Tidbits: Let's read to our hipster babies, squee over upcoming books, furrow our brows, and jump in our Deloreans to visit a museum

It's been a while!  I'd say I'm sorry, but it stopped raining and the sun came out, and suddenly my computer screen held less allure than say, the great outdoors.  And/or my super crazy month o'fun finally slowed down to a speed allowing this (weddings, graduation parties, friends in town, visiting places, the wilds of finding new roomies on craigslist, road races, end of school, etc. You get the idea; everyone is busy in May!).  But as the great outdoors gave me both a sunburn and more mosquito bites than I can count this glorious and action packed Memorial Day weekend, I'm back to being an indoor kid for a few hours.  Thusly, I give you some tidbits I've been hoarding and will solemnly swear that I am up to only good and will post at least three new Le Creuset Challenge recipes this week.  Enjoy the following tidbits I've been hoarding away with your morning coffee!

• Hey Indiana Jones: Let's jump in our Delorean and go on a hot date to the OG (original) museum in Babylonia! But if I catch you makin' eyes at Princess Ennigaldi, we're done and I'm moving onto Han Solo, capice?
  
•  I found a tumblr I'm not sure how to feel about.  The name says it all: Hot Guys Reading Books.  Obvi, initially I was all "Heck yes! Bring it!" But then when I actually clicked and realized some subjects are not, say, willing or even knowing subjects, it made me feel a little squicky.  Because it's totally uncomfortable to realize someone is trying to secretly take your photo, and it's something a lot of ordinary women (not celebrities, they sign on for it in my opinion) deal with all the time.  Creepy guys on trains, I'm looking at you.  Does this then make it okay and level the playing field, even if the creepy factor is removed by the general good of guys reading books and enjoying it publicly?  Am I reverse feministing this?  I just don't know how to feel!
  
• Two books I am very excited for:
• I can't for the life of me remember the gem of a friend who told me about this.  Break out your hipster babies who won't go to sleep!  I've found the perfect book for them, a classic Case of the Terribles:

I know right?
I want to give this to someone sleep deprived but still able to appreciate it.
And/or have someone read it to me as a badtime book. 
That typo is so perfect it's staying. 

• I've always enjoyed the comic and shopping stylings of Mindy Kaling.  Fun fact: she went to the high school where I work.  After reading her first spot-on essay about why it's okay to not be a high school cool-kid in her upcoming sweet yet sassy book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, made available via publisher preview, I have a new goal/project for the 2011-2012 school year: Get Mindy Kaling To Visit My High School Library.  Say yes, Mindy!  Make your high school library (and librarians) cool by association!  (No worries about cupcakes; food is still not allowed in the library, DUH.)

• Finally, please read the following casting call specifications for the Hunger Games movie that came up in my twitter feed.  BS alert?  I certainly rolled my eyes.  "'The Beautiful People' Adults?" "Extreme characters of all shapes and sizes?"  What does this even mean?  Just say what you want, casting people. 

No and Me, by Delphine de Vigan: Sacre bleu my mind with a translation done right!

No and Me
by Delphine de Vigan  (Translated by George Miller)
New York: Bloomsbury, 2010
 ISBN: 978-1-59990-479-5

 Precocious and bright Parisian thirteen-year old Lou is both intelligent enough to have skipped several grades and to realize that she is less mature than her older classmates.   Scientifically minded but shy, Lou panics when forced to publicly announce her plans for a class presentation and announces she will be interviewing a homeless woman, though she knows no homeless people.   Lou takes to the task like one of her scientific product tests, and soon has found her subject: No, a homeless young woman she meets at the train station.   No, and the interviews with her, open Lou's eyes to the heartbreaking world of the homeless that is hidden in plain sight as she comes to realize, visible only to those who choose to see it.   Having suffered a family loss, Lou's mother has been recovering from a deep depression for years, leaving just her often busy father to care for her, thus opening the door for naive Lou to throw herself into what becomes a near scientific obsession with trying to save No, going so far as to convince her parents to let No move in and get back on her feet.  As one may suspect, things don't go exactly as planned, but while there are some hard lessons learned and Lou's childish naivete is shattered, this gorgeously translated, thoughtful, and carefully constructed novel does not fall into cliches and is a testament in many ways to the qualities of hope, perseverance, and unflinching love.  It is strongly recommended for all collections, teens mature enough to understand the complexity of the issues (grades 8-12) and would be an easy sell to many adults as well.  

Remember when I went on and on about how I thought the translation of The Invisible was...okay?  Well, THIS, my friends, is a translation done right.  The language is gorgeous and moving, almost melodic.  As a former language major, I can assure and reassure you that translating words is easy - translating the feelings and emotions behind them and maintaining the original beauty is a tremendously difficult thing to do.   Behold:

 Sometimes I leave her there, in front of an empty beer glass.  I get up, sit down again, hang around, try to find something to comfort her.  I can't find the words.  I don't manage to go.  She looks down and says nothing.

And our silence is filled with all the world's impotence.  Our silence is like the return to the origin of things, their true state. (51)

I mean, DAY-YUM, shiver me timbers.  That's some weighty prose for a book marketed to kids.  That's not even the best of it; I'm just too lazy to search for more.  Mad snaps for George Miller, who has made me want to learn French just to read this in the original too!  But regardless, this book is wonderful because it takes what could turn into a totally cliched everyone's-feeling-sadface story (homelessness, depression, awkward teenage years, feelings of abandonment all around) and doesn't do exactly what you would expect with it in all cases.  Yes, it is not a "we saved a homeless girl, high fives all around" happy ending.  Unless you are possibly a teenager reading this, you realize there is more going on with why No is homeless than just that she has no home and nobody to care for her.  It's easy enough to spot how Lou is both scientifically obsessed with finding a cure for homelessness, starting with Lou, and how No is also filling an emotional void in Lou's life, left when her infant sister passed away and her mother disappeared into a very serious and long lasting depression.  Part of growing up, though, is realizing that not everyone wants to or can be rescued; as de Vigan says "things are always more complicated than they seem," (72).  Despite the potential to tie this story up with a shiny ribbon (and Lordy, Lordy, do I like things tied up), I found the "there is no one solution to this problem" ending quite satisfying, even refreshing because it recognizes that there is no one simple solution to a huge societal problem, but that it is one that we cannot ignore.  Perhaps my favorite passage in the whole book sums this one up, one which both foreshadows what Lou already may know in her heart and yet doesn't realize due to her youth:

Dogs can get taken in, but the homeless can't.  I thought to myself that if everyone took in a homeless person, if everyone decided to look after just one person,  to help him and be with him, perhaps there'd be fewer of them in the streets.  My father told me that wouldn't work.  Things are always more complicated than they seem.  Things are what they are, and there are lots of things you can't do anything about.  You probably have to accept that if you want to become an adult.  We can send supersonic planes and rockets into space, and identify a criminal from a hair or a tiny flake of skin, and grow a tomato we can keep in the fridge for three weeks without getting a wrinkle, and store millions of pieces of information on a tiny chip.  Yet we're capable of letting people die in the street. (71-72)

Double DAY-YUM.  Doesn't the optimism and teenage idealism just shank you right in the heart?  Don't you want the solution to be so simple?  And when you put it in those terms, it really is bananas that there is no solution, until, as Lou points out (and learns), you realize as an adult (or really with-it teen) that there are more factors in play than just the obvious problem.  This book takes what is at best a complex, philosophical, societal, moral, ethical, insert a few more descriptive words in here, problem and presents a story that is moving, yet not preachy, and more importantly, frames it in a way that is accessible without dumbing it down or pretending that there is an easy solution.  Well played, Delphine de Vigan! I will certainly be adding this to my collection and encourage all libraries, especially those serving privileged kids, to do so as well.

Tidbits: Carl Sommer and why publishers, librarians, and educators can save the world (together)

• Okay, anyone care to explain to me why at last glance, in the past month there have been 69 visits (sweet irony) to my post on Carl Sommer's Sex: If You're Scared of the Truth, Don't Read This Book, 61 of them in the past week?  Did a shipment of these just land in libraries across America?  Does the Rapture have anything to do with this?  Anyone care to share why you are googling this title? 
  
• This opinion piece (Publishers as Partners in Literacy) on the NYTimes website is such a great argument and explanation on why book donations are not a solution for the book shortages in low income schools, how low cost publishing for low income schools is great, and how it can be mutually beneficial to libraries, the communities they serve, and, yes, THE KIDS. 

  Libraries, as noted, can make a huge difference. In fact, public spending on libraries has been shown to correlate with improved learning outcomes (something that the Congress should remember as it cuts budgets). But many of the families that First Book targets lack a strong tradition of reading or library use. Parents who struggle with their own literacy issues often feel ashamed by their lack of education, and some feel out of place in libraries and schools. A middle class adult who has grown up with books might say that these parents should just get over it and help their kids read — but that’s not how behavior change happens. Where there is resistance, an appreciation for books needs to be cultivated. Which is why efforts to deliver new books to poor children through educational channels are vital. Any program that gets books into the hands of children in a way that sparks their interest in reading serves as a bridge to other books and to libraries.

  Win, win, win, you guys!  The piece makes you feel warm and fuzzy.  There may have been more mist in my eyes than outside when I read the part about incarcerated dads recording first chapters of books for their teenagers...This is a great way to use up one of your quota of five (or whatever it really is) articles per month on the NYTimes website.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Check back soon for a new review of a YA translation done real, real well, and two more recipes!
  
  

It'ssssssssss Katniss!

It'sssssssssss KATNISS!

More deets at EW.com

I think she looks pretty good!  Nay, AWESOME.  I just want a longer braid.  Like halfway down her back.   But I'm craaaaazy. Yayyyyy Katniss!

What do you think?  

Is it just me or does she look like she's wearing Quidditch robes?

Tidbits: Movies, international libraries, and more movies!

Movie News:

• Did you know that Ender's Game is being adapted for film?  I didn't.  But I liked the book enough to sneak it onto my school's summer reading list!  Where are they going to find a Machiavellian middle schooler, who is precocious and also not wholy creepy while being a little intense and occasionally creepy? I will admit to being slightly weirded out that it was optioned by Summit Entertainment, the crew behind the Twilight franchise (aka the people who think it's a good idea to split Breaking Dawn into two movies, if the fact that they were behind Twilight wasn't enough) and the guy who directed the sausage parade that was Wolverine is directing.  Then again, he also directed an Oscar.  Jury's out!
• You already heard that Jellicoe Road is going to be made into more than just a movie in my head. Melina Marchetta is, to my joy, heavily involved in the adaptation process.  Usually I can be a bit of a purist, but the suggest changes actually intrigue me and don't sound as though they'd alter the concept. Color me excited!
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower is also going to be a movie.  A movie starring Percy Jackson as Charlie, Hermione Granger as Sam, and Elena Gilbert as Candace.  YA book to movie mashup mashup!
• Hehe. Cato in the Hunger Games adaptation has also been in another kids adaptation. I recognized him solely because his face is on the cover of the DVD for Seeker: The Dark is Rising, which I checked in and out of the Children's Room I used to work in FREQUENTLY.  Which led me to realize that a certain major player in the Games was also in a much circulated movie adapted from another children's literature classic.  Here's the cover!  Babyface!
• Um...Just when I got used to John C. Reilly as Haymitch, he will now be played by Woody Harrelson.  Which I'm kind of excited by, because he's been alternately kind and nuts in film roles.  Except for the whole Haymitch having hair thing.  Please no wig?

Library stuff:

• I want to go to this library within a converted train in Thailand!  It looks too cute for words.  I want more pictures!
• Things I wish the T would do for $500.  The Bay Area is a step ahead!
• An NGO has opened a small, free children's library in a poor area of Manila.  Having spent some time with a similar project in Nicaragua (The San Juan del Sur Biblioteca), I am hopeful that this new library will bring as much to the kids and families who use it!  Eventually I will post my posts from my time with the SJDSBiblioteca over here, but for now they live here.