bit of fantasy mixed in with the plot, but not so much as to get in anyone's way. The majority of the occurrences are events that could still happen to our children as they're growing up, or children elsewhere in the world who come from more impoverished backgrounds.

So are there some things are are probably geared more towards a girl audience? Perhaps, but other than the idea of a princess, most of this book is applicable to all who read it. We all have dreams that we would do anything to achieve and awakenings along the way.

This is a really good book I recommend it to all, regardless of age or gender. You can make fun of me for reading this book if you want, but first, read it yourself.

P.S.

Other Newbery Honors that I've read:
Hatchet
The Blue Sword
Enchantress from the Stars
The Black Cauldron
My Side of the Mountain
Charlotte's Web

Newbery Winners I've read:
Holes
The Giver
Number the Stars
The Hero and the Crown
Dear Mr. Henshaw
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
A Wrinkle In Time

Who can argue with the awesomeness of these books?

Where It Rains

This month of September, a friend of mine and I have decided again to write a poem a day. As with last time, I'll only be posting here the one's a particularly like, but I though you, mysterious reader, might want to know anyway what I'm up to. Please tell me what you think.

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Where It Rains

Beside ruminating car wheels in a splash

into a crowd of puddles, abashed, shaking,

under a shadow of telephone wire, lining

the road I’m walking, hood down, umbrella closed,

next to a cracked parking lot and a rusted truck

that hasn’t budged in weeks,

                                                within the deep

mouth of trees, whimpering as it brushes

against the wind and straggling strangers,

it’s still raining.             Drop by drop

off a drying dog, from the wet whiskers of a beggar

stolid with his soaked cardboard sign at a stoplight,

I can hear its chattering teeth.

                                                I see it spit out of gutters

with sickness, contempt, and a loss for words.

It’s still raining

                         where clothes grip the skin

like frightened hands, and rags of waterfalls, miserable

thin trickles, slide to the bottom of an iron railing.

It’s wet and the strength of the silver fortress sky,

stemming what has fallen for days and what will continue

to fall in hours if not minutes or seconds, is a lie

and I’m one more drop of water stumbling through

the afternoon, down the damp sidewalks of the world.

Review: Railsea

Railsea by China Miéville

Imagine the set up of Moby Dick for a moment - a young shipman on a whale-hunter boat with a captain chasing a giant white whale across the ocean. Now forget the ocean and replace it with a seemingly endless expanse of continually connecting railroad tracks. Forget the giant white whale and replace it with a giant white mole. By now, your mind should be thinking "What the heck?" Yep, a giant mole. The whale-hunter boat is a mole-train and the name of the young man is Sham Ap Soorap.

That's about as far as the comparisons go, but it's a fun comparison.

Sham is a timid and bumbling sort of fellow trying, ineffectively, to be a doctor's assistant aboard the mole-train, but when he finds some strange photos aboard a wrecked train, his life turns in a new direction that gets him chased by all sorts of people who also want to find what he's looking for.

This book is a mix somewhere between sci-fi and fantasy, but it isn't heavy on either genre - it is character driven, story driven, and author driven (as the author makes many asides in the book from the very beginning). A couple times the shifts between chapters can feel slightly disjointed just because the author assumes that we, the readers, can fill in the missing moments. And we can and it gets easier to do as the book goes on, but if you're not expecting it, it can throw you off slightly.

This book purposely sets itself up with a ridiculous set-up and strange language to boot, but then it takes itself seriously and pulls you into the lives of the characters, especially Sham who grows throughout the entire book into as capable a hero as any story. And along the way, the book explains its preposterous premise in ways that make you think about modern issues and future consequences.

From start to finish, this book is both enjoyable and thought provoking. The scenario is imaginative and the solutions are clever. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone with a love for thought-provoking adventure and imagination.