New URL, New Look, Same Goal, Different Topic

I recently started building a personal learning environment to teach myself about digital learning and education technology. I'm trying out my first cMOOC, http://www.ooe13.org/, and I hear blogging helps with that process. I think it may also help me to turn 33 clipped articles in Evernote into something cohesive and more focused.

I spent a few minutes Googling to try to decide if I should start a new blog, or use my long-quiet existing blog in the process. My former URL was lay-ra.blogspot.com, and I used this space to learn about readers' advisory, a library science concept devoted to helping readers connect with books. Simply put, it's a sophisticated way to answer the question, "What do I read next?"

Now, I'm pleased to think of this as a space for me to learn in. Whatever that learning may be.

For the OOE13 folks, a little about me. I work on developing curriculum at an ed tech company. We recently had a reorg, and my role may be shifting somewhat. But for now, I've had some breathing room for personal research projects. My education background has been/is being cultivated in this position, so I've spent a lot of time just trying to acquaint myself with theoretical groundwork.

My recent personal research excitements have been:

• Carol Dweck's Mindset
• TPACK

From Joan Didion to Michelle Tea

I have been neglectful, but I don't allow myself to feel guilty about not blogging. If this thing becomes a burden, it will go away.

Here's what I've been reading in the month since we last saw each other.

Joan Didon's Play It As It Lays is what I blame for my absence. I didn't like it but felt like I should, and I don't know how to articulate why. I had no sympathy for the main character, and she felt so far removed that it was impossible for me to relate. I don't know if this is the frame of the story--the setting and the milieu it portrays (rich Hollywood-ers in the 1960s)--or a purposeful narrative technique.

I read Suzanne Collins's Mockingjay, and loved it. I reviewed it for my job but can't find a link to share with you. Sorry!

I started a YA Book Club, and our first book was Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It is funny and sad, with authentic feeling characterization. It is a quick read and employs fantastic drawings that add an extra element to the narrative. Everyone in the club liked it.

I'm currently reading David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife and Michelle Tea's Valencia.

Also, I've stopped posting about knitting here because I joined Ravelry. If you want to follow my projects there, the name is ACityBird.

*Edit* How could I forget Toni Morrison's Love?! I recently finished that one, too. I liked it, but I missed the raw horror of her previous books I've read. Don't get me wrong--it's not a happy story. The narrative jumps around, and it is unclear in the beginning how all the characters are related, which I found frustrating.

Malinda Lo's Ash

The cover of Malinda Lo's Ash shares a lot about the tone of the book--it is somewhat dark, scary, and sad but also peaceful and magical and beautiful.

It's a Young Adult novel that is is called on the back cover a "retold Cinderella" and "Cinderella, gorgeously reimagined." There is an orphan (Ash), a mean stepmother, magic (here in the form of fairies uniquely rendered somewhat scary and a little bit evil but still magically appealing), an unwed prince, and balls, but to me to compare this to the Disney singing-mice cartoon I grew up with is entirely offbase because of this book's tone and characters.

It is a character-centered story, although the plot is important and the pace is relatively quick. There are details of Ash's vivid dreams, the light in the Wood, the stepsisters' getting dressed for balls, fairy characteristics and clothes, and fairy tales. Yet it still feels very realistic and grounded. Ash is a human girl who is devastated by the loss of her parents but comes to tolerate the life she must live as servant to all that's left of her family. There is also organic-feeling romance.

RAview: The Calligrapher's Daughter

Eugenia Kim's The Calligrapher's Daughter is historical fiction that feels epic even though it only follows one woman's life over 30 years.

I think a lot of this book's appeal lies in its setting, detail, and story line--specifically Korea from 1915 to 1945. Compared to Japan and China, this is a little-evoked history in fiction, and many readers probably won't be familiar with the political conflict and economic hardships that troubled the country. My mom especially liked this book because the history was not too far before her childhood and she wasn't familiar with it at all.

Kim also details cultural mores in a way that feels very organic (rather than, look! an foreign culture! how quaint!, which does happen in some fiction set in the Eastern world). The food, the clothing, the customs. There are details of calligraphy, herbal remedies (the main character studies to be an obstetrician), wartime government control and civilian confusion.

It is leisurely paced and elegantly written. It seems to encourage more thinking than feeling (a head book rather than a heart book, if that makes any more sense to anyone). But the tone is sad, sometimes hopeful, love-ful. The main character is spirited and independent but very concerned with her faith and family obligations. There's a touching mother-daughter relationship.

Alice I Have Been

Melanie Benjamin's Alice I Have Been was a bit befuddling, but not in a frustrating way. Hence, I've put off writing about, and now feel even more directionless.

It is historical fiction. The real Alice, that is, the young girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland, was in a somewhat sketchy relationship with the man who would become Lewis Carroll. Alice narrates the story as an old woman and takes us through her life up to her present.

It is a slowly unfolding story with details of clothing and mores of mid-19th-century Oxford. It is somewhat unsettling but not as creepy as it might sound. It's subtle and the writing is lush.

One thing I can do for this book is identify a readalike--a nonfiction one, no less! Michael Holroyd's A Strange Eventful History is an epic biography of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, who became stage famous in England around the same time period as Benjamin's novel. There is a large cast of strange characters and artists, and the details well evoke the time period.

RAview: Wintergirls

In short, Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls is a YA novel about an 18-year-old girl with anorexia who is relapsing for the third time after the death of her childhood best friend, who had bulimia. In short, not a pretty story.

I would think Readers' Advisory librarians would want to subtly make clear that this book could be a trigger for someone suffering from these disorders or very difficult to read for loved ones. To me, this is not a fault of the book, but just an extra layer one should be aware of when recommending it. But, if you're concerned about that, here's Jezebel and the Times on this book as a trigger.

From my perspective, telling a prospective reader it is a raw, emotional, terrifying, and realistic exploration of the actions and thoughts of a young girl suffering from anorexia and other psychological disorders would suffice.

The pacing is fast, characteristic of a YA novel. The language is carefully crafted to mimic the main character Lia's thought processes. Anderson uses strike throughs, repetition, paragraph breaks, and ellipses to evoke Lia's confusion and fear. (these tactics could also fall into the story line appeal element of RA--not sure here.)

Characterization is great. The book is a very intimate look at Lia; and her friend who died, Cassie, is evoked via Lia's detailed, episodic memories and hallucinations. The tone is dark, scary, horrific, touching at times. But Lia is witty, and, although it's typically in the form of barbs directed at her parents, she can be funny. The setting is winter in New Hampshire, and Lia is always cold--it is effective to think of her skin-and-bones body in this harsh climate.

I've heard on panels and read in blogs that "YA" is not a genre, so, if I have to stick this in another one, I'll call it psychological suspense. Seems strange, but read the Wikipedia definition, and you'll be convinced. Also, now I can use it toward the "Thriller & Suspense Challenge"!

Notes on The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

I didn't like Alan Bradley's The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag nearly as much as the first book in the series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Although Readers' Advisors are supposed to look for what in a book will be appealing to readers, all I can do now is take the opposite approach and try to identify what I didn't like about it.

I just felt detached from the book. There's no suspense in it; the first was by no means suspenseful, but the second didn't thrill me in the least. I read for characters, and I already know Flavia de Luce, the young detective girl. She didn't develop in a significant way, and her character as an anomalous curiosity has worn off.

Much of the story line was relayed via storytelling from characters' mouths. This is not to say there is not description, but the writing did not feel as lush and evocative to me as the first book. Details relate to World War II, puppeteering, chemistry, the vicarage. The pace is leisurely. The language is fun and witty, and the tone would be quite dark were it not for Flavia's childhood perspective.