If I had to choose one picture to sum up my pandemic experience, it would be this one. The barbed wire and industrial metal juxtaposed against a lovely sky.
It has been both terrible and wonderful. Here’s to more wonderful, less terrible.
An Ordinary Day
Elena K. Arnold
Read for Librarian Book Group
One street, two kids playing, two houses, two visitors, and Magnificent the Crow continuing her declarations about everything. This is how picture books are done!
My Best Friend
Julie Fogliano & Jillian Tamaki
Read for Librarian Book Group
There are poeple who don’t mind all lowercase text, but I am not one of them. Especially in picture books.
Outweighing my the lack of punctuation are the great illustrations. I loved the panel of turning leaves into skeleton hands.
The Paper Kingdom
Elena Ku Rhee & Pascal Campion
Read for Librarian Book Group
Daniel’s parents are night janitors. One night he must accompany them to work. Gorgeous illustrations and a story about people who often don’t get to tell their stories.
Snail Crossing
Cory R. Tabor
Read for Librarian Book Group
Snail is cabbage bound and nothing will get in his way. Or so he thinks.
This book is funny.
Planet Omar, Accidental Trouble Magnet
Zanib Mian & Nasaya Maffaridik
Read for Librarian Book Group
The style of big illustrated words among normal text took some getting used to, but I enjoyed this hybrid graphic novel format. Maybe we can call it text with extra pop?
The experiences with the neighbor felt spot on. The book was called “The Muslims” in Britain. I hope books like this will help the US move through the stage of giving suspicious glances to our Muslim neighbors.
Girl Unframed
Deb Caletti
Read for Librarian Book Group
There have been a smattering of books in the past few years touching on the point when a girl’s body starts attracting the attention of the general public—that changeover from being a girl to being an object.
This book is about that, and is more complicated than most because Sydney’s mother is a fading actress known for her body. Thanks to Caletti’s talent this book is full of uncomfortable (yet so familiar) situations, some fine art analysis, and a good love story.
Go with the Flow
Lily Williams & Karen Schneemann
Read for Librarian Book Group
Four friends work to change their high school’s practice of not stocking the feminine hygiene dispensers as well as to talk more about periods. The graphic novel’s color palette is marvelous and there are good observations about differing needs among friends.
Six Feet Over It
Jennifer Longo
While we can all agree that abusive parents are terrible, I also find parents who check out of their parental duties to be harmful to the health of children and adolescents. Two such parents populate this novel.
I’m always interested in the stories of teenagers who take on adult responsibilities too early as Leigh has. She’s been put to work selling grave sites at the cemetery her father has purchased on a whim. The Pre-Need people are okay. The At-Need Customers are a lot for a fifteen-year-old to take on. She’s also mourning the loss of her town, her friend, and keeping all of this all under wraps because of her older sister’s illness.
Calling My Name
Liara Tamani
Sometimes books aren’t anchored around a plot, but move through a period of a character’s life. This is the story of Taja from about age eleven to eighteen. It’s about faith and changed beliefs and love and finding what’s good for you, rather than what you should do.
Story of a Girl
Sara Zarr
Zarr is great at capturing dysfunctional family life as with Deanna, who was caught by her father at age 13 having sex with her older brother’s friend. She’s had the label of school slut ever since, and her father still can’t look at her, three years later.
What was interesting was the day-to-day of living with that label. Deanna has plans for escape, but they depend on her job and her older brother.
This was a good read that ended abruptly.
Sweethearts
Sara Zarr
Oh man, the food feelings! No book has ever captured them as well as this one.
Also, if food feelings aren’t your thing (or you have no idea what I’m talking about) there’s a great friendship that starts in elementary school but is cut off abruptly.
As always with Zarr, the parents just aren’t quite plugged in.
What We Lost
Sara Zarr
Sara Zarr’s examination of imperfect parents continues with Samara’s dad, a pastor who has no time for his wife and child. Plus, her mom’s in rehab.
When an acquaintance goes missing and is believed to be lost, Sam feels lost. There are a lot of good levels of uncomfortable in this book.
The Best Laid Plans
Cameron Lund
I love a punny title and this one is a winner! I also love books about virginity and its loss. I didn’t love that I predicted every plot turn of this novel.
Being Toffee
Sarah Crosson
In this novel in verse, Allison runs away and ends up living with Marla, a woman living with dementia, who thinks Allison is Toffee, a woman from her growing-up years.
It was unsatisfying to not find out more about Marla’s life and who Toffee was, but this was probably realistic.
The Last Time We Say Goodbye
Cynthia Hand
Oh suicide. How your effects ripple through the world.
Lex is finishing her senior year and still grieving her brother’s death. Cynthia Hand hits all the feelings.
Between this and the How and the Why, I’m completely on board with anything Cynthia Hand writes. (I was already on board for her collaboration that has resulted in the Janey books.)
Since You Asked
Maureen Goo
Spend a year with Holly Kim, copyeditor of her school’s newspaper. The September-to-June format threw off my three-act pacing feel, and I found it had some miscues at some points.
But for hanging out with a sophomore girl find her way, it’s a solid book.
Standard Deviation
Katherine Heining
We take the temperature of a marriage that’s perhaps in its middle age. Graham is pondering his role as father to Matthew, husband to Audra and ex-husband to Elspeth.
This was one of the most amusing books I’ve read in a long time, thanks to Graham’s observations of his wife’s verbal vomit and his musings about life.
I came by this novel because I emailed the library asking for reading suggestions. I told them 10 grownup fiction books I’d liked over the last few years and within a day I got a list of books that were on the shelves at my library and suited to my tastes. If you haven’t taken advantage of your local library’s wealth of knowledge, please do not hesitate to contact them.
Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera
Candice Fleming & Eric Rohman
We travel with Apis as she is born and carries out her honeybee duties.
Gorgeous illustrations and an engaging narrative. Note that the back matter encourages people to “..write your congressman and senators…” I was surprised this gender-specific and inaccurate description of someone serving in the US Congress made it through the various rounds of editing. Currently, there are 101 women and 4 territorial representatives serving.
The Middle Finger Project
Ash Ambrige
Ash wants you to find your thing and she will tell you how she did it, and made tons of money.
This was inspiring and GREAT unemployment/pandemic reading.
If you are starting your creative business and you want more Ash, she has a 25-day email series that is top-notch and free.
(21 total movies watched.) (There was an at-home vacation.) (So more movies than normal.)
Seven strangers, five rooms.
Untold numbers of gymnasts
One assistant, one awful job.
Three incredible performances.
One mother, one daughter, two different goals.
Three astronauts and a bunch of nerds.
Two people, one continent between them.
Four mercenaries, one newcomer.
One musical, filmed for cinema.
Three timelines, one movie.
Two wedding guests, one day.
One girl, two cousins.
One band of incredibly talented people.
One week left on probation, two sisters.
Re-watched this month: Hamilton, Avengers Endgame
The farmer slowed down in July, though I think also I didn’t take pictures every single time. Note that I made mention of the last of the peas, and that there were some radish greens to eat. The dark green thing in the lower left picture are tree collards.
Directed by Ni DaCosta
Written by Ni DaCosta
A quality dramatic film with about the life of a person facing economic challenges is always a win in my book, which makes this film a winner.* In this “modern Western**” Tessa Thompson and Lily James play sisters who are doing what they can to hold onto their family home and vanquish other complications. For both actors, it’s a chance to be not glamorous while flexing their serious drama skills so we can see their characters’ fight for survival,*** set in the North Dakota oil boom.****
Cost: $12.99 (monthly Disney+ and Hulu combo fee)
Where watched: at home
*They’re difficult to make. Poverty is grinding and it’s harder to wring dramatic tension out of a story about ends continually not meeting than one where, say, a meteor is going to hit earth, or a ship is sinking.
**The synopsis on IMDB calls it a modern Western. I’m not sure I agree with the term.
***In the grand tradition of always questioning poor people’s choices, I found myself wondering why they didn’t rent out some rooms in the house. I think maybe the mother had just died though, so perhaps that was hampering the process.
****I enjoyed seeing this particular slice of life, which I had only read about.
The story was initially conceived as a modern retelling of Othello, which is where the names Deb and Ollie/Oleander come from.
Among the things I’ve learned in 2020? That the nondescript building not far from my house is the headquarters of the Portland Police Union. How do I know this? Because it’s become a regular site for nightly protests in my neighborhood.
Though I’m close enough to walk to this corner in ten-ish minutes, I don’t ever hear the protests, or smell the tear gas. But sometimes on my morning walks I see the remnants of the previous night’s protest.
I think the fastest way for the police to end the protests is to stop acting aggressively when faced with people protesting that the police are too aggressive.
Another thing I learned in 2020? A lot of times (especially this summer) when police declare a protest a riot it means they want everyone to go home.
Directed by Andrew Fried
Written by Brian Anton, Peter Curtis
The main draw to this documentary is to see Lin-Manuel Miranda in 2005, back before he was Lin-Manuel Miranda,* but what ended up hooking me was this story of an improv group doing full shows in hip-hop freestyle rhyme.** It’s fun to see shows from both 2005 and 2019 and to hear the participants talk about how important the group was to their lives. With this many people the narrative spreads thin and it felt like a lot of things got skipped, but overall, this was fascinating to watch.***
Cost: Hulu monthly fee ($12.99 in combo with Disney+)
Where watched: at home
*I recognized Miranda, but then the name Thomas Kail sounded familiar. “Wasn’t that the director of Hamilton?” I asked myself. It was. Then someone else looked familiar. “Is that the George Washington guy from Hamilton?” Yes it was Chris Jackson. Matt wandered in and said, “I recognize that Utkarsh guy.” He was the boyfriend in Brittany Runs a Marathon.
**I’m always up for the creativity of improv, this added a new level. Also, as a person who’s knowledge stops with Yo! MTV Raps, I have no idea if “hip-hop freestyle rhyme” was the best way to describe what they do. Am I saying the same thing three times?
***It was good insight into where the torrent of words from Hamilton came from. Stephen Merchant was my stand-in, asking questions of the troupe as to how they manage to think of the rhymes off the top of their head.
Directed by Vince Marcello
Written by Vince Marcello, Jay S. Arnold
Good gravy, don’t teenage girls deserve story logic like teenage boys do?* Nothing in this film makes sense, especially the time line** but also people’s motivations are cued at the need of the plot. Regardless, did I watch the whole thing with a smile on my face?***
Also Good, if you are in the right mood and willing to overlook many, many flaws.
Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home
Further sentences:
*Yes, they do!
**The time line in this film operates at speed of plot. Sending in college applications in September? Finding out if you got into schools in June? Homecoming carnival happening after Thanksgiving? Still unanswered from the first movie: Dance Club? Who are the other members? What does the club do?
***Yes.
The movie is set in Los Angeles but mostly filmed in Cape Town, South Africa.
I needed an afternoon off, so I rode my bike to the Grotto, where I passed a very peaceful couple of hours. Some things I saw:
This statue, which I only took a picture of because Matt’s brother is named Thad.
This great brass casting.
The difference between the stones in the labyrinth. The lighter ones are the path, the darker ones are the lines.
