Month: January 2023

  • Personal Review: CRUNCH and CLASH by Kayla Miller

    (I will SPOIL these two books!!! You have been warned!!!)

    I’m trying to be a good parent to my daughter. Besides teaching her to love the Chicago Cubs, and to despise the Philadelphia Eagles, I also want to instill in her the love of books and reading. I at least know enough not to force her to read, which would make it feel like a chore. What I do is suggest we read together, or I take her to the library on rainy days, and I try to set the example of reading books around the home. About two months ago, thanks in large part to our local library’s librarians (Support your local libraries, folks!) the kid found a series of tween graphic novels by the author Kayla Miller, that she has become a huge fan of. So much so, that for the kid’s birthday, we got her to complete series of Miller’s books.

    Full disclosure; I am not a tween graphic novel aficionado, nor do I have a deep wealth of knowledge of this genre, as Kayla Miller’s books are the first tween graphic novels I have read. Well, my daughter read them to me, but I was present and active in the storytelling. I want to speak of two of the novels in particular; CRUNCH and CLASH. (I am aware that these were read out of order. That was not my decision, it was the kid’s, and hopefully, we will finish the other books in the series.) For a broad outline here, the books revolve around Olive, a sixth grader who lives in a suburb with her mom and younger brother. CRUNCH has to do with Olive wanting to try as many new things as possible, guitar lessons, joining a scouting group, student council, and wanting to make a movie. CLASH is about Olive trying to be friends with a new girl in school, and no matter how hard Olive tries, they don’t seem to get along, which is complicated by the fact that Olive and the new girl are friends with the same people.

    My daughter and I started reading CRUNCH, and it became very clear why my kid loved these books; it reinforces her world view. Olive goes to school in a place that is filled with a wide range of diversity, which is just like the school my daughter attends. Also, though a little Pollyanna, all the kids in CRUNCH get along, or if there is a conflict, after a period of introspection or discussion, the kids are able to talk it out and come and solve the problem. What I really liked about CRUNCH, which my kid completely got, was that the “bad guy” in the story was Olive, who over stretched herself with too many commitments. It wasn’t until Olive learned to say no, politely, to one friend, and ask for help from others, that her life returned to a sense of balance.

    When we read CLASH next, this was the book made me impressed with Kayla Miller’s talent. As I said before, this book is about Olive trying to be friends with someone, a girl named Nat, who doesn’t want to be friends with her. Olive tries several different ways to be friendly to Nat, which is rebuffed every time, and often met with passive-aggressive backhanded compliments. These interaction sap Olive’s confidence, and challenge her worldview which is that everyone can be friends. There is a wonderful bit of complication as Olive’s mother and aunt, two very strong role models for Olive, disagree on how to handle the situation. The book concludes with making two very important points; First, we learn that Nat’s home life is not been the easiest, which reminds us that sometimes we don’t know the pressure and stress others are under; Second, Nat and Olive don’t become best friends, as they come to an understanding to be respectful to each other. What I felt when we started reading this book was that the ending was going to be about hand holding, and how we worked out our problems, and we are bestfriends like Tango and Cash, or Falcon and the Winter Soldier. No, what Miller gave us fit completely, and is true and honest to this world that she created – Nat and Olive don’t like each other and they won’t be bestfriends, but since they move in the same friend circles they had to find a way to co-exist. (Now, that’s a lesson a whole bunch of people need to learn.) What made that even better, is that my daughter related to that, as we talked about the same situation in her school. We had a long conversation about how you might not be friends with someone, but you have to respect who they are.

    These books are great, and I love reading them with my kid. Miller does very unique job of creating a place for her stories where the outside world is present and on the edges of the story, but never gets bogged down by adult perspectives, keeping the focus on these six graders, and their problems. Sure, puberty, and the wonderful/awful life of teenagers is just around the corner for all of these characters, but that corner is still a little ways off. In this place, these tweens are thoughtful, honest, and doing their best to solve their own issues, but never out of the sight of a parent. These are delightful books, and Kayla Miller has a very deft hand at storytelling, which has made all of us look forward to her next graphic novel.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Still Sick, No Snow, and BLT’s

    (You’re a blogger, Harry)

    This time last week, I told you that I had a stuffed-up nose. What I didn’t realize was that it was a cold. In fact, the wife and I have been suffering through a cold for two weeks now. TWO WEEKS! This isn’t like the worst cold I ever had. No, it’s just a cold that won’t go away. I don’t get it. I’m the guy who washes his hands, and puts the mask on, keeps my distance, and all of the actions have rewarded me with the fact that I never got sick with Covid. Even when the pandemic was at its height in NYC – I was the guy in my family that went out and ran all the errands and dealt with people, yet I never got sick. And somehow, I get this little measly cold. Which I gave to my wife. And now we can’t kick it. I don’t get what’s going on.

    There are a good number of reasons why I enjoying living in New York City. And there are almost as many reasons why I hate living in New York City. (It’s a weird balance that I find many New Yorkers living with.) But one of the major reasons why I like living here is that there are four clearly defined seasons that I get to experience over the course of a year. Fall is my favorite, followed by Spring. The one I hate the most is Summer, which keeps getting longer and more humid. And that leaves Winter, which I do enjoy, (There is always a moment in Winter when I can’t feel my face, which usually lets me know that I am ready for Spring to come around,) and that is due to snow. I grew up in Texas, so snow was rare, and also one of the most treasured of weather treats. The forbidden fruit for Southerners, so to speak. Anyway, there’s been no snow this year, and the way it’s looking, there might not be any snow. Which is such a weird feeling. I mean, thirty miles north of the City, there’s plenty of snow. But here, it feels like a wheel is missing on the car. It’s just not the same, and it makes me think it’s not running right.

    Is there a BLT restaurant out there? If not, that’s my million-dollar idea.

  • Short Story Review: “Different People” by Clare Sestanovich

    (The short story “Different People” by Clare Sestanovich appeared in the January 30th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (SPOILERS ahead!)

    Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

    I have been trying for some time to come up with a good introduction for this piece, but I have decided that the best way to open this is to say that I really, deeply enjoyed reading “Different People” by Clare Sestanovich. So much so that I just want to start talking about it.

    This was such a smart, honest, tactile story which allowed me to meet and spend time with three characters. This was a story where I enjoyed the journey it was on, and when the conclusion of the piece arrived, I was completely satisfied with how it all tied together. This is the type of story that inspires me to write. It’s about people living their lives, and it is so cleverly constructed that the story never feels forced, or artificially fabricated.

    The story is about Gilly and her parents, Peter and Lisa, their divorce, how all of them change because of the divorce, and how Gilly begins to see her parents as people. But, it’s also about how one should beware of what they wish for. Or, it might also be about the need for security even as the world shifts under one’s feet. Or it might be about how one has to always grow and learn. Maybe it’s about how people hide in plain sight. Maybe. Maybe not. There could still be a level that I haven’t discovered yet.

    This story is divided up into six sections. Each of the sections are paced well, leading to a rise in the action, and then if not ending with a small climax, it concludes with a “button.” And these climax/buttons do a wonderful double duty of enlightening us on the characters in these sections, but also foreshadow upcoming events. Yet, this foreshadowing is so slight and sly that it seamlessly exists with the flow of the story, and doesn’t reek of a plot point.

    Also, I so enjoyed the very smart choices that Sestanovich made to develop her theme. I appreciated that the narrator doesn’t dwell often in the internal thoughts of any character, and allows actions to do the telling. Even a simple choice of having the parents referred to by their first names, which never puts the reader in the frame of thinking of these two people as parents first – Peter and Lisa remain adults. Thus, the reader sees the world as Gilly does – observing these two adults and how they react to this situation. All choices made by a writer that understands the craft of storytelling.

    I have read this story three, maybe four times now; it’s like a song I like listening to on repeat.  I still find these three characters compelling, and hope the best for them, if that makes sense. It’s also nice to be surprised with a well written story.

  • Personal Review: Five Tuesdays in Winter, by Lily King

    (I will be SPOILING this book.)

    I’ve been heavy into reading novels of late, and as such, I thought I should take a turn and read a story collection. I received Five Tuesdays in Winter, by Lily King, as a Christmas gift. It was selected off a book list that I have, which I add to whenever I hear about a title that sounds interesting. Sadly, I don’t remember where I heard about Five Tuesdays in Winter, which spurned me to add it to the list, but for whatever reason it got there, I am glad.

    It was a nice, easy book to read, and I feel like if you describe any book in that matter, it comes across as patronizing. It’s as if seriousness, authenticity, and drama has to be heavy, labored, and challenging to a reader. If I didn’t have responsibilities and a child to look after, I think I could have finished this book in a day, and not missed a beat of King’s writing.

    The collection is made up of ten stories, which feels like the proper number in a collection, or songs on an album. All the stories were good, and, not surprising, some were better than others. The collection starts off with a Murder’s Row of five compelling stories; “Creature,” “Five Tuesdays in Winter,” “When in the Dordogne,” “North Sea,” and “Timeline.” Then there is a lull with “Hotel Seattle,” and “Waiting for Charlie,” which are the two weakest of the stories. Then the final three pieces, “Mansard,” South,” and “The Man at the Door” are all solid works, and help the collection end on a strong note.

    King does an excellent job of getting to the point, describing what needs to be known, and not wasting words. I could not only see, but feel the flowers in the front of the house Carol grew up in, and was still owned by her rehab prone father in “Creature.” But, I also appreciated the way that King allowed the character’s actions to speak, indicating their emotions to us, showing us what was motivating them. This was most evident in the title track, “Five Tuesdays in Winter,” where conversation adverse Mitchell’s growing infatuation is revealed only through his slight observations and gestures.

    And what I really enjoyed, and felt encouraged by, is that there was nothing shocking for the sake of shock, or life and death in these stories. For the most part, I found that the compelling drama of each story was more about discovery in a personal truth, or the acknowledgment of a change in the direction of one’s life had occurred. In solid, confident hands, like King’s, these moments are profound in their apparent simplicity; discovering the capacity of love again, or having the strength to stand up for one’s self, or that summer when adulthood emerged from adolescence, or my favorite – you have to have the courage to slay your fear. (Maybe even bury it in the back yard.)

    It was refreshing to read stories that had big truths in small packages. I have been reading so many short stories of late, that I am beginning to get desensitized to the amount of death, or uncomfortable/aggressive sex that happens. It’s like the “trauma plot” in stories has become the issue du jour of late. In Five Tuesdays in Winter, Lily King shows real courage in creating her characters that live lives of grace and dignity which not only shows she respects her characters, but also acknowledges that her characters will continue to grow in these worlds. This collection left me feeling surprisingly optimistic about life, which is a delight to experience in the cold gloom of winter.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Lit Awards Are RIGGED, Oh Tottenham, and My Nose is Stuffed Up

    (Got to Be Real…)

    This might not come as a shock to you, nor me, and maybe someone out there doesn’t know this, but Lit Awards are Rigged. I know how hard that is the believe, but I read this article by Dan Sinykin which says just that; The Lit Prize World is fixed so that a majority of certain people can win. Sinykin is reporting on the research that Juliana Spahr Stephanie Young, Claire Grossman did on the major lit prize winners, going back to 1918. To quote the article, “They (the authors of the research) found that half of the prize-winners with an MFA “went to just four schools: [University of] Iowa, Columbia, NYU, or UC Irvine.” Iowa has special clout: its alumni “are 49 times more likely to win compared to writers who earned their MFA at any other program since 2000.” Also, “…writers “with an elite degree (Ivy League, Stanford, University of Chicago) are nine times more likely to win than those without one. And more specifically, those who attended Harvard are 17 times more likely to win.” I know, I know – It’s hard to believe that people who go to elite schools keep the majority of prizes, money and contracts within their own group. You should read the article as it goes deeper into a few other aspects, but this pretty much confirmed what I knew when I was 18; if you don’t get into the right school, the likelihood of having a writing career is stacked against you.

    What a shitty week to be a Tottenham fan. Not only did they lose to Arsenal on Sunday, but they had the added fun of going down in flames to Man City on Thursday night. They were up two goals at half, and then the wheels came off the truck at the start of the second, and Spurs just looked out classed. Like they don’t deserve to be in the top four of the Premier League. Ung… At least I have the Cowboys to root for on Sunday.

    I think I have another cold. That two in the span of three months. Yuck…