Pages

Friday, June 3, 2016

May Recap

Library Books:
Library Books for Hiro:
The Terrible Two  by Mac Barnett & Jory John ; illustrated by Kevin Cornell
The Terrible Two Get Worse  by  Mac Barnett, Jory John ; illustrated by Kevin Cornell
The dragonfly effect / Gordon Korman
Memory maze / Gordon Korman
Into the wild : yet another misadventure / Doreen Cronin ; illustrated by Jessica Warrick
The Chicken Squad / Doreen Cronin ; illustrated by Kevin Cornell
Francine Poulet meets the Ghost Raccoon / Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Chris Van Dusen
Masterminds by Gordon Korman
Criminal destiny by Gordon Korman
Cover art I originally checked out The Boys in the Boat for Hiro but it ended up a bit too advanced for him, and since I was done with the latest Dave Eggers book, (not finished but abandoned in the middle of We Shall Know Our Velocity)   I gave the tale of nine boys in an Olympic crew team a shot.    Even with it's unfortunate title, this books was amazing.  Part history (of the American depression, the rise of Hitler with Leni Riefenstahl and Goebbels in supporting roles, and bad weather patterns in the Northeast) it also taught me about the grueling sport of rowing.  At times it read like a text book but the narrative was captivating.  

It covered the sport so completely, from the importance of team work, psychology of each team member and also explained the hand crafted shells made by George Pocock:


"Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is a kind of wonder wood.  Its low density makes it easy to shape, whether with a chisel, a plane, or a handsaw.  Its open structure makes it light and buoyant, and in rowing lightness means speed.  Its tight, even grain makes it strong but flexible, easy to bend yet disinclined to twist, warp, or cup.  It is free of pitch or sap, but its fibers contain chemicals called thujaplicins that act as natural preservatives. It is beautiful to look at, it takes a finish well and it can be polished to a high degree of luster, essential for providing the smooth, friction-free racing bottom a good shell requires. " 
                   

The circuitous route to my reading Japanese mysteries came about like this:
Hiro was writing an informational "magazine" for his writing project at school.  All the kids had to pick a topic they wanted to research and write extensively about.  Most kids chose Pokemon or ballet.  Hiro chose Goosebumps and R.L. Stein.  Sarah, his teacher asked parents to help their kids do research by taking them to the library and finding articles on the topic for them to read.  Since Hiro has more Goosebumps books than the library holdings, I looked up articles in newspapers and magazines on the topic.  One of them was the "Buy the Book" section interview with R.L. Stein in the NY Times book review section of the Sunday times from a year ago.  It must have come out when the Goosebumps movie came out and we missed it. Anyway, I was trolling for book recommendations, mostly for Hiro in that interview, when I read that Stein was going to read the next book out by Higashino, which are "intricate, tricky puzzle mysteries".

At first, the names are a bit hard to remember- I'm Japanese and still had a difficult time deciphering between Kusanagi, Kishitani, Yukawa, Mashiba, Mamiya, but after I figured out a way to make up word associations it was easier.  For example the Japanese word for smelly is Kusai- therefore Inspector Kusanagi was the older detective who was sniffing out the clues. This series was perfect for my Japan fix, since we will not be going there this summer. A Midsummer's Equation, especially made me nostalgic for inaka and summers spent in a sleepy little seaside town.


Brown, Daniel. The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a ...   The Indifferent Stars Above was my next Daniel James Brown book I picked up.  I thought maybe I should mix it up a bit and read some more nonfiction along with all the detective novels I had been reading.  This is the story of the insane trail traversed by a group of people going from Missouri to California in mid 1800's read like a suspense novel, even though we pretty much knew there were going to be some gross, tragic, horrifying things that would happen to the group.  Just as Brown did with the Boys in the Boat, he went back and fourth between the traveler's daily stress and traumas to comparing it to the present day as well as giving a historical overview of politics at the time, the unusual weather patterns, and homesteader life.  I especially enjoyed the descriptions of what they brought in their oxen pulled wagons (in the end, a total of over 3000 lbs).

Sugar raised another set of issues.  It could take the form of molasses in kegs or barrels; sticky, hat-shaped loaves of brown and white sugar, lumps of gooey unrefined brown sugar; or "Havana," a lumpy crushed white sugar that required still more crushing and sifting to be useful in baking cakes of pastries.  They brought hard candy, hard cheeses, figs, raisins, flavored syrups- lemon and peppermint being particular favorites- salt codfish, pickled herring, and jellies, jams, and preserves packed in stoneware crocks.  Some of the items they crammed into their provision boxes carried brand names that you or I might still find on our own kitchen shelves -- Underwood's deviled ham for one, and Baker's chocolate with which to flavor a sweet cake or make hot chocolate on the campfire. 
 
 So sometimes the return to the present day was quicker such as in this paragraph:
          It's hard for us in the twenty-first century to comprehend just how squalid life on the trail in the 1840s could be.  As they struggled across Nevada, Sarah and Jay lived somewhat as we now do when we go camping or hiking --except that they had no weatherproof polyester tents, no rechargeable Coleman lanterns, no flashlights, no toiletries, no propane stoves, no double insulated iceboxes, no mosquito repellent, no subzero goose-down sleeping bags, no self-inflating air mattresses, no sunscreen, no GPS trail finders.  And at four or five months minimum, it was an awfully long camping trip, at sixteen hundred miles an awfully long hike. 
          The travelers battled body lice, head lice, bedbugs, and fleas in their wagons and tents.  In the arid desert country of Utah and Nevada, their skin dried out and became scaly, their lips chapped, their eyes ached from the dust and the relentless glare of the sun.  All in all, they were physically miserable much of the time.

   It really was a case of the survival of the fittest, and even some of the fittest did not make it to the end.  I definitely would not have made it even the first month.  The book was a quick read, and the gruesomeness was not too graphic, and one could almost begin to empathize with the cannibalizing of one's families in dire situations toward the end.  but overall Uggggggggck! Yuck!!!!! and Disgusting!!!!!  and Horrific!!!!! One thing that I found curious also was the authors choice not to include a map of the trek, only a few photographs of the characters and some images of the trail.


   OK, so enough of that! Back to Detective mysteries....and since the last English translation of a Higashino book was going to take a while to come available, I turned to the last installment of Robert Galbraith, aka J.K Rowling's story of Cormoran Strike.  Titled The Career of Evil, title taken from a Blue Oyster Cult lyric, and had too many characters- much unlike Harry Potter books but not as interesting as the children's book.  Her books tend to be long- this one at almost 500 pages and not as good as the Higashino, it was nevertheless a good suspenseful read.  

No comments:

Post a Comment