The Adoration of Jenna Fox

I first read The Adoration of Jenna Fox while participating in a book club for teachers at Hartsville High School.  This time I'm reading it with a teacher mindset.  While I liked the short diary entry segments before, I now also see how these break up the larger chapters and could be appealing to a range of readers.  None of the chapters is so long that it would deter reluctant readers.  The book has a lexile level of 570L, so it is accessible to a range of readers, but I do not feel like I am reading a children's book.

The book addresses a number of bio-ethical issues.  It would be a good tie-in to a more complex book like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and would also be a great discussion starter.   The plot is set in the future and paints a bleak picture of the possibilities of an increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria, medical intervention without limitations, and GMO plants.  However, there are some positive uses for technological advances, so this is not a dystopian novel.   It does bring up the dilemma of embracing the science that can bring us medical miracles while not losing our humanity.

I hope that students enjoyed this book as much as I do.  This is the first year that our school has offered YA novels for summer reading, and I look forward to discussing this book and others with my students.

Reading Anne Rice in New Orleans

I have almost finished The Witching Hour and was in New Orleans when I last spent time reading.  It was amazing to be able to put street names and sights to the books.  The Garden District is incredibly beautiful, and the cemeteries are so much more impressive than in photographs.  I can now better imagine the Mayfair tomb, as well as the one in which Petyr van Able was trapped!   If we had been there longer, I would have gone to see the Lafayette Cemetery and the Pontchartrain Hotel, but not seeing them this time is a good reason to go back.  

We spent a couple of hours in the New Orleans Museum of Art.  It has a wonderful selection from different time periods as well as incredibly good food in the cafe.  Neither have anything to do with what I'm reading, but they were too good to not mention. 

We drove to New Orleans from Pensacola, so we also got to walk on the white sand beaches described in the books.   We did not go into Destin, but I can at least picture the beautifully clear Gulf water and the beaches.  I-10 was a good drive from that direction, but I don't recommend I-10 east of New Orleans!  

Enjoying Anne Rice and noticing author's craft

I guess I'm still in teacher mode, or maybe it's because I've read this book so many times, because I'm noticing all of the foreshadowing that starts in the early chapters.  As a writer of poetry and short stories, I have never had to plan the way that Anne Rice clearly does.  It's only because I know this book so well that I notice the complexity of the details and the coherence of those details throughout the book.  Right now, I see writing a work of fiction like this as complex as playing chess with experts. This makes me admire my favorite authors so much more.

This also makes me question, once again, education's thoughts about classics and popular fiction.  Pride and Prejudice is a favorite of mine, but it does not have the complexity of The Witching Hour or The Stand, so why do so many English teachers talk about popular fiction with disdain?  (Not that I would teach The Witching Hour in a high school class.  But I see no problem with students reading popular fiction that doesn't describe more about sex than I would have wanted my daughters to read as teenagers.)

I also enjoy the natural incorporation of high-level vocabulary.  I didn't realize how rich my vocabulary is until an AP student asked me if anyone actually uses the words that were on one week's vocabulary quiz.  All 15 words that week appear frequently in novels that I read for fun.  This student is an avid reader, but it appears that she either doesn't look up unfamiliar words or does not select books that stretch her reading level.

Even though my brain is still in teacher mode, I am thoroughly enjoying reading for pleasure.  Even though I notice things like foreshadowing, I am not thinking about how to teach it! 

Back to Anne Rice and summer relaxation.

Now that I've started to think about work less, I am moving away from playing video games and back to reading.  As happens most summers, I'm starting out with an old favorite so that I can read leisurely and not rush through trying to find out what happens next!   I could probably recite all of the key events of The Witching Hour by now, but that doesn't change how much I love reading it.

I think this is one of the main differences between an avid reader and a reluctant reader.  It is difficult to convince some of my students to read even a short poem more than once.  They feel that they have extracted all that they can after one cursory skimming of the text.  I often stop in the middle of a really good book and read a sentence or a paragraph multiple times because it is so beautifully written.  Luckily I am married to a man who does not mind me demanding, "Read this sentence.  Isn't it good!"   Whether it's a sentence written by one of my favorite authors or a sentence in a student essays, I love a good sentence the way I love the first flowers of any kind each year.  (Right now, the gladiolas and daylilies are competing for my admiration.)

The one change, and one that I apparently made the last time I read this trilogy, is that I am having to read the book on my Kindle.  Even with my reading glasses, the print book looks like the fine print on a medicine bottle!   I guess it's a good thing that I didn't throw the appointment reminder from the optometrist away.  But back to reading.... and gardening... and enjoying life without a bell schedule.

Lanark by Alasdair Gray

One of my favorite prose passages on an IB Literature exam is from Lanark by Alasdair Gray, a Scottish author.  I have thought about buying the book since first giving this practice exam to students and finally found time to do so.  Thanks to being both home and sick this weekend, I had time to start reading.

The book is divided into four parts, each one depicting a time in someone's life.  The story starts with Book 3, which is followed by the prologue, then books one, two and four.  My guess is that the passage on the exam takes place in either books 1 or 2, and I find myself wishing I didn't have that glimpse into the past/future.   The start of book 3 is a little confusing and very dystopian -- the perfect book for me!   The protagonist does not appear to remember anything about his past, and at the end of chapter 3 the reader finds out how little of his life he does remember.  The world in which he lives is dark -- physically and metaphorically.  He is fascinated  with, and drawn to, the few glimpses of daylight he manages to observe.  No one else appears to care about, or even notice, hints of dawn.   No one appears to have any purpose in life. 

At one point in the IB passage, a character explains that he is trying to bring more light and air into his style of painting, and this one line has stayed in the forefront of my mind the entire time  I have been reading this book.  It is difficult to not skim through the book and try to put the passage into context.  However, I think that doing so would ruin my reading of everything that leads up to it.  Gray must have a reason for structuring the novel in this way, and I want to read it the way he intended.  I already know that this is a book that I will read more than once,  so I don't want to ruin what will be my only time to allow the story to be revealed to me incrementally.

I don't know when I will have time to read for pleasure again, but I will update my blog once I get a little further into this book.

The Children of Kings: A Darkover Novel

I just finished reading The Children of Kings: A Darkover Novel by Deborah Ross and Marion Zimmer Bradley.  While it was a good story, it was one I could fairly easily put down, sometimes for weeks at a time.  I know that, to an extent, my busy schedule has prevented me from really delving into the story, but I also know that a really good book over-rides that.  When The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult arrived in the mail last year, I had no problem pushing everything else aside for the day and a half it took me to read it.   I had no problem getting up to throw in a load of laundry while mid-chapter in The Children of Kings -- not a good sign for a book.

This story has all the elements I like:  familiar characters, new characters, adventure, a little romance.  So why did it not click with me?   The weapons smugglers and their interaction with the villagers were a little too predictable and cliched.  The desert lands could have been anywhere in the Middle East -- there was nothing Darkovian about them besides Gareth.   Once Rahella's identity was revealed,  it was clear that Gareth would end up marrying her.  Why her father allowed her to run around dressed like a boy was far less clear and did not fit the established societal norms for the series.  The story may have been better without a love interest.   I was happy to discover the fate of Regis' daughter, but parts of her story also didn't ring true with me. 

The December issue of Poetry looks promising, so that's where I'll turn next.

Deborah Ross v Marion Zimmer Bradley

I love that Ross and Bradley collaborated on the final Darkover novels, but my recent switching back and forth between the two writers has highlighted some differences in writing styles.  While Ross is an incredible writer, she does not always use the elevated vocabulary that is the norm for Bradley's writing, and, while much of what happens between the sheets in Bradley's books is alluded to, Ross provides details that limit how much is left to the imagination.  I do not mean to imply that Ross' descriptions are pornographic, but I do prefer Bradley's allusions -- not just for me, but for the myriad of young readers who are drawn to science fiction and fantasy.   Regardless of our age, what we are able to envision is limited by our experiences.  When I think about my daughters in their teenage years, and my current students, I prefer that their understanding and visualization of sexual situations be limited to what they already know instead of providing details of things they have yet to experience.   

Of course, when I think back to my teenage years and the songs that Mary Whitehouse attempted to ban, I know I run the risk of sounding like her 2014 counterpart with my views about some movies, television shows, and novels.  But still, I do feel that there must be some balance between providing accurate information in sex education classes and providing too much information in literature.  (In high school, not only did our biology text book limit coverage of reproduction to flowers and rabbits, our male biology teacher in our girls' school always returned to chapter one rather than discuss how bunnies do it!  I do not advocate that, and I am very thankful that Mr. Bailey resigned and was replaced with a more progressive teacher for year 5 of biology.)   But I digress....  my preference for allusion and limited detail applies not only to sexuality in novels.  I also prefer to build my own image of each character and his or her environment.  In the Darkover novels, red hair indicates the likelihood of psychic abilities and is therefore an important component of the story.  Other than that, I prefer to be given a general idea of a character's appearance and then allowed to flesh out the details in my mind.    

The differences in Ross' and Bradley's writing is echoed in the differences between younger teachers and me.  There are scenes in White Oleander and The Bluest Eye that I do not want to discuss with students, but I am comfortable telling students that Hamlet is referring to sex in parts of the play -- and then letting them use their imaginations.  Or maybe the difference reflects my English upbringing.  Regardless, I am very happy that Ross is continuing the Darkover story lines, but I mourn the passing of Marion Zimmer Bradley and other writers of her ilk.