My friend Karen, who is a chemistry professor, made a Trivial Pursuit for Book-Lovers game appear in my mailbox at the local college, saying in the attached card that it was time for it to find a more literary home where the kind of loud, animated games she imagines for it might get played over the holidays.
Well, at Non-Necromancy Headquarters we fully intend to make her dream come true. But first, I thought I'd give you a chance to play. I'll give you all of the questions on one card and you'll attempt to answer as many as you can in the comments. Then the right answers will appear here on Monday (Dec. 14).
Ready?
1. In the "children's" category: Who included a star-studded CD along with her songbook Philadelphia Chickens, hyped as a "too-illogical zoological musical revue"?
2. In the "classics" category: What Arthur Conan Doyle character was based on a shrewd Victorian criminal named Adam Worth?
3. In the "non-fiction" category: What hot-selling 1995 instructional manual was subtitled Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right?
4. In the "book club" category: What tearjerker was the first William Styron book ever performed as an opera?
5. In the "authors" category: What best selling novelist was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as an "Outstanding American" in 1992?
6. In the "book bag" category: What was Janet Evanovich's follow-up to her best-selling thriller One for the Money?
Go!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Shoveling Snow with Buddha
This Billy Collins poem is for Andrew, who has been musing on walking meditation and snow shoveling, and who has been getting snowed on already because he lives in the Chicago area. (We aren't getting any of the snow, but we're getting high winds, so I've been making my usual preparations for the almost inevitable power outage later today.)
Shoveling Snow with Buddha
In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over the mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.
Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm and slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?
But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.
This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling,
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.
He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.
All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside the generous pocket of his silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.
After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?
Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck,
and our boots stand dripping by the door.
Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.
I feel much more Buddha-like than usual, as I've succumbed to a sinus infection. I'm taking codeine cough syrup at night, which gives me weird dreams but makes me feel tranquil in between the coughing fits that go on every time I awaken. I'm taking another cough medicine during the day when I can; it has a drowsiness warning and I'm not supposed to take it when I might have to drive anywhere. But I haven't been driving much of anywhere. I haven't been doing all the Christmas errands. I haven't even done the laundry that's piling up. I'm just sitting here and reading whatever comes to hand, in a tranquil and oddly silent way, since for a few days I had complete laryngitis and now have only an edge of a voice.
I would like it to be vacation already, so there would be someone home to play cards with! It's interesting to feel such calm at such a busy time of year. Who would like some of my calm? Here. Sit down. Look into my i's.
Shoveling Snow with Buddha
In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over the mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.
Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm and slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?
But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.
This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling,
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.
He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.
All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside the generous pocket of his silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.
After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?
Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck,
and our boots stand dripping by the door.
Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.
I feel much more Buddha-like than usual, as I've succumbed to a sinus infection. I'm taking codeine cough syrup at night, which gives me weird dreams but makes me feel tranquil in between the coughing fits that go on every time I awaken. I'm taking another cough medicine during the day when I can; it has a drowsiness warning and I'm not supposed to take it when I might have to drive anywhere. But I haven't been driving much of anywhere. I haven't been doing all the Christmas errands. I haven't even done the laundry that's piling up. I'm just sitting here and reading whatever comes to hand, in a tranquil and oddly silent way, since for a few days I had complete laryngitis and now have only an edge of a voice.
I would like it to be vacation already, so there would be someone home to play cards with! It's interesting to feel such calm at such a busy time of year. Who would like some of my calm? Here. Sit down. Look into my i's.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Believe Me
I began reading Believe Me, by Nina Killham, with some trepidation. The author initially approached me about reading this novel, and I agreed to let her publicist for Plume Paperbacks (Penguin) sent me a copy. What worried me was the blurb, describing the novel as about a relationship between a mother who is "an atheist and staunch Darwinist" and a son who "is starting to embrace the teachings of the bible and Creationist theory" whose "beliefs are put to the test" when "an unexpected tragedy strikes." What does this sound like to you? To me, it sounds like religion to the rescue. But I was pleasantly surprised by the complications of this novel, which advocates for neither "side," but tells a story showing how difficult it can be to respect the beliefs of others.
The protagonist of the novel is Nic, age 13. That interests me already, as the mother of a 13-year-old boy. And his grandmother spouts the inoculation theory of religion, which I've spouted ever since before I first became a mother (once, memorably, to an Episcopalian priest): "Of course he's going to grow up and join some weird cult. What did you expect? You've got to give him a bit in the beginning so he can grow antibodies to the real crazy stuff." But Nic's mother, Lucy, is an atheist and has raised him as one, while many of the cool kids at his school are fundamentalist Christians. That interests me too, as one inhabitant of a small town where the school board still hasn't managed to fire a teacher (John Freshwater) who has done some of the same kinds of things that a character in this novel, Mr. Branden, does:
"He brought a Bible to class one day. Made this big show of sneaking it out of the drawer....One day Ms White, our principal, came in and sat at the back of the class taking notes. Mr. Branden didn't mention [God] once."
There's also a character in the novel, Mrs. Porter, who I was prepared to dislike, early on, because she "got them to put stickers on the biology books saying that evolution is just a theory." But as the novel goes on, the characters become more real, and Mrs. Porter also does some genuinely thoughtful things for people, including Nic and his mother. She reminds me of the mother of a boy on Walker's soccer team who is an ardent John Freshwater supporter and also one of the nicest people I've ever met.
I thought Nic's mother missed a good chance to explain the difference between a philosophical and a scientific theory when she and Nic discuss some of the young-earth creationist books Mrs. Porter gives Nic. But this is a story about people, and the interest of it is not so much in the ideas, but in hearing about stuff like the 13-year-old's opinions about who God likes (his pretty young friend Sandra Miller) and who God doesn't like (Mrs. Vogler, an old lady whose child was killed in an auto accident). The part where Nic wishes for a mother like Mrs. Porter, who would "probably jump up and offer to make me a sandwich" rings absolutely true to me. Also the part where the 13-year-old blames his mother for the failure of his parents' marriage sounds like genuine young teen ranting: "all she had to do was make some meals, do the laundry, and keep her husband, and she's failed completely." Nic definitely sounds like a real 13-year-old to me when he muses "the more I learn about life the more I realize grownups have no idea what they're talking about. I guess I'm just surprised how much they don't know. Until a couple of years ago I thought they knew everything and it turns out they can't agree on anything."
The fundamentalist Christians are aligned with this 13-year-old way of thinking when Mrs. Porter's son Kevin says to Nic that Lucy got brain cancer because she isn't Christian, making it personal the way Nic had earlier made the ideas about who God likes and who he doesn't. Kevin says to Nic: "God's attacking her brain. Think about it."
What interests me most in this novel are the parts where someone who strikes me--and Nic's mother--as wrong explains his or her point of view. When Nic's Muslim babysitter Layla wears a headscarf, for example, she says it's because "I am treated as a person, not a sex object." When Nic talks to the new "senior pastor" at his church (at the urging of Mrs. Porter), he is asked "Do you know what happens when we think for ourselves?" and told (immediately) that the answer is "moral decay." The most incomprehensible scene, for me, is when Nic's fundamentalist Christian friend Melissa attacks Lucy's research to find out the mass of a planet, saying "God will reveal it to her when He's ready" and then giving a speech about why scientists shouldn't try to find out anything about our world: "Don't you think He has enough problems without people nitpicking the details. Try to refute His story. Coming up with wacky theories of their own. He's exhausted. Here He is trying to conquer Satan and your mom is quibbling about how old His universe is." Finally Melissa works herself into such a frenzy she pulls out Lucy's computer wires, asking him "Do you want her to prove there is no God?"
The fundamentalist theme culminates in a back-and-forth reading Layla and Nic do with the Koran and the Bible, a reading that leaves neither party on a clear moral high ground.
The end of the novel, though, is partly a celebration of the virtues of organized religion. Mrs. Porter is the kindest and one of the most useful people who come to visit Lucy in the hospital. A pastor helps Nic get some perspective on his situation, and afterward Nic thinks there should be a class in "Death and How to Survive It" and "the first thing they'd have to teach you is to never go to an atheist funeral....They are not a hell of a lot of fun. They try to be cheery because they're supposed to be celebrating a person's life, but there's no MC like a pastor or anything so people just wander around with huge craters in their hearts."
Nic reaches a point where he seems better able to answer his own question, posed early in the novel: "why would anybody be good if there wasn't a God?" At the end of the novel, the love Nic and his mother have for each other is stronger than their need to make the other one understand what they believe is true. They learn to respect each other, even if they don't respect each other's beliefs. And it's not just because of Lucy's brain tumor, which is one of the things the blurb made me fear.
It's not a perfect ending. But at the center of this novel is Nic's family, and his family's conflict is resolved, even while the important questions with which the characters struggle will continue to be debated and fought over. It's interesting to see them raised in fiction and to get a little bit of the feeling of how deep and divisive they are for these characters, people who aren't interesting in arguing with any of us readers.
Have you talked to anyone lately who disagrees with you about rationalism or fundamentalism? If not, why not? Do you think we all tend to stick to our own side of the street these days?
The protagonist of the novel is Nic, age 13. That interests me already, as the mother of a 13-year-old boy. And his grandmother spouts the inoculation theory of religion, which I've spouted ever since before I first became a mother (once, memorably, to an Episcopalian priest): "Of course he's going to grow up and join some weird cult. What did you expect? You've got to give him a bit in the beginning so he can grow antibodies to the real crazy stuff." But Nic's mother, Lucy, is an atheist and has raised him as one, while many of the cool kids at his school are fundamentalist Christians. That interests me too, as one inhabitant of a small town where the school board still hasn't managed to fire a teacher (John Freshwater) who has done some of the same kinds of things that a character in this novel, Mr. Branden, does:
"He brought a Bible to class one day. Made this big show of sneaking it out of the drawer....One day Ms White, our principal, came in and sat at the back of the class taking notes. Mr. Branden didn't mention [God] once."
There's also a character in the novel, Mrs. Porter, who I was prepared to dislike, early on, because she "got them to put stickers on the biology books saying that evolution is just a theory." But as the novel goes on, the characters become more real, and Mrs. Porter also does some genuinely thoughtful things for people, including Nic and his mother. She reminds me of the mother of a boy on Walker's soccer team who is an ardent John Freshwater supporter and also one of the nicest people I've ever met.
I thought Nic's mother missed a good chance to explain the difference between a philosophical and a scientific theory when she and Nic discuss some of the young-earth creationist books Mrs. Porter gives Nic. But this is a story about people, and the interest of it is not so much in the ideas, but in hearing about stuff like the 13-year-old's opinions about who God likes (his pretty young friend Sandra Miller) and who God doesn't like (Mrs. Vogler, an old lady whose child was killed in an auto accident). The part where Nic wishes for a mother like Mrs. Porter, who would "probably jump up and offer to make me a sandwich" rings absolutely true to me. Also the part where the 13-year-old blames his mother for the failure of his parents' marriage sounds like genuine young teen ranting: "all she had to do was make some meals, do the laundry, and keep her husband, and she's failed completely." Nic definitely sounds like a real 13-year-old to me when he muses "the more I learn about life the more I realize grownups have no idea what they're talking about. I guess I'm just surprised how much they don't know. Until a couple of years ago I thought they knew everything and it turns out they can't agree on anything."
The fundamentalist Christians are aligned with this 13-year-old way of thinking when Mrs. Porter's son Kevin says to Nic that Lucy got brain cancer because she isn't Christian, making it personal the way Nic had earlier made the ideas about who God likes and who he doesn't. Kevin says to Nic: "God's attacking her brain. Think about it."
What interests me most in this novel are the parts where someone who strikes me--and Nic's mother--as wrong explains his or her point of view. When Nic's Muslim babysitter Layla wears a headscarf, for example, she says it's because "I am treated as a person, not a sex object." When Nic talks to the new "senior pastor" at his church (at the urging of Mrs. Porter), he is asked "Do you know what happens when we think for ourselves?" and told (immediately) that the answer is "moral decay." The most incomprehensible scene, for me, is when Nic's fundamentalist Christian friend Melissa attacks Lucy's research to find out the mass of a planet, saying "God will reveal it to her when He's ready" and then giving a speech about why scientists shouldn't try to find out anything about our world: "Don't you think He has enough problems without people nitpicking the details. Try to refute His story. Coming up with wacky theories of their own. He's exhausted. Here He is trying to conquer Satan and your mom is quibbling about how old His universe is." Finally Melissa works herself into such a frenzy she pulls out Lucy's computer wires, asking him "Do you want her to prove there is no God?"
The fundamentalist theme culminates in a back-and-forth reading Layla and Nic do with the Koran and the Bible, a reading that leaves neither party on a clear moral high ground.
The end of the novel, though, is partly a celebration of the virtues of organized religion. Mrs. Porter is the kindest and one of the most useful people who come to visit Lucy in the hospital. A pastor helps Nic get some perspective on his situation, and afterward Nic thinks there should be a class in "Death and How to Survive It" and "the first thing they'd have to teach you is to never go to an atheist funeral....They are not a hell of a lot of fun. They try to be cheery because they're supposed to be celebrating a person's life, but there's no MC like a pastor or anything so people just wander around with huge craters in their hearts."
Nic reaches a point where he seems better able to answer his own question, posed early in the novel: "why would anybody be good if there wasn't a God?" At the end of the novel, the love Nic and his mother have for each other is stronger than their need to make the other one understand what they believe is true. They learn to respect each other, even if they don't respect each other's beliefs. And it's not just because of Lucy's brain tumor, which is one of the things the blurb made me fear.
It's not a perfect ending. But at the center of this novel is Nic's family, and his family's conflict is resolved, even while the important questions with which the characters struggle will continue to be debated and fought over. It's interesting to see them raised in fiction and to get a little bit of the feeling of how deep and divisive they are for these characters, people who aren't interesting in arguing with any of us readers.
Have you talked to anyone lately who disagrees with you about rationalism or fundamentalism? If not, why not? Do you think we all tend to stick to our own side of the street these days?
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Children Star contest
I reviewed The Children Star by Joan Slonczewski earlier this fall, and today a new edition is available at Amazon. The author is offering a chance at a prize--a signed first edition of A Door Into Ocean (winner of the John Campbell award in 1986)--to anyone who buys this new edition of The Children Star. If you want a chance at this prize, tell me you've bought The Children Star and leave your email address in the comments. The winner will be chosen at random (and asked to forward the online receipt). The contest will run until Jan. 7, 2010, when the winner will be announced.
The new cover art is by Nathan Silver:
The new cover art is by Nathan Silver:
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Book Review Blog Carnival #32
Welcome to the thirty-second edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival!
Book reviews
The "hall monitor" presents Book Review: Youth in a Suspect Society posted at DetentionSlip.org, saying, "Find out how our schools started to resemble prisons."
Jim Murdoch presents Death of a Superhero by Anthony McCarten posted at The Truth About Lies, saying, "Donald Delpe is your typical 14 year-old, obsessed by sex and not getting any. He's also not your typical 14 year-old in that he's dying of cancer. How he copes with this is by drawing superhero comics but like nothing DC or Marvel would touch with a bargepole. An odd book - part narrative, part script, part comic-book outline – but also a painfully funny book when it's not being tragic. Donald's main concern is not his impending death but whether or not he'll get laid before he goes. Currently being made into a film, due for release in 2010 starring Freddie Highmore."
Sparky Bates presents You've Been Warned - by James Patterson & Howard Roughan posted at Accidental Reads, saying "Although thoroughly engaging and enjoyable, this book was a little bit on the 'weird' side."
Jim presents So What? by Mark Magnacca posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity, saying that it's "a book about how to change your mindset so that you become a more effective communicator and salesperson."
Dan MacKinnon presents mathematical lapses posted at mathrecreation, saying, "A short post about the mathematical humor in Stephen Leacock's Literary Lapses."
Steven Bush presents The Good Men Project: Real Stories From the Front Lines of Modern Manhood posted at Book Dads: Fathers That Read!, saying, "The Good Men Project: honest and compelling true stories by men writing about being Fathers, Sons, Husbands, and Workers."
Jim Murdoch presents Seeing Things posted at The Truth About Lies, saying, "The Clangers, Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog – these beloved children's programmes all flowed from the pen of Oliver Postgate and yet his work in animation only made up part of a fascinating life which is opened up for us in his autobiography, 'Seeing Things' which includes his time as an inventor (he built a solar-powered house long before 'green' became popular) and also his anti-nuclear campaigning. The chapter covering his time in the army is pure Spike Milligan. A great read."
Bart's Bookshelf presents The Magicians by Lev Grossman posted at Bart's Bookshelf, saying "There’s an elephant in this room, and it is one that it is impossible for this book to get away from. Teenagers. Going to a magical boarding school. Complete with quirky teachers. And a weird game involving magic…"
Bart's Bookshelf presents Review: Kiss of Death by Marcus Sedgwick posted at Bart's Bookshelf, describing it as the companion/follow-up vampire novel to My Swordhand is Singing."
Vishal k Bharadwaj presents Book Review - Perdido Street Station posted at allVishal.com, saying, "Finally read a book I'd been looking forward to reading for a long, long time. I liked it enough to come up with a fake book cover (the paperback's is hideous), but as with most books, that's not the whole story..."
Swapnil Warang presents "Midnight's Children" posted at switch2life saying that the novel "covers various topics from the Indian independence, partition, Pakistan’s militarization, birth of Bangladesh, to emergency period in India. But does it really deserve the popularity it got? I would say no. The book just had too many things happening in it."
Morgan Schwartz presents My Snowman wants a Kindle posted at Omaha.net - Local Writing from the Heartland.
BWL presents The New Savage Number | Review posted at Christian Personal Finance, saying, "A short, but sweet, review of Terry Savage's "The New Savage Number."
Children's books
NathanKP presents “The Tale of Despereaux,” by Kate DiCamillo posted at Books For Sale?, saying, "“The Tale of Despereaux,” by Kate DiCamillo is a Newbery Award Medal winning tale about a young mouse who is in love with a human princess."
Keira, a guest blogger, presents 9 Ways to Get Kids to Read, saying in the last one: "Above all don’t force reading. If you do, reading will be forever associated with bad memories. It’s like root canal that way." Posted at Literature Young Adult Fictions.
Steven Bush presents Testing the Ice: A True Story About Jackie Robinson posted at Book Dads: Fathers That Read!, saying, "Testing the Ice offers a unique insight into a man who changed the face of American sports and helped launch the civil rights movement, by portraying him as a father from the view of one of his own children."
Fiction
Clark Bjorke presents Oryx and Crake posted at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book!, saying, "Pigoons, rakunks, snats and wolvogs, no it's not Edgar rice Burroughs, it's Margaret Atwood."
KerrieS presents Review: A SHILLING FOR CANDLES, Josephine Tey posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "The discovery of the body of a popular screen actress washed up on a beach on the southern coast of England sparks an investigation headed by Scotland Yard's top detective, Inspector Alan Grant. Christine Clay's death hits the headlines, has a global impact, "society" dusts off its mourning blacks in hope of an invitation to her funeral, and yet what comes out is that almost no-one knew who she really was. A clairvoyant claims to have foretold her death, and her estranged brother seems to have disappeared."
KerrieS presents Review: TOO CLOSE TO HOME, Linwood Barclay posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE, saying, "17 year old Derek Cutter has it all worked out. When his neighbours the Langleys go on a week's holiday, their house will provide a perfect lovenest for him and his girlfriend Penny. All he has to do is hide in their house, wait for them to leave, and then persuade Penny to come over. Except things go wrong. Donna Langley takes ill a short way from home and they come home soon after leaving. Derek is trapped in the house and has to wait for them to go to sleep. Within minutes all three Langleys are dead, killed by a gunman."
Ms. Smarty Pants presents No One Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All, saying, "a short and focused work from the Nobel winner."
Non fiction
ARJ presents "A Year On the Wing" Enthralls posted at Science On Tap, saying, "Book review of an absolutely great read from British first-time author Tim Dee, "A Year On the Wing: Four Seasons in a Life With Birds." One of the best pieces of nature-writing in a long while.
Alyce presents Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown posted at At Home With Books. This is a review of a new illustrated edition, and Alyce says "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee documents many, many tragedies, but does a good job of providing the information in chronological order so that you can see the progression of events; the cause and effect. The stories of massacres are not limited to those inflicted on the Native Americans, but also tell of those for which the Native Americans were responsible."
The editorial blog at the self-help site Your Best Library recommends The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, saying "Have you ever wondered why some people are more successful than others? What is it that makes or breaks the business deals, friendship, or romance? What is the top priority employers consider when they are hiring, firing, or promoting? Intelligence? Education? Looks?"
Angel R. Rivera presents Booknote: Working for You Isn't Working For Me posted at The Itinerant Librarian, saying, "From the review, "The book is not perfect, but if you are dealing in a workplace with a toxic boss, then this is a good book to read in order to help you deal with the situation.""
Jeanne presents Manhood for Amateurs posted at Necromancy Never Pays, saying, "These essays are not only for men. They're for any contemplative person who wants some ideas presented in short bits, like little pieces of brain candy to pop in and suck on from time to time."
Novel
Grant McCreary presents In Hovering Flight posted at The Birder's Library, saying that the author is "obviously interested in birds, but I don’t know if she would consider herself a birder. But if not, she definitely did her homework, as she got the little details right."
Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
A denunciation of necromancy
ReadersGuide posted this photo for me today. Isn't it lovely? She says it belongs to the church right across the street from her house!
Friday, December 4, 2009
Buying poems for the holidays
I've been making a list of poetry books for Buy Books for the Holidays, because giving someone a book of poems as a gift can be romantic, or at least different. I've checked to see that all of the books on my list are available new, and have only included two that seem to be currently available only in used editions.
for children:
Starting a child out with a love of rhyme and rhythm can give that child a love of language for life. One of the books I read to my children from infancy on was
Jan Pienkowski's Little Monsters.
You should also be reading books by Dr. Seuss to babies, of course. And
Mother Goose.
Toddlers should have A Child's Garden of Verses, by R.L. Stevenson, read to them.
Also A.A. Milne's Now We Are Six.
Children from toddlers to 5th grade will like Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic.
Elementary-age kids will like Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children and
Edward Gorey's rhyming ABC book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies.
Sometime during the elementary years, you should get your children reading poetry out loud, and Fleischman and Beddow's Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices is good for that.
Also to read out loud to children:
Robert Service, Collected Poems
101 Famous Poems, Roy Cook
a book that my children and I loved is, sadly, no longer easily available except in used editions, Roy Blount Jr.'s Soup Songs.
Here is one of my favorites from it:
Green Pea Lover's Sad Song
I tried to eat my English peas.
The peas they had their own ideas.
and here is my other, slightly longer, favorite (it comes with an illustration and a related quotation):
Song to Catsup
If every food your parents hatsup
Tastes like something to matsup
With something not even a buzzard would snatsup,
Add catsup.
Catsup will fix up all kinds of yuck.
You'll find a way to pour it on your turnips with luck.
And if you can't--
Since children can't
Turn turnips down--
Find a way to pour
Your turnips on the floor.
And if your mother sees you, move to another town.
Catsup makes you well.
It's tangy, gooey, red.
Pour it on your shirt and tell
Your parents you are dead.
for young adults:
There are book versions of Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins, and also
180 more. These offer short, easily understandable poems appropriate for most people of middle and high school age.
Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times, edited by Neil Astley, offers a mix of new, translated, and classic poems. Recommended for the teen girl, mostly because the cover photo shows a female face.
Various short poems that tell a book-length story are available; my daughter's hands-down favorite since she was in sixth grade is
What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones.
for adults:
If you think a person might like a particular poet, get the Collected Poems.
The Norton Introduction to Poetry provides a wide-ranging selection of mostly British and American poetry.
Great Sonnets, edited by Paul Negri and available in a cheap Dover edition, is a selection of famous short (14 line) poems.
For some fun with poetry, try the Norton Book of Light Verse
or, for the recent swine flu victim, The Pig Poets by Henry Hogge.
One of my favorite fun collections is now only available used,
Unauthorized Versions: Poems and their Parodies, edited by Kenneth Baker.
Here's a sample:
Original poem: Robert Browning's Home-Thoughts, from Abroad (quoted in Noel Streatfeild's British children's story Apple Bough)
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffink sings on the orchard bough
In England--now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops--at the best spray's edge--
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups the little children's dower
--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
Unauthorized version, entitled Home Truths from Abroad:
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees some morning, in despair,
There's a horrible fog i' the heart o' the town,
And the greasy pavement is damp and brown;
While the rain-drop falls from the laden bough,
In England--now!
And after April when May follows,
How foolish seem the returning swallows.
Hark! how the east wind sweeps along the street,
And how we give one universal sneeze!
The hapless lambs at thought of mint-sauce bleat,
And ducks are conscious of the coming peas.
Lest you should think the Spring is really present,
A biting frost will come to make things pleasant,
And though the reckless flowers begin to blow,
They'd better far have nestled down below;
And English spring sets men and women frowning,
Despite the rhapsodies of Robert Browning.
Those are my ideas for some poems you could give as gifts. If the person you're shopping for has definite tastes in poetry and you're not sure which poets he or she particularly likes, there's always Poetry Comics (Dave Morice) or magnetic poetry, which are sure to produce a grin from all but the most pompous poetry-lovers!
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