First Knitting Post!

So here is my latest knitting project. It's for Ameetha's new baby; I've never knit clothes for a baby before, and I've never done a sweater pattern of any size before. I've learned a lot from this, and I've been working on it for a looong time. I'm using the "baby wrap top" pattern from from the book Special Knits by Debbie Bliss. She has some really lovely stuff. I substituted a baby alpaca yarn (shed by baby alpacas, not necessarily intended for babies) and it is VERY soft. I did the trim in an eggplant purple - which is hard to tell from the pictures, sorry, and the bulk from a cream color. I've gotten tired of traditional pastels for babies. The other first from this project was embroidered embellishments. Anyone can tell that my little lazy daisies are lopsided, turned in funny directions, different sized, etc. I think it gives it character. Plus, I don't think I could get them any better.

Why isn't the top on the baby, you ask? Well, despite the misleading pictures I've posted, it's not finished. Like almost every other knitter I've met or read about, I'm not a big fan of finishing. By which I mean weaving in ends, joining pattern pieces, picking up to make collars, sewing on ribbon and fastenings, etc. This is the real picture of this piece, and the reason it's been almost 6 months since I've started:

Lookit all them ends! It's awful! I've actually considered cutting out all of the embroidery and gifting the top plain just to avoid it. Plus I don't actually know the best way to secure these ends so that they don't pull free or get pulled by tiny hands.

Wish me luck.

Smart Boys and Fast Girls by Stephe Davis

I picked this one up because it was featured on the Teen Book Club at DearReader.com (a great service anyone can sign up for). I had chosen not to actually buy this book for our library since I hadn’t seen any reviews, but my local library has it, so I checked it out there.

In short, Natalie loves track, and she’s fast. She’s just gotten on the varsity team, and is beginning to make friends with the older girls and the cute boy’s track captain. When she learns she’s failing geometry, and her teacher threatens to have her kicked off the team if she doesn’t work with a tutor, she’s crushed. She doesn’t want anyone to know she’s stupid enough to need a tutor, and if her parents knew, they’d make her quit track. Matt, the tutor, is a super-smart geek (though not unattractive) who thinks sports are dumb and all jocks are jerks. They strike up a deal: he’ll pretend to be her boyfriend (two benefits: to explain the time they spend together to study and to make the track captain jealous) and she will make sure her father (a noted physics professor) gets Matt a summer research job. I’m sure you’ll figure out what happens. Zach (track captain) isn’t right for her, and Matt works out just fine. Plus she passes geometry and kicks ass on the track team. Happy ending all around.

The book doesn’t hide the fact that it’s light romantic fare, but that’s okay. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible. I was entertained, and the plot had enough twists and surprises that kept me interested. I was put off, for the most part, by Natalie’s character. She just seemed so silly. For example, when Zach comments that most girls take much longer than her to change after practice, she resolves to keep him waiting next time. When she comments that she likes his Jeep, he says that most girls worry that it will mess up their hair, and she resolves to pay more attention to her hair. I don’t know any girls like that, but I’m sure they exist.

Issues include: dating, self-image, academic tutoring, sports.

Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City

Our narrator in Kristen Miller’s debut novel is the unfortunately named Ananka Fishbein, who lives in New York with her academically-minded parents and attends a prestigious private school thanks to a restriction in her kooky grandfather’s will. There, she catches sight of Kiki Strike, the tiny, intriguing girl with white-blonde hair, who, when asked what she’d like to be when she grows up, responds, “dangerous.” The week before seeing Kiki for the first time, Ananka saw a strange thing on her morning walk. An enormous sinkhole had opened in a nearby park. Exploring it, she finds a little room, furnished in 19th century style. She scours her parents’ library for information on an underground city beneath New York, and learns about the “Shadow City,” home to smugglers and outlaws. Kiki soon contacts Ananka, and gathers a group of super-talented preteen girls – a mechanical genius, master of disguise, talented forger, and chemist. They explore the Shadow City together, have adventures, and foil Chinese gang members, corrupt businessmen, spoiled socialites, and murderous exiled royalty.

I’m sure that the over the top descriptions of unrealistic situations was intended to be humorous, but it just didn’t work for me. The author didn’t have the skill to convince me to suspend my disbelief. I each situation seemed more ridiculous for 12 year olds to be in, and the Shadow City itself wasn’t at all interesting or given the description that could have made it so. Kiki didn’t come across as human, and much of the story was predictable or had a high groan-factor. I didn’t enjoy this one, but it wasn’t so terrible that I couldn’t finish it. I think I was disappointed because the story had great potential, but just didn’t deliver.

Black Taxi by James Moloney

If your grandfather Paddy offered to let you, Rosie Sinclair, take care of his classic black Mercedes, what could be better? Even if it is for the six months that he’s in prison. And when he gives you his cell phone as well, then you’re set. Until the calls come in. There’s Mrs. Foat, who needs a ride to the hospital to visit her dying sister. Mr. and Mrs. Duval, who depend on Paddy to get to the shops each week. Rosie feels that she needs to help all of the “wrinklies,” as she calls them, even though she was hoping the new car would give her a little more freedom. She does, however, meet Todd, the sweet and handsome guy who seems to like her, as well as bad-boy Chris, who doesn’t hide the fact that he likes her.

The fun is shattered when a cell call comes through that is not a sweet old person. The rough, angry voice threatens to make Paddy’s incarceration unpleasant if she doesn’t hand over the “ring.” Rosie doesn’t know what’s going on, and becomes involved in a mystery with high stakes. With the help of her older, exotic dancing best friend Glenda, she must figure out what’s going on and how to find the ring before the voice gets too impatient.

This was a light, fun offering with both the high school drama and romance that seem usual to this genre, and a good mystery and some adventure mixed in. The older people Rosie chauffeurs are humorously but realistically drawn, and the best friend Glenda (stage name: Giselle) is a source of strength and quite matter-of-fact about her job. The story is set in Australia, but I didn’t catch that until I was a third of the way through, and even then, it’s not obvious enough to alienate American readers.

Issues include: crime, relationships with the elderly, exotic dancing, adultery, mild sexuality.

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (Audio)

Although this book is cataloged as "Junior Fiction" (comprising books suitable for grades 3-6) in my small library, it's set as "Teen" in the library to which I live closest. The author, E.L. Konigsburg, is a favorite of mine. She wrote the classic From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and another YA book I recently read for a book club, Silent to the Bone.

Margaret Rose Kane is a feisty twelve-year-old whose parents have left for an archeological dig in Peru. Her eccentric but loving Hungarian great-uncles (strangely) hadn't volunteered to take her, so she heads off to Camp Talequa. The six "alums" and one other newcomer in her cabin respond badly to her unique outlook, and her refusal to tattle or respond to their tricks make them try harder. Her Uncle Alex rescues her, and she settles in enjoy the summer with the beloved bachelors and their truffle-hunting dog, Tartufo. Their house is a haven, made even more beautiful by the amazing towers of steel painted in rainbow colors, topped with empty clock faces and strung tip to foot with tinkling pendants that the uncles have been constructing for the last 45 years. Margaret Rose then learns why the uncles didn't initially ask her to stay - the city council (fueled by nasty neighbors and neighborhood politics) has declared the towers unsafe, and they are to come down. Margaret Rose and the sympathetic Camp Talequa janitor-cum-artist Jake Kaplan gather friends for the fight to save them.

I liked this book quite a lot. Margaret is a character - her invariable (and infuriating) response to Camp Talequa's councellors' questions of "Why don't you want to go boating/hiking/swimming" is "I prefer not to" - a reference to one of my favorite Herman Melville short stories, "Bartleby the Scrivener." However, the squabbling Uncles Alex and Morris are the real treat here. They are perfectly conveyed. Strangely, the towers seem a sort of extension of them, and they, too, become character-like. The wonderful descriptions remind me of the Watts Towers in L.A. or even Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, though on a smaller scale.

This audio version of the book was performed by 80s teen actress extraordinare, Molly Ringwald. I was excited to see her name when I checked it out, but she was not as fantastic as Sthephen Fry (see my post on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), but it was still good. Her delivery was a bit flatter, her voices a little more similar. I should say, though, that her Hungarian accents for Uncle Morris and Uncle Alex were really fun. I don't know how accurate they were, but it made the characters that much more endearing. All in all, I'm glad I listened to the book, rather than just read it.

Issues include social activism, conformity, bullying, and divorce.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Audio)

Now, this is the sort of fantasy that I don't feel silly telling people I like. Douglas Adams' classic space parody is funny and smart and has some amazing characters.

In case you don't know what it's about: mild-mannered Arthur Dent is upset that someone determined that a bypass must go through the spot his house currently occupies. He wasn't notified until the day before the bulldozers came, and tries (in vain) to save it by lying in the bulldozer's path. This turns out to be a parallel in which the Earth will be destroyed in much the same manner by the awfully bureaucratic Vogons. Arthur, as it happens, is friends with Ford Prefect, an alien from Betelgeuse who happens to know how to hitch a ride on the Vogon ship. They are saved, and much wacky space hijinks ensue, involving a ship employing an improbability drive, the flamboyant two-headed ex-hippie President of the Galaxy, some chick Arthur once tried to pick up at a party, a chronically depressed robot, and some white mice.

This version, read by actor Stephen Fry (legendary Jeeves in the British series Jeeves and Wooster) who is the narrator in the 2005 film version of the book, is lovely. He seems to have spent equal time working out the best voice for the 5 minutes we hear of the bulldozer foreman as he has for the important and unique President Zaphod Beeblebrox. His inflections for the Vogons, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Trillian, the mice, and of course, our hero Arthur, are spot-on. It may help that I have a soft spot in my heart for a British accent of any kind, but this performance really shows what a talented voice actor can do for the rendition of a favorite book. (Thanks to Andrew for letting me borrow this!)

Issues include space travel, aliens, mild language, evolution and other secular theories, and robots.

Protector of the Small Quartet

These are the kinds of fantasy "girl" books that everyone rolls their eyes at before dismissing. Really, I do this, too. But Tamora Pierce is outrageously popular at my library and I thought I ought to read something of hers. Someone suggested I begin with the Protector of the Small quartet, which is, I believe, the third series she'd set in her medieval fantasy world.

The story involves young Keldary of Mindelan (Kel, for short) who grew up in the Yamani Islands (Japan) with her ambassador mother and father. Upon her return to Tortall (Europe), she decides she wants to become a knight. This has only recently been made possible by the legendary Alanna the Lioness, who disguised herself as a boy in order to do it. She was so great, apparently, the king decrees women should be able to openly train for knighthood. Kel has no magical gift, as Alanna does, so if she can survive the training, it will prove to all the fusty conservatives that women really can fight, etc. Kel's weapons training in the Yamani Islands makes her a natural, and she eventually defies all the odds (including a fair but conservative training master that doesn't believe girls belong in the program, loads of cruel boys who think her success threatens their manhood, hazing, bullies, a crippling fear of heights, and a horse that's too big for her) to survive not only the first probationary year (not imposed on any boys), the three additional years as page, one (I think?) as squire, and the mystical "Chamber of the Ordeal" that tests knights-to-be. Along the way, she picks up a flock of tamed sparrows (useful for distracting the enemy and pecking at him), a beat-up mutt (good for tracking and biting), a warhorse named Peachblossom, and even a baby griffin for a short time. The last book tells of her first duties as a knight, including running a refugee camp, stopping terrible "killing machines" (magicked robots fueled by the souls of murdered children), and killing the mage making said machines and murdering said children.

This kind of story and characters make me cringe, but mostly because deep down I really do enjoy them. As an adult, I realize that the writing isn't all that great, the story is pretty much formulaic, and a lot of the plot devices are somewhat transparent. However, it's a good story. I liked it in the same way that I devoured Piers Anthony novels (each of those has pretty much the same story with different characters) and Mercedes Lackey's books (ditto) as a kid. I like fantasy, even if it's dorky and predictable and corny at the same time. A librarian should always tell a patron not to be ashamed of their reading choices, so I suppose I should just get over it and declare proudly that I enjoyed these books. As I keep wanting to go back and rewrite that sentence, I guess I have a ways to go...

Issues include magic, gender roles, mild sexuality, battle violence and gore, necromancy, bullying, hazing, and social strata.

Fat Kid Rules the World

So the last book I read was K.L. Going's Fat Kid Rules the World. This was really a wonderful book - with fun punk references, lots of humor, vivid descriptions of NYC, and an amazing human story. I actually cried, and I am not a weeper.

The story involves 300-pound Troy, a high school senior who has no friends, a younger brother that doesn't want to be seen with him, an ex-Marine father, and a dead mom. He's a nothing, and is contemplating throwing himself into the path of a NY city subway when a former high school legend, Curt MacCrae, interrupts and begins talking with him. Curt is unnaturally skinny, dirty, and apparently sleeping in the subway. A punk rock guitar genius, Curt surprises Troy by asking him to start a punk band with him, playing the drums, though he's only last played percussion in the 7th grade band. The two form a strange and tenuous friendship, in which Troy learns about Curt's dysfunctional family life and prescription drug problem, while gaining more self confidence and learning more about his father and brother. For his part, Curt enjoys getting full meals at Troy's house and sharing his absolute love of music and punk perspective with him.

Issues include thoughts of suicide, mild sexuality, realistic profanity, drug abuse, teen homelessness, family problems, and teen obesity.

A Blog for Me - not You

Okay, so I finally broke down and made myself a silly blog. I've toyed with the idea for ages, but somehow kept myself from going that route. But to justify this one, I'm saying that it's a blog for ME - not anyone else. I'm using it as a knitting (the wool) and reading (the beasts) diary. Beasts is in reference to the classic teen library services manual The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts, since I'm a teen librarian and most of the books I read are YA. So the question now remains whether I'll keep it up or just keep reading.