Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 111

Monster # 12 (Perfect Edition 6), by Naoki Urasawa

That was SO GOOD.

About the only thing I can say that's not spoilery is that I have never found Lunge interesting and still don't. I get why he's in the story, but he's so two-dimensional compared with literally everyone else, including random walk-ons who only appear on a single page.

Also, I love how individual and how much agency everyone has, for good or evil or something in between, from angry exes to little kids to sex workers to random passersby.

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Monster, Vol. 6: The Perfect Edition[image error]

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Spoils of War & A Time for Grief (Tales of the Apt # 1 & 2), by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Two collections of short stories about my beloved bug people.

The first, Spoils of War, takes place entirely during the Wasp invasion of the Commonweal and is unsurprisingly gloomy. My favorite stories were about a Thorn Bug woman’s private war, a Wasp soldier and his Dragonfly opponent who share a moment of respect and understanding in the middle of the war, and a Roach’s search for his kidnapped daughter. But a lot of them blurred together into “war is hell.”

A Time for Grief covered a much wider span of time and so was less gloomy, though still often fairly dark. A number of the stories are in distinct genres, like a noir private eye story, a backstage theatre story, a western horror story, kitchen sink gritty realism in the slums of Helleron, etc. This was really fun and I liked those stories a lot.

I really hope Tchaikovsky writes more stories (or full novels!) in this world. He clearly has it all so well worked out, and there’s so many corners still unexplored.

Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1)[image error]

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A Time For Grief (Tales of the Apt Book 2)[image error]

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The Newbery Award Plot Generator

telophase has created a Newbery Award plot generator for all your Problem Novel needs, ready to create a needlessly depressing book suitable to teach innocent children that this world sucks and there's nothing you can do about it!

She made the generator, and I provided titles and plot elements from actual Newbery books and other awesomely depressing children's novels.

War Story

In the beginning, an alcoholic boy is diagnosed with ADHD after losing a finger in a cooking accident. Things seem to be looking up when he befriends a Holocaust survivor with cancer. But when his new friend dies in childbirth, he learns a valuable lesson about the hollow cruelty of the American Dream and that death is the end.

Please Don't Believe

In the beginning, a melancholy teenage boy is diagnosed with foot cancer after his parents enroll in clown college. Things seem to be looking up when he befriends a boy who was locked in a box by his abusive parents who gets mocked as "Box Boy". But when his new friend dies of the plague, he learns a valuable lesson about emotional labor and that sometimes people you love die in stupid accidents.

A Pie of Hot Soil

In the beginning, an alcoholic teenager is diagnosed with scleroderma after accidentally killing his best friend in a drunk driving accident. Things seem to be looking up when he befriends a man who just got out of solitary confinement. But when his new friend reveals their tragic past as a Holocaust survivor, he learns a valuable lesson about toxic waste and that people with cognitive disabilities make great friends, up until the point that they disappear and are never seen again.

If you enjoy the Newbery Generator, there are buttons on the right side of the page for telophase 's KoFi and Patreon.

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June Reading Links

iknowcommawrite reads Betty Neels and obtains quotes by searching for the word "soup:" I heard you telling your mother that in Trondheim.

cahn reads Dread Nation: In a clever inversion, Sherman's March to the Sea is actually Sherman trying to protect the Southerners by setting fire to the undead.

sholio My Real Children: Like most people, I imagine, I've fantasized about my life if I'd made different decisions.

skygiants reads Ashlin and Olivia": Maybe all the things she had defined as Definitely Ashlin's Fault as a tiny angry junior high schooler were actually ... perhaps .... both their faults?

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Project Cat, by Nellie Burchardt (writer) and Fermin Rocker (illustrator)

A chapter book from 1966. I had assumed the title meant “Project: Cat,” as in the kids have made it their project to acquire a cat. In fact, it’s “Project Cat,” as in cat in a housing project.

The housing project the kids live in doesn’t allow pets, so when they find a pregnant stray cat, they care for it and feed it outside, all the while trying to hide it from anyone who might do it harm or shoo it away. The cat is a pretty realistic scared stray cat, but the story comes to a less realistic but delightful conclusion.

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The story is simple but sweet, and the illustrations are very cute. I looked up the illustrator, partly because of his remarkable name, and discovered that he wrote The East End Years: A Stepney Childhood, which is described thus at Goodreads:

Fermin Rocker was born in the East End of London in 1907, the son of Rudolf Rocker, the famous anarchist theorist, activist and disciple of Kropotkin. A book illustrator, and painter, in exploring his origins as an artist, Fermin conjures a moving and colorful picture of his remarkable father, of Anarchism and of the Jewish East End. Heavily illustrated by the author.

BOUGHT.

Project Cat[image error]

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The East End Years: A Stepney Childhood[image error]

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My ambitious blogging goal

As you may have noticed, my project for June is to blog EVERY book I read (not counting individual manga/comic volumes). I'm sure I won't do EVERY book, but I have already successfully blogged MORE books than I normally do.

Anyone want to join me? I think it would be fun. As you've noticed, I'm not necessarily writing in-depth reviews, just some notes and comments. I find that people are more likely to comment if you write up one book at a time, rather than a bunch at a time.

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Mr. Popper’s Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater

A Newbery book from 1938. Mr. Popper, a house painter who prefers to daydream about being an Arctic explorer, writes a fan letter to Admiral Drake and gets a surprise gift in the mail: a penguin, whom he names Captain Cook. Soon Captain Cook is nesting in the ice box and terrorizing delivery men. One penguin leads to another, and the next thing the Popper family knows, they have twelve penguins parading in a basement ice rink.

I read this as a kid and enjoyed it though it wasn’t one of my all-time favorites. On re-read, it’s still not an all-time favorite but it’s pretty adorable and funnier than I remembered. I love transformations of ordinary places, and this book has some great ones with a normal house becoming an icy penguin habitat complete with drifts of snow on armchairs.

My other favorite bits include a surprisingly timeless conversation in which Mr. Popper calls up to get a license for the penguins and gets transferred from one clueless bureaucrat to the next, the illustration of a performing seal in a policeman’s hat squaring off with a penguin in a firefighter helmet (it makes sense in context), and the penguins terrorizing a French tightrope walker (also with hilarious illustration).

Despite it being a Newbery book, no penguins are harmed though many humans are nipped.

There is a movie with Jim Carrey, which I will continue to never see.

Mr. Popper's Penguins[image error]

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Valley of the Ponies, by Jean Slaughter Doty

A children’s book from 1972 about a girl who acquires a loaner pony for the summer that she and her mother are staying in a cabin in the country.

I had thought this book was one I’d read as a kid where a girl discovers a valley full of wild horses, but in fact it’s one I hadn’t read and she discovers a herd of tame ponies owned by a neighbor. (Now I wish I could figure out what the “girl discovers a valley full of wild horses” book was.)

It’s got just enough realistic horse detail to feel believable and is full of the joy of ponies and exploring. There is the threat of horse death when some ponies get stolen to be sold for horse meat (!), but it’s okay, they get rescued.

One of the things I like about reading older books, especially ones that aren't considered classics of their genre, is the window into ordinary life at the time. I was born in 1973. I remember when I was 6 or 7, I used to walk to friends' houses, to candy stories, etc, by myself. These weren't long trips, maybe a couple blocks. But it was nothing unusual. All my friends did that too. This was in various parts of Los Angeles, mostly in neighborhoods that were not the greatest. I now never see unaccompanied children.

In this book, the heroine, who is about ten, rides her pony on trails around the countryside by herself, and is sometimes gone all day. Of course most girls would not have their own pony, loaner or otherwise, but I do remember that in the summer I could disappear and do my own thing all day, so long as I took a lunch and was back before dark. There's a lot of things about my childhood that were terrible but the chance to explore alone was one of the few I'm still grateful for.

The Valley of the Ponies[image error]

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Monster # 11 (Perfect Edition # 7), by Naoki Urasawa

I just read # 11. OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!

Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers!

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Monster, Vol. 7: The Perfect Edition[image error]

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Monster # 11, by Naoki Urasawa

I just read # 11. OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!

Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers!

( Read more... )

comments