The Diamond in the Window

We Recommend: A Mysterious Request

It's We Recommend, in which we use our superpowers to find readers the perfect book. Got a kid who needs a recommendation? Write us at thediamondinthewindow (at) gmail (dot) com with the age, reading tastes, favorite books, and any other relevant (or irrelevant) information, and we'll give it a shot. And really? All the good suggestions are in the comments.

Ah, we're back. It's been a while since we've had a We Recommend, and this one will challenge and perplex you, in the best possible way. Also, it comes from someone you have all been successful with in the past. But now he is (as we all are, inevitably) older and more complicated. Like so:

His reading is quite voracious and I have exhausted my list of ideas from my own childhood. He is 9 next month.
He has enjoyed all of the Harry Potter books and has read them independently (although the last couple I think had a lot of material that went over his head content-wise). He's currently racing through the Lemony Snicket series, and absolutely loving those.
He's not much into fantasy stuff, sci-fi or war. He loves anything to do with language (adored 'The Word Spy') and is keen on maths and music at school. Loves a good story.

Here's where I am caught: he loves Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket, but is not into fantasy, sci fi, or war. But...Lemony Snicket and Harry Potter? These are not realistic fiction by a long chalk. So I think we have a case of maybe he likes things that he thinks he doesn't like? At any rate, what matters is what will work, and so we can look at the books he enjoyed and from that we can deduce: he's a word kid. And he likes funny things.

I think we can all take a moment to meditate on how delightful these attributes are. And then we can try to think of things that will fit for the young gentleman, while not scaring him off with any wizards on the cover. I toyed with Septimus Heap. I considered Artemis Fowl. I even thought about Terry Pratchett, to whom he will make his way some time soon. But in the end, I went way WAY back, to the book all humorous word-lovers should spend some time with at one point or another.

Unless I have completely misread this young person, this should fit the bill nicely. It's funny! There's word play! It's awesome!

But of course, I might have misread him completely. Oooh, and should I have said Holes? I should probably have said Holes, right? Or Sideways Stories at Wayside School? But don't let me sit here torturing myself: please, in the comments, offer up some ideas, and possible alternate reads of his wishes, and get the kid something great to read!

A Thing That Bothers Me

As I wrote that headline, I thought, Gee, that could be the headline for the whole internet, couldn't it.

Anyway, we're going to have to talk about The Great Gatsby, at least a little bit. First of all, it's a beautiful book, as far as I'm concerned. A joy to read, those slippery sentences, its overwhelming and unembarrassed concern with beauty.

But that's not why I'm talking about it. I'm talking about it because the hoopla about the movie has led to a horrifying tidal wave of, "As Fitzgerald famously said, there are no second acts in American lives."

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Here is what I would like: let's make a rule that says you can't attribute the words of a fictional character to that character's author, even if you really really want to and it gives you something to wrap your article around.

It's just wrong. And it always happens, especially with Great Pronouncements or Truisms. People ALWAYS do it with Salinger, "As Salinger said, sentimentality is loving something more than God loves it." But Salinger didn't walk up to someone and say that, his character said that. It's part of the profoundly frustrating (to me, anyway, can you tell?) de-contextualization of everything. It's particularly terrible to me when it comes to fiction, because it means taking something that someone else (albeit a fictional someone else) said—it seems to erase their very existence.

It drives me nuts.

OK. Phew. I feel better now. But before you go, can you tell me: I'm not alone in this, right? It drives everyone crazy?

Sweets for the Sweet

First, you should know that this is in no way a disinterested quasi-review—the person who wrote the book under discussion is someone I know, and I got her book as a gift (though not from her), and I want her to like me, which is the worst possible perspective from which to write anything, really.

But! Even so, I feel I have something useful to say. Or maybe what I mean is that Chestnut has something useful to say, so here's how it all went down.

This book appeared in my house. It flew in with the mail.

It landed on the coffee table. It rested there for a while, and then it vanished, no one knew where. Time passed.

Then I read it. And it was sweet. So, so sweet. For me, as a grownup, almost too sweet and cute. Even so, though, I finished it. Indeed, I wanted to finish it; it has that strange fictional engine that some books have, so you just want to know what happens.

And then Chestnut found it. Or rather, I put it in front of Chestnut and she rejected it (the cover?), but then it was in her bag and she was at school and one thing led to another and...she loved it. You know why? Because there are some kids who are sweet and earnest and want to hear about good kids, kids who want to be friends. Kids who aren't so committed to irony, maybe, but instead have that painful glow on their faces of good intentions and fervent beliefs. Kids who are enthusiastic. Kids who want to read about friends and friendship, who can identify with the over-the-top earnest goofiness of the narrator, a girl who will never, ever be the popular kid, who seems to have buck teeth of the soul. You know that kind of kid? That kind of kid will be so, so happy to read this book.

Even if they have to sort of keep it under wraps, because this kind of kid—actually, these kinds of feelings—are exactly the kind that middle school seems designed to stamp out in the sensitive. But your sweet sensitive kid can read it at home, and they can remember they are not the only ones, and they will be happy.

Fan Fiction! Aka: I Am Old, I Am Old, I Will Wear My Trousers Rolled...

Someone asked me what genres Diana has been reading, and I had to acknowledge that lately it's been a whole lot of fan fiction (does that even get called a genre, really?).

If I am lucky, the person asking is even older or more out of it than I am, and says, "Wha?" and I get to act like I have any idea of what I'm talking about by saying, "Oh, you know, it's what all the kids are into these days," though with this as with all things, I have no idea whether people other than the ones right next to me are reading it, or writing it, or whatever.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, fan fiction is (to the best of my knowledge) this: fiction written by fans of an author or series or novel. Sometimes it becomes its own published work (I think Fifty Shades of Gray was originally fan fiction of Twilight, which makes the whole thing feel even sketchier than I thought it did).

Except maybe it's not sketchy at all? Here are things I think are sort of great about kids reading fan fiction (or watching people read it on YouTube? Which is apparently a Thing?).

1) It makes kids write. It gives them a sense of themselves as readers/writers, and they end up writing and writing their own, presumably nutty, fan fiction. Yes, it is possible that much of what they write is...not the highest quality, but that's (in this context) besides the point.

2) It is an expression of LOVE! And love makes the world go 'round! Truly, I think it's a little bit like writing Led Zeppelin on the cover of your cloth-covered binder (can you guess my high school graduation year within two years from this reference?). There's something inexpressibly moving to me about all these people laying their tributes to authors at their metaphorical (or electronically represented) feet. Just check out Scott Westerfield's blog, where he often features his fans' fan fiction (it took me a long time to figure out how to write that), and see if your cold, cold heart doesn't soften just a bit.

3) Some of it is probably really great. I don't read fan fiction—yet. But I have to believe that some of it is really amazing, just because the world is wide and varied and there are terrible and wonderful things everywhere you look. Besides, Diana is writing some (yes, it's out there, can you spot it? Dare you try?), and as her parent I just have to believe that it's awesome.

Reasons I am not super-psyched about the whole thing.

1) Can it be good to read lots and lots of writing that is not good? I don't know. I mean, lots of published writing is pretty crappy too, but sometimes it feels like I am watching her gorge on cheetos. Metaphorical literary cheetos.

2) But wait, the book is an inviolable world! It's true that I believe there is an alternative fictional universe where all books come from and that things that happen in books are true, so it freaks me out to consider that, say, Harriet the Spy has alternate possibilities contained within it. This, however, might be a slight idiosyncrasy on my part, so maybe I'll say no more about it.

3) It's on the internet. Which is bad for kids, right? And electronic? And unwholesome? That's as far as my logical thinking goes on this point. I will let you know if I get smarter about it. And it leads directly to...

4) It didn't exist when I was a kid. Yes, I am that person who doesn't trust things that are new. Though I think it's possible that if I thought about it the right way much of Shakespeare is fan fiction from Ovid, right? Sort of? Maybe?

Anyway, maybe your children are still happily plowing through various books by actual authors (which still happens here, as well—there'd be no fan fiction without the original book, right?), but this could be lurking in your future.

And tell me: what do you know about it? Is it part of anyone's child's life but mine?

Looking for a Good Time?

I must admit I am pausing while considering my title, but only for a moment, because the truth is: I got the goods. And by the goods, I mean, of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Are you feeling down? Did you scrape the side of your father-in-law's car against a concrete pillar and take all the paint off it (for instance)? Are you worried you aren't bringing in the money in sufficient quantities? Are you facing the prospect of cleaning your entire dirty house? Well, I've got the cure, I must say. If not for the actual problems (alas!), then for the feeling they give you.

Reading "The Hound of the Baskervilles"—well, it's just a pleasure. Sure, you might feel a bit sorry for poor old Watson, but the rest of it? Atmosphere! Intellect! Derring-do!

And for all my talk of pairings and reading in the same general area as your progeny, well, the great thing about these is that you and your child can BOTH read them with equal pleasure. I would say these are great for anyone from the precocious 10-year-old to the sullen and vitriol-filled 17-year-old (though how you will get this person to read them is a mystery in itself).

Anyway, I was all set to write a very irritable post about something else entirely, and then I remembered that I have been having a very pleasurable reading experience and I thought I'd pass it on. Because we can all use a lift sometimes.

Also, if Sherlock Holmes isn't some distant relation of the Doctor, well then, I'll be a monkey's uncle. But that theory is for another time....

The Borderline

I know there is, or has been a whole, brouhaha about young adult, and new adult. Lots of smart people have opined. And what I can tell you is that  for me, ignorance is pretty much bliss. Except that sometimes there are weird reading issues that make me think, "Huh. Should I read up on that distinction?"

I read a strange and funny book that had me thinking about the divisions between (among?) parents and teenagers and young adults etc etc. It is this:

It's the story of Joon, who leaves home at 13 and basically bumps along the bottom of the world for a few years before saving herself, or being saved, at 18. It is very funny, and completely terrifying to any parent, and you will start it and then be done three days later in the sort of hazy, blinking confusion that happens when you emerge from being fully immersed in something.

It's not a book for kids—or at least, it's not presented that way. (It's probably best described as literary fiction, except that genre names, including that one, have been making me want to throw up lately.) And I am perfectly happy to have my girls move happily along through life unaware that there are 13-year-old girls on the streets being abused and beaten, turning to drugs—all of that. Not that they are in the same position as the narrator. Just...I don't know, there is something about the simultaneous wish to identify with others, that is coupled with the desire to erase even the possibility of such identification. I suppose this is the same old knowledge that your kids are part of the world, and the unwillingness to accept that as they become ever more part of that world (which happens day by day from freaking birth) they are subject to its sadnesses and horrors.

All of this blathering is doing quite the huge disservice to the book, which doesn't attempt to say anything like, "But this could have happened to YOU!" and is instead a very funny (really) wry take on what happened to the narrator, the people, and the life she witnessed, a world that exists along with all the other ones we look at. Maybe Denis Johnson as a 13-year-old Korean runaway? Except that I stole the Denis Johnson idea from Strider, and there is surely a terrible fate waiting for all those who talk about authors as though you can recombine them foods.

Anyway, would I give this to a teenager who was not my kid? An older kid maybe? Sure, I might. I would probably preface it with, "This is pretty harsh, a lot of bad things happen to this girl," and then probably the kid would read it and ignore all of that and just say, "Wow, you know that book was pretty awesome."

Half-Baked Ideas: The Truth About Vampires and Teenagers

You might need to sit down. I'm serious, I think I may have cracked this thing wide open.

You've probably wondered where the idea of vampires came from. "Perhaps," you thought to yourself, "the idea came because vampires exist." Or maybe you thought: someone saw a bat and thought, "Wait, what if that were a person?"

But I'm here to tell you that the whole vampire myth (or reality!) came from one place: teenagers.

Hear me out (why are you running away?). Consider your 11- or 12-year-old child. Happy. Cheerful. A pain in the ass, maybe (like the rest of us), but recognizable to you. Then one day...everything changes. The child retreats to his room, far from the sun and any contact with you. Where once he woke you up regularly at 6 a.m. (which was, admittedly, a bummer) now he sleeps till 11! Noon! Even later! When he emerges, surly and pale, hungry for meat. Or cornflakes—whatever, let's not quibble. A pervasive aura of gloom covers him, until nightfall. Then, he perks up, energized, wanting to go out into the darkness, to wreak havoc! Or go to the movies (note: also in the dark!).

It all makes sense! All those studies, "Teenagers have different physiological needs, and are at their most productive from the hours of 9pm to 2am." Why did we never fully understand the signs before? They retreat into their dark lairs, and emerge, pale, taller, and sexualized. All that's missing are the capes! And sometimes the capes are even present!

OK: admittedly, I haven't fully figured out where the whole drinking blood, killing, stake in heart aspects come into play. But mark this, oh doubters. When did Bram Stoker write Dracula? 1897. When was his son born? Oh, 1879—so he wrote it when his son was 18 (yes, I can google and add and subtract with the best of them). He had spent the past years researching vampires. Why? Because he was living with one.

Further evidence: consider that other literary masterpiece, Zagazoo.

Image courtesy of StackingBooks.com. Also Quentin Blake, of course.

I have now solved the primary riddle of existence. Now I must eat lunch and work out that whole middle-east thing.

The Obligatory, Annual, Bitching About the Test Post

OK. We made it through the statewide ELA test last week. It wasn't fun. Chestnut, in particular, was stressed out about it. But we lived through it. And now we're in the math. We're slogging. It's no fun.

There are multiple things that bother me about the tests.

First, they're used to judge teachers.

Second, because they are used to judge teachers and schools and principals, class time that could be used for more substantive nuanced work is used...for test prep. HOURS are used for test prep.

Third, they take over home life, in the form of test prep homework (ugh!) and tension. The anxiety!

Fourth, the idea that how a child performs on a standardized test in any way gives a sense of what they know. I mean, I am lucky in that my kids are OK test-takers. But for kids who aren't? Yikes. A constant, permanent record of you as a student, that barely represents you, and in now way reflects all your teachers might know about you.

Fifth (I know I could go on and on): the money. New York City paid Pearson $5.5 MILLION dollars this year for the testing contract. Do you know how much they cut one of my kid's school budget by this year? $80,000. Good-bye language program for the lower grades. Good-bye art. We said good-bye long ago to art supplies. How much did they cut the large local high school's budget? Oh, by $1 million for each of the past three years. There are 5,000 kids there, but someone decided that the money should instead be spent on...testing. And I don't even want to LOOK at how much we are paying in excess of that, because I bet there's more: materials, prep, scoring. I can't bear to think about it.

Sixth: And for all this money, they are INCOMPETENT. Pearson mis-scored the tests of more than 2,000 preschoolers (ugh, yes, they have to give the kids a gifted and talented test, because how else could you tell if they were gifted?). MORE THAN TWO THOUSAND. How many questions were deemed ineffective last year? Oh, three or four. Oh, and who tests the questions for them? Why, the kids of course! Because they don't need the extra classroom time taken by these "test" tests; golly, what would they do with them? Is there anything other than tests that can happen in a classroom? They will have to check their scoring method and get back to you on that.

Why are they giving money to this? Why? Why? Why? It does not seem to me cost-effective to give $5.5 million to these bozos when our kids need theater trips. And textbooks. And computers. And more instructors. And smaller class sizes.

ARRGHHHHHHHHH.

OK. Sorry. No more of this until next year.

Also? Chestnut's idea is that we should all go to the Department of Education, every kid in the school system, and have a big old tantrum-in. It's tempting.

Pairings: Maine and Somalis, or: Explaining

Remember way back when, I had this idea that there would be pairings, a book for parents and one for kids on a subject that gave them all this stuff to talk about, but from different perspectives? Along the lines of better late than never, I am reading/recently read two books that make me think about it again, and bring up a host of other questions besides. This:

And this:

(Yes, a better blogger would figure out how to make those the exact same size. Alas.)

Both these books focus on the arrival of Somali immigrants in Maine, and how both communities stagger a bit in the impact. Both books stagger themselves under the weight of conveying the pertinent background information. And this is what concerns me.

I believe, or at least think (there's a difference) that it's right and worthy to try to push outside the comfort zone to address larger issues. If you live in Maine and all of a sudden there are thousands of Somali immigrants, that's an entirely reasonable subject for fiction. Or more than that: it's the world, even—or especially if—it doesn't appear in the world of literature that surrounds us. And to ignore it is cowardly.

But how does one write a novel like this without having to deliver the information? I mean, beyond the whole "Show, don't tell" stuff. If one knows, as these authors do, that the immigrants they're writing about are secondary immigrants coming from another U.S. city, and before that from unimaginable horrors in Africa, how does one convey that without shoving it uncouthly into the mouths of one of the characters? Must one convey it, to talk about these people? How to avoid sounding like one is giving a history lesson, when that is in fact exactly what one is doing?

I mean, can you read Vanity Fair without knowing about the Napoleonic Wars? No doubt it enhances one's understanding, but is it crucial? Can you read Mansfield Park without thinking about the slaves and sugar and plantations, which the master of the house is busy addressing? Well, of course you can read them, but do you get a whole picture? Do you need a whole picture? Is a whole picture of anything in the world even possible?

What book does a good job of this? I think of genre writers, particularly in fantasy and science fiction, who must convey a whole other world with rules and history in every single book. Who does this well? Ursula K. LeGuin does this well. Who does this well in realistic fiction? In literary fiction? How much does a person really need to understand when reading a book? I can read Dante and know nothing about the papal history, but is it a weaker, thinner reading? And whose responsibility is it to know—does the writer have to put the information there? Or can it be there but invisible, some sort of powerful internal structure buttressing the very heart of the novel?

Answers to the above: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Do you guys know?

Also, just in case you're wondering, the books noted above, while both flawed, are interesting, particularly when grouped together, and if I had a high schooler with any interest in soccer lying around, and I were an Elizabeth Strout fan generally (as indeed I am, though this is not her best work) I would get the kid Out of Nowhere, I would read The Burgess Boys, and then we would have excellent discussions.

Half-Baked Ideas: Self-Consciousness

This one has been gnawing at me for basically my whole life, so let me know just how far I have strayed from normal thought or logical conclusions in the comments.

Anyway.

You know how when you're in middle school you are beset with a self-consciousness so profound that it can literally freeze you solid mid-behavior? You have the horrible feeling that everyone is staring at you and judging you, and you can't even do whatever it is you meant to do next: answer the person you're talking to, or hand in your homework, or take another step? And when you suffer these paroxysms, people say, "Oh, you shouldn't be so self-conscious!" You might even say it to yourself, taking yourself to task for being too self-conscious: why can't you be more carefree and easy-going like the popular kids, who don't seem to torture themselves in quite this way? (Am I giving too much of myself away here? In all likelihood, yes.)

Here is my theory: while I believed this about awkward, shy, "self-conscious" people for years, I think, in fact, that the reality is the reverse of what I believed. I think that the awkward among us (or maybe only me, uh oh) are actually LESS self-conscious than most, and that this lack of self-consciousness is at the source of these awful moments.

Here is what I mean: these aren't just attacks of heightened self-consciousness; they are attacks of self-awareness at all. My half-baked theory is that while these more assured "popular kids" seem to feel easy and free from self-consciousness, in fact they just feel it all the time. They are always aware of the outside world, so it never jumps up and bites them in the ass. While the awkward and introverted can (or at any rate, I can, let's be honest) completely forget that the outside world is there. One can get so completely absorbed in something—or nothing—that the jarring realization that one is among other people, and that they are aware of one's presence (don't you like how distanced that "one" makes it sound?) is enough to create utter panic.

Or at least, so says my theory.

I am convinced of its visceral truth. But I might be a little bit crazy on this front. What do you think?