So far, it’s good. It’s about a girl, Laurel, who one day discovers a plant growing out of her back and learns that she’s a faerie. It can be a little slow at times, and the characters are somewhat flat and unflawed, but apparently this is the first in a four-book series, so maybe things will get more complicated in future books. Right now it’s a lot of exposition and explaining what a faerie is, etc.

All in all, not bad. An easy read and entertaining as well.

From the beginning of the book, Meg is grumpy, jealous, and prone to getting into fights with her classmates. Yet she obviously adores her family, particularly her mother and younger brother Charles Wallace, and she desperately wants her father to come home. In the book’s climactic scene (spoiler alert if you haven’t read it!), her good, true heart helps her triumph over the evil of IT. I think she’s one of the best characters ever.

The supporting characters are wonderful in this book, too. Who doesn’t love Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which? They have some of the funniest lines in the book, and they’re caught stealing sheets, of all things. Calvin isn’t the typical teenage dreamboat, but he suits Meg just fine and serves as a balance for her personality and characteristics.

This book, of course, launched about a thousand other books that Madeleine L’Engle published. I really loved how she continued writing about beloved characters. I read somewhere, though I can’t find it now, that she sent out press releases about her characters’ educational progress long after she had stopped writing about them. Something about Polly O’Keefe getting a PhD in something?

Anyway, A Wrinkle in Time is a sublime book that I must have read at least a hundred times growing up. Like the best books, its ideas and emotions still resonate today.

The truth is, I’m not really reading anything at this very moment! I finished The Lost Symbol yesterday evening and haven’t picked anything else up. I definitely have a pile of books staring me down, though.

I’m planning on starting The First Five Pages this week. As for non-craft books, I have Wings by Aprilynne Pike waiting for me at the library! I’m pretty excited for that.

Any suggestions for what I should pick up after that?

(Photo by OUCHcharley)

My family never banned books. I was always free to read whatever I wanted, which I usually bought at Waldenbooks or borrowed from the library. That means that the Babysitters’ Club and Sweet Valley High gang are near and dear to my heart, along with the characters from The Rain Catchers, Summer of My German Soldier, Jacob Have I Loved, and many other books. But there were certain TV shows I wasn’t allowed to watch: just about anything on MTV besides the actual music videos was forbidden (no Beavis and Butt-head for me), and certain Nickelodeon shows were also off-limits, like Ren and Stimpy. I wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons, which means that every reference to that show is completely lost on me. (Apparently it was a pretty seminal show for my friends, who just shake their heads when I stare blankly at them.)

I’m still not sure how I feel about that situation. Do I think I would be a better person, or that I somehow missed out on something, by not being allowed to watch Beavis and Butt-head? Of course not. But I am uneasy with restricting people’s freedom, and that’s exactly what people who seek to have copies of Laurie Halse Anderson books pulled from the shelves are doing.

Nathan Bransford had a good post on the subject which concluded with a lot of questions:

Censorship and book-banning was certainly an important issue pre-Internet, when libraries and bookstores (if you were lucky enough to have both) were the only places where books could really be acquired. But these days the Internet has made any book readily available. Is the issue of censorship as pressing as it used to be, when the banning of HUCK FINN at a library meant a kid really couldn’t read it? Is the [Wall Street Journal] editorial correct that if censorship means actually suppressing a book’s availability, it is moot in the Internet age?

And perhaps more importantly, where is the line between parental and public discretion vs. censorship? Should public libraries stock everything and let patrons decide what is inappropriate? What about books that, say, incite prejudice or that the majority of a community feels is inappropriate for children?

I get what he’s saying about Internet ubiquity diluting the debate over censorship. But it’s important to remember that not every person has Internet access and that removing Huck Finn from the shelves of an inner-city middle school is probably very effective at shutting down a child’s chance to read it.

As to the line between parental and public discretion vs. censorship: it’s a matter of freedom to me, like I said earlier. I think that if a school librarian has decided to place a certain book in her library, it should be available to students based on their age and maturity level. Does this mean that ten-year-olds should be reading Speak? No, probably not. But fourteen-year-olds should be. And I don’t think a parent has any right to forbid a child—theirs, or anyone else’s—from reading it.

Also, if you’re in Pittsburgh or thereabouts, come to the Banned Books Reading at the Carnegie Library in Oakland, sponsored by the Library, the ACLU and WYEP. I’ll be there and it sounds like a lot of fun! Tonight at 7 PM in the Lecture Hall. Be there!

Here’s the synopsis from bn.com:

Minutes before the train pulled into the station in Jenkinsville, Arkansas, Patty Bergen knew something exciting was going to happen. But she never could have imagined that her summer would be so memorable. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp in Jenkinsville. To the rest of her town, these prisoners are only Nazis. But to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent home life, one boy in particular becomes an unlikely friend. Anton relates to Patty in ways that her mother and father never can. But when their forbidden relationship is discovered, will Patty risk her family and town for the understanding and love of one boy?

When I think about this book, I remember reading it in the summer, on the swing on our front porch, and in the winter, curled up under a blanket on the couch. I was never sure if I would have been as courageous as Patty, but I completely understood the love she felt for Anton. The power of the story and the emotions I felt reading it make it stand up, even after all these years. And I guess that’s really the mark of a great book—which this definitely is.

One of the books I picked up is the first one in Meg Cabot’s 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU series, When Lightning Strikes. It’s about a girl, Jess, who is struck by lightning and, instead of dying or suffering really horrible consequences, she gets the ability to know where missing children are. She wakes up the day after the strike knowing where two kids she’d seen on the back of the milk carton were. And it keeps happening everyday.

Like most Meg Cabot books (not that I’ve read all of them by a long shot—did you know that she’s published over fifty books in eleven years? That’s over four books a year!), it’s a light and breezy read. Jess is a likable character and the plot unfolds really quickly. The story has taken some unexpected turns, which I really like. It keeps me on my toes.

I’m not sure if I’ll read the rest of the series (there are four more after this one). I picked up a few other superhero-ish books that I’ll get to first, not to mention the craft books I wrote about yesterday. But if you’re looking for a quick read about a girl who gets a superpower, this one is pretty good.

“Honeysuckle,” he said, and it took me back.

Here’s the summary of the book from the author’s website:

Fourteen years ago, when Grayling was just a baby, her strangely remote mother left her behind with Grandmother. The circle of women who share Grandmother’s big old house have puzzled over the matter, but for Grayling life is good. As she says, “This is my grandmother’s house, where the honeysuckle rain falls in the summer, where most stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.” The women watch over one another, and everyone watches over Grayling and her friend Colleen.

But this summer will bring changes – a new friendship for Grayling with Aaron, and the reappearance of her mother. She visits her mother in San Francisco and meets the strange young man who calls himself Dancer but might better be called Danger. Impulsively, far from home, she puts herself in jeopardy.

Grayling’s encounters with death, love, romance, and peril help her discover the ending of one part of the story and join the circle of the rain catchers.

When the honeysuckle rain falls, the women, including Grayling and Colleen, catch it and use it to rinse their hair. I have always wanted to do this, ever since I read this book. Maybe I’ll snip a clipping of my neighbor’s bush and plant one in my own yard.

This book is so beautifully told that it stays with you. It’s a slow story, focusing on character and backstory, which I’m not sure would be published today. Parts of it still stay with me, like the honeysuckle rain and the image of a house with hands on the clocks. And one rule of etiquette I’ve always liked came from Grayling’s grandmother; she says that a good guest never drops by and stays for longer than an hour.

And that cover! That might be the part of the book that lingers the most. Despite Grayling being a quiet girl, the cover is so bold and beautiful with its yellows and oranges. I simply love it.

In August, I took a trip to the Finger Lakes and stopped by the Women’s Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls. I had just finished reading AVM and the book A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances caught my eye. I splurged on it and it was a fascinating read.

So, to continue the parade of food-related books this year, I am now embarking on Julie and Julia. I really like it. A lot of people have said that the character of Julie in the book is unsympathetic, annoying, etc. (Seriously, google “Julie Powell annoying” and you’ll get almost 13,000 results.) But I think she’s brash and unapologetic, two qualities I really admire. You don’t like her blog? I doubt she really cares. She’s doing it for the love of the thing, for the feeling she gets when she connects with Julia Child’s recipes.

She’s also hilarious and really messed up. I just read the scene in the book (spoiler alert! I guess!) where she’s pretending to be the killer from Silence of the Lambs with the pig skin. Let me tell you about the first time I watched Silence of the Lambs: I was about 14 years old, babysitting for three kids, the oldest of whom was maybe ten. After putting the two younger kids to bed, my charge suggested that we watch Silence of the Lambs because her parents said it was a really good movie. I didn’t know anything about it and it had been taped from television (remember when people did that?), so I couldn’t consult the tape cover for guidance. I didn’t even have an MPAA rating to go off of. (This was before the ubiquity of the Internet, when I could have typed “Silence of the Lambs” into imdb and known within five seconds that this was not a movie I should allow my ten-year-old babysitting charge to watch.)

So I agreed. And then she and I spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch under a ratty afghan, too terrified to move or speak. Somehow, I couldn’t turn it off. But I should never have turned it on in the first place.

Wow, how did I get to Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins? Anyway, all this is a longwinded way of saying: I like Julie and Julia, the book. When it hits the cheap theatres or Netflix, I’ll probably see and like Julie and Julia, the movie. Fin.