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Apr. 1st, 2007 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionDefiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime - Kenneth L. Helphand. Helphand describes the gardens made in incredible circumstances by soldiers in WWI trenches, those imprisoned in the Jewish ghettos of WWII, POWs of both wars in Europe & Asia, & Japanese Americans interned during WWII. It took me a long, long time to read this book, because the experiences of those making the gardens were often so harrowing I couldn't bear to read about them. The Jewish ghetto section was giving me nightmares--I used to have periodic Nazi nightmares when I was younger--so I had to renew this twice before I could steel myself to finish. Anyway--it really is astonishing to read about the stubborn gardens coaxed out of the earth under dire circumstances. I thought Helphand's narrative was really marred by repetitiveness, though; I felt like he kept making the same points over & over again & either he needed to organize his book more efficiently or just edit it down. Still, I learned a lot about a topic that had never crossed my mind before.
America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money - Steve and Annette Economides. This is a collection of pretty basic guidelines on how to be thrifty, live below your means, & still manage to do things like pay off a mortgage in 9 years or pay cash to buy a car. It's easy to read, & a lot of the advice makes sense. However, it reminded me of something I dislike about a lot of writing about frugality/simple living: the conservative vein in a lot of it. They talk about cheap family vacations where they learn about "American heroes" (ie. the Founding Fathers); they talk about good old-fashioned films that provide their kids w/some real examples of heroes--like Davy Crockett; they decry teen fashion trends partly because of the expensive prices, but also out of a prudishness that I think seems over the top (I don't think teen girls should be running around wearing shirts that say "Stop looking at my breasts, touch them" [a real shirt I've seen!], but I feel like a lot of the discussion around what young people should or shouldn't be wearing revolves around them not being seen as sexual at all or having bodies, & also around a stale, middle-class "proper" aesthetic). And they chalk up some of their thriftiness power to God. Which, yeah, kinda made my eyes roll a little. Hey, if it works for you, fine, but do you have to put it in your chapter on attitudes that help you be thrifty? Oh, & another thing--while the final chapter mentions, in a list of reasons why being thrifty is good, that thriftiness is better for the environment, that's really the first time that rationale is mentioned. There's a subset of frugality writing that very much believes that one strong reason to be frugal is to help save the earth, & a subset that believes it's all about you--& this book seems to fall into the latter category. Also, while they say that going for the cheapest product as far as appliances & such is usually not the way to go, they gleefully talk about how they save money while traveling by eating off the dollar menu at fast food places. Er. Fast food is unhealthy & it's crap. I don't want to be frugal if it means having to eat fast food.
The Saskiad - Brian Hall. Saskia White is 12 years old & growing up in the remains of a former commune outside Ithaca, New York w/her mom & a few other people. In her head, however, she's living a life straight out of myth & legend. Everything that happens to her gets translated into fanciful, heroic language. This makes figuring out who everyone is & what's actually going on a bit tricky in the beginning, & 50 or 60 pages into the book I almost decided I wasn't going to bother. It got more interesting when new girl Jane moves in, & suddenly Saskia has a partner in crime. Eventually they go on a trip to Scandinavia w/her recently reappeared father, who is a strict environmentalist who has spent time chasing down rogue whaling vessels. By the end of the book, Saskia has witnessed the fact that not everything in life fits neatly into a heroic story model. I really liked that so much of this book was about the friendship between Saskia & Jane; I got a little tired of Saskia constantly translating everything in her life into something she thought was more heroic, but I guess that's the point. Anyway, I liked this book a lot more after I was done with it than when I started.
Shakespeare's Champion - Charlaine Harris. The second in the Lily Bard books has as its titular character a local bodybuilder, gruesomely killed by the application of a heavy barbell to his throat. There have also been a couple of racially-charged murders recently, & the town of Shakespeare is feeling pretty dangerous. I'm still enjoying these books, although this one pointed up something that annoyed me w/the last one: a character who has a lot of casual sex is always chastised for living dangerously in a way that feels motivated more by prudery than by genuine concern regarding STDs or anything reasonable.
Introduction to Public Librarianship - Kathleen de la Peña McCook. This is really a textbook, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I found a lot of it to be a slog to get through. Plus I'd read about a lot of the history before, in various places, & some of the topics, like library standards, didn't interest me. I did really enjoy the section on youth library services, though, & to a lesser degree, the one on adult library services. It's clear that McCook has a similar orientation to myself w/regards to immigration, civic engagement, social justice, & race--& even when I found the book a bit dull, it was nice to read about these things w/that point of view kept in mind.
The Green Glass Sea - Ellen Klages. Dewey & Suze are two young girls who've moved, w/their families, to a military complex in the desert in New Mexico. It is World War II, & the town they live in officially doesn't exist. The milieu, all the scientists buzzing around working on "the gadget," in this odd, secretive town, is strange & fascinating, but what makes the book beautiful is the portrayal of the friendship that grows uneasily between Dewey & Suze, who are thrust together when Dewey's dad has to go out of town & Dewey moves in with Suze temporarily. Here we have the awkwardness, betrayal, & desperation of a girl who's still trying to be popular, & what happens when she gives that up, & also, both of the girls are total nerdy, quirky characters in excellent ways. The whole book has a ominous tone of waiting & uncertainty through the whole thing--after all, we the readers know what "the gadget" is & what happens--that pulled me through to read almost the whole thing in one sitting.
Literacy, Access, & Libraries Among the Language Minority Population - Edited by Rebecca Constantino. Interesting! There were some great case studies of public library programs that really got involved w/language minority communities (there's also sadness when these programs have to be tapered down b/c of funding). Even more intriguing, though, were several articles that dealt w/free reading (ie. reading self-selected by students w/o any strings attached--no book reports, no quizzes) & reading of popular culture books by ESL students. The improvements in their language skills, & in their perception of reading, are astonishing. My favorite was the article about people reading Sweet Valley books (Sweet Valley High, Sweet Valley Twins, and Sweet Valley Kids--the last of which weren't even around when I was reading the other two). Reluctant ESL readers, who felt reading in English was stressful, got addicted to reading these books written at an easier level, & some of them read dozens of them in a couple of months. Pretty nifty, & a nice poke in the eye to those who think that all reading material has to be "uplifting" to be worth reading.
America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money - Steve and Annette Economides. This is a collection of pretty basic guidelines on how to be thrifty, live below your means, & still manage to do things like pay off a mortgage in 9 years or pay cash to buy a car. It's easy to read, & a lot of the advice makes sense. However, it reminded me of something I dislike about a lot of writing about frugality/simple living: the conservative vein in a lot of it. They talk about cheap family vacations where they learn about "American heroes" (ie. the Founding Fathers); they talk about good old-fashioned films that provide their kids w/some real examples of heroes--like Davy Crockett; they decry teen fashion trends partly because of the expensive prices, but also out of a prudishness that I think seems over the top (I don't think teen girls should be running around wearing shirts that say "Stop looking at my breasts, touch them" [a real shirt I've seen!], but I feel like a lot of the discussion around what young people should or shouldn't be wearing revolves around them not being seen as sexual at all or having bodies, & also around a stale, middle-class "proper" aesthetic). And they chalk up some of their thriftiness power to God. Which, yeah, kinda made my eyes roll a little. Hey, if it works for you, fine, but do you have to put it in your chapter on attitudes that help you be thrifty? Oh, & another thing--while the final chapter mentions, in a list of reasons why being thrifty is good, that thriftiness is better for the environment, that's really the first time that rationale is mentioned. There's a subset of frugality writing that very much believes that one strong reason to be frugal is to help save the earth, & a subset that believes it's all about you--& this book seems to fall into the latter category. Also, while they say that going for the cheapest product as far as appliances & such is usually not the way to go, they gleefully talk about how they save money while traveling by eating off the dollar menu at fast food places. Er. Fast food is unhealthy & it's crap. I don't want to be frugal if it means having to eat fast food.
The Saskiad - Brian Hall. Saskia White is 12 years old & growing up in the remains of a former commune outside Ithaca, New York w/her mom & a few other people. In her head, however, she's living a life straight out of myth & legend. Everything that happens to her gets translated into fanciful, heroic language. This makes figuring out who everyone is & what's actually going on a bit tricky in the beginning, & 50 or 60 pages into the book I almost decided I wasn't going to bother. It got more interesting when new girl Jane moves in, & suddenly Saskia has a partner in crime. Eventually they go on a trip to Scandinavia w/her recently reappeared father, who is a strict environmentalist who has spent time chasing down rogue whaling vessels. By the end of the book, Saskia has witnessed the fact that not everything in life fits neatly into a heroic story model. I really liked that so much of this book was about the friendship between Saskia & Jane; I got a little tired of Saskia constantly translating everything in her life into something she thought was more heroic, but I guess that's the point. Anyway, I liked this book a lot more after I was done with it than when I started.
Shakespeare's Champion - Charlaine Harris. The second in the Lily Bard books has as its titular character a local bodybuilder, gruesomely killed by the application of a heavy barbell to his throat. There have also been a couple of racially-charged murders recently, & the town of Shakespeare is feeling pretty dangerous. I'm still enjoying these books, although this one pointed up something that annoyed me w/the last one: a character who has a lot of casual sex is always chastised for living dangerously in a way that feels motivated more by prudery than by genuine concern regarding STDs or anything reasonable.
Introduction to Public Librarianship - Kathleen de la Peña McCook. This is really a textbook, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I found a lot of it to be a slog to get through. Plus I'd read about a lot of the history before, in various places, & some of the topics, like library standards, didn't interest me. I did really enjoy the section on youth library services, though, & to a lesser degree, the one on adult library services. It's clear that McCook has a similar orientation to myself w/regards to immigration, civic engagement, social justice, & race--& even when I found the book a bit dull, it was nice to read about these things w/that point of view kept in mind.
The Green Glass Sea - Ellen Klages. Dewey & Suze are two young girls who've moved, w/their families, to a military complex in the desert in New Mexico. It is World War II, & the town they live in officially doesn't exist. The milieu, all the scientists buzzing around working on "the gadget," in this odd, secretive town, is strange & fascinating, but what makes the book beautiful is the portrayal of the friendship that grows uneasily between Dewey & Suze, who are thrust together when Dewey's dad has to go out of town & Dewey moves in with Suze temporarily. Here we have the awkwardness, betrayal, & desperation of a girl who's still trying to be popular, & what happens when she gives that up, & also, both of the girls are total nerdy, quirky characters in excellent ways. The whole book has a ominous tone of waiting & uncertainty through the whole thing--after all, we the readers know what "the gadget" is & what happens--that pulled me through to read almost the whole thing in one sitting.
Literacy, Access, & Libraries Among the Language Minority Population - Edited by Rebecca Constantino. Interesting! There were some great case studies of public library programs that really got involved w/language minority communities (there's also sadness when these programs have to be tapered down b/c of funding). Even more intriguing, though, were several articles that dealt w/free reading (ie. reading self-selected by students w/o any strings attached--no book reports, no quizzes) & reading of popular culture books by ESL students. The improvements in their language skills, & in their perception of reading, are astonishing. My favorite was the article about people reading Sweet Valley books (Sweet Valley High, Sweet Valley Twins, and Sweet Valley Kids--the last of which weren't even around when I was reading the other two). Reluctant ESL readers, who felt reading in English was stressful, got addicted to reading these books written at an easier level, & some of them read dozens of them in a couple of months. Pretty nifty, & a nice poke in the eye to those who think that all reading material has to be "uplifting" to be worth reading.
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Date: 2007-04-01 09:44 pm (UTC)Oh, and The Green Glass Sea is very good.
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Date: 2007-04-02 02:06 am (UTC)I'll wear secondhand shoes of any provenance, & I generally try to get non-sweatshopped shoes (which a fair number of vegan shoes seem to be), although I've definitely fallen prey to the Payless cute-&-cheap non-leather shoe before!