April Fool's Day a look back...

I know that most people look forward to April Fool's Day with anticipation. I am not one of those people. My husband is particularly good at practical jokes. So while most people cannot wait for the fun to begin, I wonder, 'What's going to happen next?’  This year is going to be different. I am going to take the bull by the horns (figuratively speaking of course) and plan some good pranks of my own. I am investigating pranks a plenty and I will finally have my day! To insure my success I have studied the world wide web and found some helpful books.

While I was trying to discern how to prank someone successfully, I wondered how April Fool's Day began. It isn't a legal holiday, yet most countries celebrate it in some form. Some historians believe the celebration began back in 1582 when the Gregorian calendar changed the start of the new year from the week of April 1 to January 1. Word spread slowly and some foolish people were reluctant to accept the change. They continued celebrating the New Year on April 1st. These individuals thereby earned the title of ’Fool’. People in their wonderful prankful way decided to send these 'fools' on errands. Thus began the April Fool's Day Frivolity.

During my quest for pranks I learned that even big business enjoys jokes.  Starbucks created a Plenta size (128 fl. oz.) and Micra size (2 fl. oz.) coffees to appear on April 1st of last year.  One website even went so far as to remove all the vowels in their transmission on April 1st. I laughed myself silly over that one.  I think I recall thinking there might have been a computer glitch last year. Of course, my savvy husband was aware that this was an April Fool's Day Joke (Sigh).

Sorry I digress, You, lucky readers, (whether you are cowering in dread of the April Fool's Day antics or gleefully rubbing your hands together waiting to catch some innocents by surprise) shall benefit from my investigation. I hope these books and websites help you get the most of your holiday frolic! I am sure I will finally succeed in tricking someone this year. I know I can do it. Wishing you success and lighthearted fun this April Fool's Day!

 

 The Practical Jokers Handbook collected by Tim Nyberg

51 High Tech Practical Jokes for the Evil Genius by Brad Graham

Cubicle Warfare: 101 office traps and pranks by John Austin

Sir John Hargrave's Mischief Maker's Manual by Sir John Hargrave

http://www.practicaljokebook.com/

www.aprilfools.us

Nicaraguan Authors and Poets

Ruben Dario would have been 144-years-old this year.  Born in Metapa, Nicaragua in 1867, he is one of the greatest poets in the Spanish language.  I first learned about Dario when I was in college and took a Latin American literature class.  He is a household name in Latin America but he is barely known in the the English-speaking world because his works are difficult to translate.  He began publishing poems at the age of 12 and his rustic birthplace is now named Ciudad Dario.  He traveled all over Latin America, worked as a journalist, visited France and New York, was married twice, and became a diplomat. He fathered several children, wrote an autobiography, went bankrupt, and died of pneumonia at the age of 49.  More than a century after his death, he is revered as a folk hero around Central America. A huge portrait of him greets arrivals at Managua's international airport.

This is my favorite poem by Dario translated into English:

El Nacimiento de la Col (The Birth of the Cabbage)

In the Garden of Eden, on a clear day when the flowers were created, and before Eve was tempted by the serpent, the evil spirit approached the most beautiful new rose, at the moment when she was offering to the caress of the celestial sun the red purity of her lips.
"You are beautiful."
"Indeed I am," said the rose.
"Beautiful and happy," continued the devil. "You have the color, the grace, and the scent.  However..."
"However?"
"You are not useful.  Can you see those tall trees bent with the weight of their acorns?  Those, besides being leafy, feed multitudes of live beings that come to rest underneath the branches.  Rose, to be beautiful isn't much..."
The rose then- tempted as a woman would be after- wished to be useful, so much that she became pale.
The Good Lord passed by the next morning.
"Father," said the floral princess, trembling in her scented beauty- "Would you make me useful?"
"So be it, my daughter," the Lord answered, smiling.
And so the world saw the first cabbage.

Try Dario's works along with these other talented Nicaraguan writers.

Songs of Life and Hope by Ruben Dario

Stories and Poems by Ruben Dario

Homage to the American Indians by Ernesto Cardenal

Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand by Gioconda Belli

The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Belli

Road from Ar Ramadi by Camilo Mejia

The Adults

The Adults, Alison Espach's debut novel, has left me feeling a bit discombobulated.  It is wryly, tragically humorous and the dialog between characters is so smart, it reads like an Aaron Sorkin or Amy Sherman-Palladino script.  (Nobody I know talks like this in real life, but it's fun to imagine they do.)  Still, the humor is laid like a thin veneer on top of a very troubling story.  It is the story of Emily Marie Vidal, an appropriately disaffected 15-year-old from an appropriately dysfunctional family in a wealthy neighborhood in suburban Connecticut.  It is the story of her father's infidelity with the neighbor, her parents' subsequent divorce, and the apparently-related suicide of the neighbor's husband.  It is the story of the illicit love affair between Emily and her 24-year-old English teacher that grows amidst the tragedy.  And, ultimately, it is the story of growing up, even if what that means is different than what it seemed in childhood to be. 

None of the characters escape Espach's pen in the assessment of the 21st century disaffected, ironic, suburban culture.  Each of the characters, including Emily, is portrayed with flaws.  Each seems to be striving toward something they're not: older or younger; richer or more beautiful; more intelligent or less.  The most disappointing aspect of the book is the disconnect between Emily's teen years and her young adulthood.  College is treated with a few cursory sentences in retrospect from the vantage point of her early twenties. Jumping from (chronological) immaturity to (chronological) adulthood glosses over a key time when the transition that is, or ought to be, made.  Each review of this book that I've seen is a little better than the last, but I'm not sure I came away liking the book, and I definitely didn't have much affinity for the characters.  Still, the story is interesting in its unsettling ways and offers a lot to think and talk about.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: 100 Years Later

On March 25, 1911, New York City was the location for one of the deadliest industrial disasters in U. S. history.  The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, most of them immigrant women.  Many of the workers could not escape because the managers had locked the doors to the stairs and exits.  The fire led to legislation that improved factory safety standards and led to better conditions for factory workers.
This month is the 100th anniversary of the fire and this year's commemoration event will be different. The five women and one man that had previously been unidentified were finally given names and the complete roll of the dead will be read on March 25, 2011, in New York. 
I don't know why this horrible event has always fascinated me.  Empathy for the victims and their families?  Bittersweet gladness at the improved labor laws? Or is it that my birthday (March 25th) is always a constant reminder?  Whatever the reason, I am happy that the families of the six will finally have closure and that their loved ones can now be recognized.

Triangle: the Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle

Triangle by Katharine Weber--large print fiction

Lost by Jacqeline Davies--young adult fiction

Threads and Flames by Esther Friesner--young adult fiction

Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix--young adult fiction



This memorial sits over the graves of the previously unknown. These are their names:

Maria Giuseppa Lauletti
Max Florin
Concetta Prestifilippo
Josephine Cammarata
Dora Evans
Fannie Rosen

Cinderella Ate My Daughter

As I handed out vitamins over breakfast this morning, a debate ensued over who got Belle and who got Ariel.  As I walked out of the house, after handing over pink lunchboxes and backpacks, I tripped over a pair of rhinestone-encrusted pink shoes while looking at the 3-story pink doll house.  As I pulled out of the garage, I glanced at the lavender and pink princess-adorned bikes in the corner.  And as I read Peggy Orenstein's new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, I read it not as a dispassionate book reviewer, but as the mother of two young daughters.  By page 20, I was ready to do a sweep of the toys in my house.  But, the further I read into the book, the more I realized Orenstein wasn't advocating an end to the pink, frilly culture so much as she was using her investigative skills to try to resolve a personal dilemma: how do I parent my young daughter in today's culture?  She was writing it with the same questions I had as I read it. 

As a journalist, Orenstein's spent the past 20 years writing about issues that affect girls and women.  Clearly, she was coming at the princess brigade with a slightly jaundiced eye.  However, she approaches the question of the impact of the hyper-sexualized images and toys that we present young girls in a fairly open, questioning manner.  She is forthright with her ambivalence, which I found refreshing both as a reader and as a parent.  She doesn't provide any clear answers, but neither does she shy away from more controversial topics.  As she said in an interview on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, she can't point to a clear-cut causality that exposing little girls to everything pink is going to turn them into overly sexualized, depressed teenagers.  However, there are trends and patterns of which we should be aware.  She raises some points similar to Cecelia Rivenbark's Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank: And Other Words of Delicate Southern Wisdom (Best. Title. Ever.). 

I once pledged to have a princess-free household (clearly, this was before the girls were old enough to express opinions), but have since played various roles from the queen, to the fairy godmother, to the evil stepmother.  Cinderella Ate My Daughter raised interesting questions about the implications of the various things to which my daughters are exposed in a way that both comforted me and cautioned me to consider thinking about the implications.

It only takes a moment

  It's funny how one moment or event can make time slow and make you look at your life.  The book written by Lisa Genova, Left Neglected takes a glimpse at life for Sarah and her family.  Sarah was independent and a work-a-holic. She enjoyed her family but making time for them was another item on her long to-do list. This to-do-list came to a crashing halt the day she was looking for her phone while driving. It changed her family's life forever.

Lisa Genova follows up her NY Times best seller, Still Alice, with another surefire hit.  Left Neglected  is another fantastic book that details the lives of those who are brain injured. Her new book focuses on Left Neglect, an unusual brain injury, that is caused by damage to the right cerebral hemisphere. This injury causes the person to visually neglect the left-hand side of space. This means that the person with this injury cannot feel, recognize or see things on their left side. It could be the left side of a room, the left side of their body or even the left side of their plate.

Genova approaches this serious subject with humor and candor. She shows us what it is like as Sarah begins to realize all the changes she needs to make in her life to cope with her disability.  I highly recommend this book and hope you will look at your own priorities.  Perhaps one of the choices you will choose to make is not texting and driving.

The Informationist- A Terrific Debut Thriller

Debut novels, especially debut thrillers, scare me.  Is the plot going to be too convoluted?  Will it be too easy and you can guess how it ends by the second chapter?  Writing an effective thriller is extremely difficult, but Taylor Stevens has done a tremendous job with her debut novel The Informationist.

Vanessa Munroe is our main character.  She travels the globe compiling information for private and public companies about various foreign countries, such as local customs, nuances to the languages and who are the most powerful people.  At the beginning of the book she finishes one job only to find herself in quite a different one.  Oilman Richard Burbank hires Munroe as a last ditch effort to find his daughter, Emily, who went missing in Cameroon four years earlier.  Our heroine is very familiar with Cameroon, in ways both good and bad, and reluctantly takes the case. 

Munroe must trace Emily's steps through Africa with the assistance of Miles Bradford, a friend of Richard's whom he insists keep track of Munroe's movements.  However, Munroe has plans of her own as she hires the skills of Francisco Beyard.  Beyard is a gun-runner in Cameroon and has a past connection with Munroe.  As the three of them go through the heart of Africa, they soon begin wondering who they can trust.  It seems that everyone is trying to keep them from finding the truth behind Emily's disappearance.

Also, check out Taylor Stevens' website for information on her past life.  Very powerful stuff.

Happy 220th Birthday Vermont!

On March 4, 1791 Vermont became our 14th state.  It is called the Green Mountain state and has been ranked the most healthful place to live more times than any other state.  It is the 2nd least populated state in the Union and is our biggest producer of maple syrup.  What is so great about Vermont you ask?  Well besides lots of fresh air, no big crowds, and a huge appetite for pancakes (this is just a guess by the way)?  Vermont is the birthplace, home, and workplace of a lot of talented people.  Ben Affleck attended the University of Vermont.  Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan) spent the last fourteen years of his life in Vermont. Writer Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery") lived in North Bennington Vermont until her death in 1965. Try some books by these other literary "Vermonters":

Julia Alverez--This Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist is the Writer-in-Residence at Middlebury College.
Piers Anthony--this prolific Science Fiction/Fantasy author graduated from Goddard College in Plainfield.
Chris Bohjalian--author of Midwives and The Double Bind among others has lived in Lincoln since 1986.
Robert Frost--this world famous poet was a teacher for 42 years at Middlebury College in Ripton.
John Irving--this novelist and Oscar winning screenwriter has a home in Vermont.
Katherine Paterson--this celebrated children's author best known for Bridge to Terabithia is a long-time resident of Barre, Vermont.

A Little Ffamily Ffun

I've been reading Katie Fforde's books for years.  She writes charming, witty, cozy British chick lit.  Her style is predictable but reliable, and I know there's a good chance I'll enjoy whatever she puts out.  Her latest, Love Letters, certainly fits the bill.  A somewhat shy bookseller gets roped into planning a literary festival in the English countryside.  In order to get financing, she has to convince Ireland's version of J.D. Salinger (only younger and more handsome) to attend.  Predictably, misunderstandings, chaos, romance, and a few large dogs ensue.   Equally  as predictably, I really enjoyed it.  (Of particular note, if this book hadn't been released in the UK in 2009, I would've thought for sure a dinner party scene was taken directly from the Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult v. Jonathan Franzen and the literati brouhaha this past summer). 

Somewhat (by which I mean completely) tangentially, several years ago while browsing the shelves I noticed another author with the last name Fforde, this being Jasper, cousin-in-law to Katie.  I ignored him for years because I thought he wrote straight science fiction and, with all due respect to you sci-fi types, it's not on the top of my reading priorities.  But as I was putting together some book recommendations for a friend who was looking for witty, upbeat, literary fiction (it's a fairly short list) one name kept popping up.  I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with "lord" and is spelled with a few extra letters.  I realized that his books are much more difficult to define, and far more intriguing than I had given credit for.  I've just finished The Eyre Affair, the first of the Thursday Next series.  It's an alternate history in which literature is the most important part of culture, time travel is routine, and the third-most wanted man in the world is kidnapping fictional characters.  Thursday Next is the special ops literary detective assigned to finding Jane Eyre.  He's also got a series on nursery crimes (and, yes, they do include Humpty Dumpty's infamous fall). 

Of course, this is the part where readers everywhere are wondering: what is the connection?  How will she pull these together?  What is the tie that binds?  Well, ffrankly, these two Ffordes' books have nothing in common with each other.  But, really, when I read two books by two Ffordes in the same week, do you expect me to be able to ffight the temptation to sprinkle the blog with a ffew extra "f"s?  Ffat chance. 

The False Friend

Over dinner recently, some friends and I had a conversation about the horror that was junior high.  The consensus among both the men and women of the group was that girls in junior high have a harder time, in part because the boys are very clear where they fit in the social order while girls are constantly struggling to figure out where they are relative to others.  It was a particularly interesting conversation given that I had just finished Myla Goldberg's new book The False Friend, a book less about the vagaries of daily life in junior high than about the repercussions of those interpersonal dynamics decades later. 

32-year-old Celia maintains the same detachment in her personal relationships as she does as as an auditor for the state of Illinois.  When resurfaced memories of her past begin to surround her, Celia is compelled to travel home to upstate New York to share with her reserved family the secret she has been hiding for years: she watched her best friend Djuna fall down a hole in the forest, but told everyone the friend got into a stranger's car.  This seemingly straightforward, if disturbing, plot meanders as it is uncovered that Celia and Djuna had been the "mean girl" ringleaders of a group of middle-school acolytes, who were present at the periphery on the day in question.  Nobody, from Celia's family to the other girls involved believe her new account of the events, but force her to confront her perspective on her middle-school relationships.  What's left unwritten is the impact of Celia's newfound desire for a clear conscience on the people around her. 


Goldberg's writing is elegant and evocative.  If you like books that are told linearly with a clear conclusion, this probably isn't for you.  However, the ambiguities of the characters, the events of 20 years ago, and the resolution would make this a great book for a discussion group.

Hallelujah, I hope...

I love to read! There I said it.  So, it has driven me crazy for years that one of my children picks up a book and puts it down having not read it. My child is not malicious nor does she hate books, she just finds them difficult to read.  I spent a lot of time researching and learned that my daughter is not alone.  About 12% of the US Population has some form of dyslexia.  No two people with dyslexia have the same difficulties. Dyslexia is a language processing disorder, which makes it very, did I say very, I meant VERY difficult to read.  If you or someone you know is in a similar  situation, here are some great books and resources that may help.

One of my favorites is  Smart but feeling dumb : the challenging new research on dyslexia-- and how it may help you. It is a twenty year case study of dyslexia. Levinson offers guidance and shows that dyslexia is not the same for everyone.  He goes a step further and offers advice on how best to help the dyslexic, whether the dyslexic is 5 or 85.  A must read if you or someone you love is dyslexic.



The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald Davis is another excellent resource.  A fantastic medical book that reads like a novel. It helped me understand what reading for a dyslexic is like. It broke my heart and then kicked me into taking action for my child. This is a must read for anyone, any age, who struggles with reading. I encourage you to get help now!

Overcoming dyslexia : a new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level by Shaywitz, Sally E. This ia an amazing book, which is written by a yale doctor, who has studied dyslexia her entire career.  She gives simplified and complete instructions of how to help your child at any age overcome dyslexia.   She includes accommodations to include in a child's IEP.


If your child is struggling in school, listen to them. Talk to their teacher and have them evaluated. If the problem doesn't go away find the cause.  It is much easier to teach a young child how to cope with Dyslexia than it is for an older child.  Anyone can learn, but... it takes longer the older a person is when they began training.  

The resources are not always easy to locate so here are a few handy websites. 
http://www.cincinnatidyslexia.org/
http://www.dyslexia.com/

In the Queue

The Four Ms. Bradwells by Meg Waite Clayton


Mia, Lainey, Betts and Ginger have been friends through law school, career changes and failed marriages.  As Betts waits for Senate confirmation of her judicial appointment, an old secret turns the event into a nightmare.


Pacific Glory by P.T. Deutermann


Mick, Marsh and Tommy were inseperable during their Naval Academy years and each was in love with Glory Hawthorne.  Their lives are changed forever following an attack at Pearl Harbor.


William and Kate: A Royal Love Story by Christopher P. Andersen


The romance and upcoming marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton has captured the heart of Britain and the world.  Learn more about the future King and Queen of the United Kingdom.

Do you hear voices in the walls?

I don't like being scared.  Roller coasters have never made much sense to me, haunted houses seem like an exercise in self-torture, and ever since childhood, when Roald Dahl created in me a lasting fear of every woman wearing pointy-toed shoes (not cool, Roald, not cool), I've shied away from books with too much suspense or horror.  The one exception I'm willing to make on this is a good, meaty, piece of gothic fiction.  There's no real horror in books that can be described as gothic -- just a pervasive sense of creepiness.  (And, lest you think I'm being flip by using the word "creepy," the far-more-erudite-than-I Independent described gothic novels as having "creepiness, dark tone and [a] note of near-hysteria".)  Enter Kate Morton's new book The Distant Hours.

British book editor Edie Burchell has lived a quiet, restrained life.  When her mother receives a letter that was not delivered fifty years earlier, it sets off a chain of events that lead to Edie investigating that castle where her mother was an evacuee during World War II.  At Milderhurst, Edie begins to uncover decades of secrets kept by her mother, the three elderly sisters still living there, and their deceased father, the author of Britain's most loved children's tale, The Mud Man.   (Incidentally, The Mud Man sounds like a story that would've terrified me even more than The Witches did.)  It's a moody, dark, and creepy story.  It's full of madness, lost love, familial secrets, unrequited desires, and the occasional hint of voices in the walls.  Despite its length (562 pages) Morton kept my attention throughout, with a conclusion that ties everything together with a chillingly lovely twist.   

If you like British gothic novels, there are always classics like Jane Eyre and Rebecca.  For more modern takes, check out Maggie O'Farrell, whom the Boston Globe called "a feminist avenging angel who wields the modern Gothic like a gleaming sword," or Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale.  The Distant Hours is a great way to wrap up the gray, dreary days of winter.