Jim Murphy: Blizzard!

9+ | 144 pgs | 2006

This is the first non-fiction book I've listened to. It was both topical (today is a blessed snow day and all outside is coated in white and I am sitting here in my pyjamas and am absolutely content) and absolutely riveting! Jim Murphy tells history - "non-fiction" as a story -- which is truly one sure way of making history and non-fiction thoroughly enjoyable. The book sets the stage, depicting the time, the weather that year, and certain historical characters whose blizzard stories Murphy comes back to at various points. The book then guides you through the storm and the impact it had upon different areas in the tri-state area, focusing on New York City. The details of the city, the people living there, the social and physical conditions of New York in 1888 make this book come alive. You also gain an understanding that no level of government saw the care of people or care of the city to be its responsibility! People, by and large, were expected to dig themselves out of their homes! This is also a story of survival, heroism, and also the brutal and plain stupid things folks did in response to the blizzard (the most heart-breaking for me was listening to the way men drove their horses literally to death; the stupidest one being the 1500+ people who decided to cross from Brooklyn to Manhattan by jumping on huge ice floes that stretched across the East River). The role of whiskey in helping folks get warm is also explained clearly as a commmon medical practice -- it comes up so often that it always made me laugh: it seemed that a lot of folks were boozing up in order to help them face the blizzard. The ending chapter focuses on the reason why this blizzard, which wasn't as horrid as others had been in the past or since then, has captured people's imaginations and has been written about so much. Murphy explains that the likes of the devastation wrought by this blizzard had never before been seen; and that many policy changes were brought about because of the horrific impact this blizzard had on society, such as the building of an underground subway, which previously had no political support, and burying wires underground, which, during the blizzard, caused a great amount of danger to people on the streets . This is an intriguing read, and I can't wait to read more of Jim Murphy's books.

Angela Johnson: The first part last

12+ | for boys or girls | 144 pgs | 2003

There's a bit of Benjamin Button at the very start of this book: "I figure if the world were really right, humans would live life backward and do the first part last. They'd be all knowing in the beginning and all innocent in the end."

I think that's when I had decided that I would like this story. I listened to the book, and I'm sure that this made a big difference as well. There was something very sincere and very true about Khalipa Oldjohn's rendition of the story. He embodied the narrator and the story quite perfectly - with just the right pauses, just the right intonations, and a perfect empathy.

As for the storytelling itself - this short novel is somehow able to keep perfect balance between the tumult of a teen-aged father having to care for his newborn infant, named Feather, and the way things were, which begins with Bobby and Nia finding out that they are pregnant. That aspect of looking back feels a bit slower, feels a bit meditative, and yet there is no sentimentality - in the past or the present. There is a sense that despite Bobby's desperation and the ups and downs he feels, he will find a way to make things work. His and Feather's "happy endings" have to do with being together and living from one day to the next, making things work in an imperfect world. Some part of me wished that certain aspects of the story could have been fleshed out a little more - Bobby's relationship with teachers at school, or that of his friends or family. However, the brevity of this novel does focus your attention on Bobby's story, and the sharply new path his life has taken with Feather.

Salina Yoon: One weighs a ton

2009

Lift the flap books work because of the intrigue and excitement they bring - what's behind this flap? But this book is clever and absorbing outside of its flap technology. There's a logic to the book - a counting book from one to ten - that very young children can anticipate and participate in. Thematically, the book stays together and true to its audience because of the familiarity of the animals - dogs, fish, cows, and pigs, amongst others. Best of all, this is also a touch-and-feel book, and it makes the entire experience of a lift-the-flap book all that much more complete. It's a lift-the-flap book taken to the next level, let's say. As for the illustrations, they leave plenty of white space to focus one completely on the strange, animal-like numbers. Each right hand sided page is bordered subtly by a color from the picture on the page. Just an added touch of care for this ultra-sensory and fun book.

Nicholas Oldland: Big bear hug

2009

You know, sometimes a simple story can stand on its own two feet. I know I've got a penchant for less-is-more. I look for Wabi Sabi in children's books, sure. And this book is no exception: here's the story of bear who loves to hug all peoples - including tree peoples. He is a tree hugging bear. Yes, he is. And since I can totally see myself hugging trees, this story makes perfect sense. But then he comes across a man...with an axe... And I shan't say more about the plot. This is the perefect read-aloud for a 3 year old (or even an attentive 2 year old). The story is focused - and the illustrations rendered in Photoshop are just detailed enough to focus your attention on the large yet non-threatening black bear. The expressions on the faces of the animals who are hug recipients are funny and memorable (and precious). I do love this book. I'm going to use it at storytime. Very soon. For earth day? For Valentine's day? -- Really, and truly, for any day.

Cory Doctorow: Little Brother

12+ | male protagonist | 384 pgs | 2008

Just finished listening to the audiobook version of Little Brother. It's not the sort of book I tend to be interested in -- action oriented, filled with tech babble, with a young, white, male protagonist -- but I enjoyed the book nonetheless. It was just the timeliness of the story, of what it's like to live in a police state of sorts that, on the outset, doesn't quite feel like a police state because police presence is justified under the guise of "protecting" citizenry against "terrorists." Thematically, what did it for me with this book was the idea that when liberty is at stake, ordinary people may and can do extraordinary things to break the bondage they're under. The fact that this happens to Joe American will hopefully make any reader realise that people who protest in similar ways in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, among other places, are not sick in the head, which is what many in our government and media would like us to believe. They're human beings having to live under extraordinary circumstances, who are coping in ways they know how to. The lines I most remember from the story are these, towards the end of the book, when Marcus, our hacking hero, learns that his captor, Severe Haircut Lady, was sent to Iraq:

"If they sent her to my town, I'd probably become a terrorist." To which his girlfriend responds, "You did become a terrorist when they sent her to your town." "So I did," Marcus says.

The story is plausible, and not really set far into the future at all. You could even argue that it is actually set somewhere around February 2002 (ie, not long after 9/11). I didn't get some of the techno babble, and allowed certain sections of the book to just wash over me without really listening. The narrator's voice was definitely endearing, and he did a great job of distinguishing different voices though he didn't play up the differences too noticeably. One faux-pas: giving Macus's friend JoLu (Jose Luis) a Spanish accent. It doesn't add up because JoLu speaks with ease and slang in the book. If he were a new American (an immigrant), he likely wouldn't. So why the accent? It felt misplaced and foreign, and narrator man shouldn't have used accent as a way to distinguish JoLu's speech from Marcus'. There's irony in this, considering the friendly, all-inclusive, all-American, multiracial vibe you get from Marcus and the story.

The other major highlight of the book for me was the afterword material, including the pages written by Bruce Schnier (here's his blog), and getting to know his work a little bit. I'm not entirely sure what he's about, but his writings are definitely intriguing, hands down. He urges us to look at the ways in which our lives are governed by security measures and systems - from door locks to tattle tape to security cameras. It's a really refreshing, different, way of looking at the world.