Jul 17 2023

The Meltdown (Diary Of A Wimpy Kid #13) by Jeff Kinney

My eldest child has had his computer taken away from him this summer so he’s been spending a lot of free time not only re-reading his Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books, but also pestering me about my opinions of them. I’ve been trying to get him to read some new books, to no avail, but recently realized that I’d confused this installment with Cabin Fever and its absolute nightmare of poor Susan having to take care of three kids while snowbound and with broken glasses. Since I couldn’t very well urge him to read something new while neglecting to read some of his favorites, I sat down with him to go over this completely different wintry installment of the series.

Our Wimpy Kid Greg Heffley continues to navigate middle school with his usual mix of laziness and imagination. As the book opens, his area is experiencing a heat wave that has everyone thrown for a loop. School management has the heat up high despite the mild temperatures outside, leading to some uncomfortable and gross (but honestly hilarious) situations. When snow finally comes, Greg has to figure out ways to avoid the indignities it brings with it, not helped by his neighborhood dynamics.

The kids of Upper Surrey Street (where Greg lives) and Lower Surrey Street do not get along. Upper Surrey Street is built on a slope, whereas the lower part is on flatland. Thus the lowlanders get to enjoy all sorts of athletics, while the slope of the upper street makes summer — and spring and autumn — ball sports far more frustrating. Reveling in their advantage, the lowlanders refuse to let the highlanders play on their territory. The situation is dramatically reversed in the winter, however, when the slope makes for excellent sledding. The highland kids aren’t going to let the slights of the rest of the year go, and defend their land from any incursions.

Things come to a head when, inspired by tales of igloos, Greg and his best friend Rowley decide to build a snow fort on a vacant lot. This soon turns into a massive neighborhood wall against the lowlanders, followed by all out war. Will Greg and Rowley be able to survive with their skins, and perhaps more importantly their dignities, intact?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/17/the-meltdown-diary-of-a-wimpy-kid-13-by-jeff-kinney/

Jul 16 2023

Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

This review inevitably has spoilers for Silver in the Wood.

Emily Tesh returns to Victorian England to show readers what has happened since the end of Silver in the Wood, and it starts out with a right mess. Henry Silver, fastidious when last seen, has allowed Greenhallow Hall to fall into disrepair, nearly into ruin. Its collapse has progressed enough to allow a dryad to enter, something that could not have happened when the Hall was still a home. Henry himself, no longer lord of the manor but rather of the Wood, is rather worse for the wear, “wearing the ragged remains of what had been one of his better shirts, and no socks or shoes.” (p. 13) He tries to put a brave face on it — “Was he hot the Lord of the Wood, nearer demigod than mortal man, master of time and seasons, beasts and birds, earth and sky?” (p. 13) — but the dryad Bramble has bad news: His mother has come to visit.

Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

Mrs. Silver is not merely a Victorian widow of strict habits and firm views, she is also a practical folklorist, skilled in tracking down England’s bumpier supernatural creatures and ensuring that they do not trouble the good folks just trying to get on with their lives. Permanently, if need be. “Silver had never dared to ask her if she was really still mourning his father or if she just found the sober attire of the widow convenient for her purposes. Hunting monsters could be a messy business. Bloodstains hardly showed on black.” (p. 17) And she is having none of Henry’s melodramatic nonsense. Mr Finch is away in Rothport.

“Your father also liked to sulk,” said Mrs Silver.
“I am not sulking,” said Silver.
“I cannot think what else to call it,” Mrs Silver said, “when a healthy young person insists on building himself a thorn-girt fortress and sitting in it consuming nothing but sour fruit and small beer for months on end.” (p. 19)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/16/drowned-country-by-emily-tesh/

Jul 13 2023

The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler

I’m not sure how it happened, but way too many Millennial women in the United States have been raised to be people-pleasers in a manner that horrifies my late Gen X/geriatric Millennial sensibilities. Somehow, they’ve been persuaded by “Lean In” and “yes and” culture (with a healthy dose of late-stage capitalism) to think that having it all means running yourself ragged and putting everyone but yourself first. Ironically, that’s the kind of thing they’d pretend to disparage in Boomers while doing the very same themselves (and I know several Gen Xers who also fall into this trap yet, on balance, make up a much smaller percentage of our cohort.)

The three New York City women at the heart of this book exemplify this problem, all quietly seething at the perceived injustices of their lives. Lauren kicked out her husband after discovering his secret sexual life, and is further blindsided when he chooses to make inappropriate relationship choices after their divorce. Independently wealthy Madeline has spent most of her adult life being the mother she never had for her now-teenage daughter Arabella, and doesn’t know what to do when her ex-husband in London starts talking about bringing their daughter to come live with him for a year. Sophie is struggling to pay the bills for her two kids while her deadbeat ex and his gorgeous, accomplished new wife and baby have the Instagram-perfect life she can’t help obsessing over.

One drunken dinner between the three friends persuades Lauren to launch a service called The Wife App, sort of a Task Rabbit on steroids. After the women complain about the thankless Mental Load they’ve always taken on as wives and mothers — mostly in planning, organizing, and mentally and emotionally supporting their families — tech-oriented Lauren decides to build an app for a service that takes over. After all, if you can hire housekeepers and nannies, why not hire a family organizer and counselor, essentially a Wife without all the sex and romance? Gloria Steinem would be proud.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/13/the-wife-app-by-carolyn-mackler/

Jul 11 2023

The P Word: A Manual For Mammals by David Hu & Ilias Arahovitis (GIVEAWAY)

Growing up, I never thought I’d be the mother to three boys. I always imagined having daughters whom I would try to guide through life with grace and thoughtfulness based on my own experiences. While my sons are a delight, there are certain subjects I feel less than perfectly equipped to advise them on. Unsurprisingly, penises is one of those.

So I was super glad to receive a copy of this book and see how the experts deal with the subject! David Hu is a father and a professor of mechanical engineering and biology down at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was moved to write this kids’ book because of conversations he had about bodies and their maintenance with his own son. The P Word goes over what a penis is, its biological functions in the body’s elimination and reproduction systems, and how to keep it clean and healthy. It’s written in an accessible, matter-of-fact fashion that is scientifically accurate while still being engaging for young readers. Heck, even this older reader learned new things, especially in the comparative biology sections. That said, I liked the parts about keeping the penis clean and safe best, with its considerate advice on urination, hygiene and sports protection. I also deeply appreciated the paragraphs on consent and talking to trusted adults about any concerns. Mr Hu keeps his text shame-free and health (physical, mental and emotional) focused, making this the perfect book to hand to your young penis-haver.

I actually gave this to my twelve year-old, who very emphatically did not want to read this with me but was happy to go over it on his own. This is the same kid who selected a book about periods to read one time, again in privacy, tho he did ask me relevant questions afterwards. And I get it: privacy is important! I’m just happy that I’m able to answer his questions about bodies as a parent, and that The P Word has given us a really good framework for having frank conversations regarding this specific organ.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/11/the-p-word-a-manual-for-mammals-by-david-hu-ilias-arahovitis-giveaway/

Jul 06 2023

The Facts Of Life by Paula Knight

Did I look at the fact that Doug and I had just featured five books in a row by men before deliberately picking up this graphic novel created by a woman to read and review? Darn right I did. Bonus for it coming in my recent shipment of sale books from Penn State University Press. Thank you, feminism, for forcing me to read a book I’d recently purchased in a timely manner.

The Facts Of Life is an intensely personal, deeply moving story of being a woman growing up and maturing in the back half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, and all the pressures that society placed in those years on women to get married and have kids. Polly, as Paula Knight names her stand-in, is born in England’s Northeast in 1969, a time of rapidly changing social mores. Even though contraceptives on demand are giving women and families freedom to control their reproduction, it’s widely accepted that woman are still going to start families and have children when the time is right.

Polly has always known this, even if the misinformation she picks up as a kid — not helped by her parents’ generationally-typical prudishness regarding sex education — puts her well off sex and reproduction. While sex eventually becomes a regular part of her life once she’s an adult, she’s ambivalent about reproduction. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to have kids. But between her diagnosis with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, her chosen career as an illustrator and unlucky timing with her long-term relationships, she doesn’t actually feel that she’s in a good place to have and raise a child till she’s well into her 30s.

At first, everything seems fine. Her health is good, her finances stable and her partner, after a bout of ambivalence of his own, supportive. To their joy, they get pregnant fairly quickly. But then Polly starts bleeding, and they soon discover that she’s having a miscarriage.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/06/the-facts-of-life-by-paula-knight/

Jul 03 2023

The Couscous Chronicles by Azzedine T. Downes

Stories Of Food, Love, And Donkeys From A Life Between Cultures. With a foreword by Dr Jane Goodall.

I am so glad Azzedine T Downes’ friends persuaded him to write a book about his travels, because this memoir is amazing! Funny and thoughtful, it’s a wonderful debut and hopefully the first of many more fascinating books about his life and philosophies.

The Couscous Chronicles covers Mr Downes’ adult life from when he was a Peace Corps officer suspected of being a spy for the CIA in Morocco, roughly to the end of his tenure with the agency. As a young teacher in 1980s Morocco, his blue eyes and prematurely greying hair caused much suspicion, as most of the people he met had a hard time believing that he was Muslim, American and decently proficient in Arabic. Soon enough, he was attracting the attention of many locals eager to betroth him, either to themselves or to their available relatives. While he was definitely amenable to having a marriage arranged by Islamic tradition, there were some catches that he was definitely uninterested in, leading him to eventually flee Morocco for the relative safety of post-graduate studies in Harvard. His career would eventually take him back to the Middle East as a newly married man. After his posting in Yemen, he was sent to Eastern Europe with his young family, before becoming the Peace Corps’ chief of operations in Jerusalem.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/03/the-couscous-chronicles-by-azzedine-t-downes/

Jun 28 2023

The Boy With Wings by Lenny Henry

with illustrations by Keenon Ferrell and Mark Buckingham (yes, THAT Mark Buckingham!)

Tunde has always felt a little out of place in his primarily white school district. While his Black adoptive parents Ron and Ruth have been nothing but loving and kind, it’s hard being the beaky-nosed Black nerd who’s an easy butt of jokes, especially from school bully Quinn. It doesn’t help that Ron and Ruth have barred him from sports, and would stop him from doing any physical activity more strenuous than walking if they could possibly help it. They claim that he doesn’t have the physique for it, and since they’re both scientists at the nearby Facility, he doesn’t have a lot of basis from which to argue back.

At least he has friends! Jiah is even nerdier than he is, and Kylie is often spouting advice cribbed from her relationship counselor mother. While Tunde loves them both, he’s really relieved when he also makes friends with new kid Nev. It’s a little embarrassing for a twelve-year old boy to only have friends who are girls, so when he hits it off with cool, athletic Nev, it feels like he’s finally finding his people.

A disastrous birthday party, however, persuades him that he needs to spread his metaphorical wings, especially when it comes to standing up to Quinn. At first, this only means taking part in his school’s Sports Day. His stellar performance there, however, soon has him joining Nev, Quinn and cool new girl Dembe on the school soccer team. Despite Quinn’s bullying, everything seems to be going great… until something unimaginable happens at their very first competitive match.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/28/the-boy-with-wings-by-lenny-henry/

Jun 27 2023

Tiger Work: Poems, Stories And Essays About Climate Change by Ben Okri

Okay, if you’re a Ben Okri fan, then this is likely going to be your jam. I hadn’t read any of his award-winning work before this collection, so I absolutely jumped at the chance to read the latest publication of the first Black, and at the time youngest, winner of the Booker Prize. And it’s about climate change, too? Sign me up!

The first indication that maybe I wasn’t going to love this book as much as I wanted to came fairly early on, when the author states bluntly that he isn’t going to provide any solutions for readers. Then what, I wondered, was the point of this book? Or perhaps more cogently: who is the intended audience? For people like myself, committed to climate justice and looking for meaningful ways to contribute to the movement, this collection serves, perhaps, as reassurance that we are not alone. Through poems, parables and non-fiction, Mr Okri emphasizes the importance of ending our reliance on fossil fuels and pursuing renewable energy, even as he laments the high rates at which humanity currently consumes the resources of the planet. But that’s all preaching to the choir, and just another piece in the sea of climate change literature that environmentalists already consider daily.

Perhaps, I thought, this book is for people who’ve never really thought about the environment, or people with a reactionary disdain for us tree-huggers. After all, if science and facts and the evidence of their eyes and a sense of civic responsibility can’t persuade these people, then perhaps heavy-handed art from a famous person can. I doubt it will make any in-roads with hard-core denialists, but the attempt to reach out and affect the hearts and minds of those who can be brought to reason is both valiant and worthwhile.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/27/tiger-work-poems-stories-and-essays-about-climate-change-by-ben-okri/

Jun 26 2023

Father Under Fire by Neil Boyd

The fourth in Neil Boyd‘s Bless Me, Father series finds the irascible Father Duddleswell laid up with lumbago just as the priest with whom Duddleswell began his career settles in for an extended visit. Father Abe — most definitely not Father Abraham, with seven sons — is getting on in years, but still sly and not above using his age to get what he wants. Boyd does not directly ask how many times Father Abe has rolled out the “this could be my last chance to …” argument, but he shows that it is often enough that he’s having several last chances at things.

Father Under Fire by Neil Boyd

The pillars of St Jude’s populate pages of Father Under Fire just as faithfully as the other books of the series: Father Neil, the young Catholic priest nearing the end of his first full year out of seminary; Father Charles Duddleswell, longstanding priest of the parish, a stickler for rules unless they get in the way of the greater good; Mrs Pring, the housekeeper who appears to get on Duddleswell’s last nerve but is his steadiest supporter; Billy Buzzle, bookmaking neighbor with a keen eye for profitable joint ventures; Dr Donal Daley, boon companion and prodigious drinker of whiskey.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/26/father-under-fire-by-neil-boyd/

Jun 23 2023

Strangers In Paradise: Vol I by Terry Moore

It’s been almost thirty years since I first saw this title and wanted to read it. I’m so glad I finally got the chance, even if it has been decades since it first came out!

But mixed in with the glee of long anticipation is a note of dissonance. Even while I was reading this, I was fairly certain that I would have enjoyed it way, way more had I been reading it closer to the turn of the century. And this isn’t just because I’ve learned how to be more comfortable in my own skin since then. So many ideas of acceptable behavior change with the times, and so often for the better! Twenty years ago, the thought of a throuple would have seemed weird and seedy to me, but nowadays I can only think that Francine, Katchoo and David should really be a polyamorous unit, instead of being uptight and angsty over their feelings for one another.

Not, ofc, that they don’t have plenty of reason to be angsty outside of their relationship drama. Francine is probably the most normal of the bunch, and even she has a lot of codependency issues. As the graphic novel (and series) begins, she’s fending off the sexual advances of her long-term boyfriend Freddy Femur. She believes that sex has always been a turning point in her relationships with men, so wants to foster a deeper connection with Freddy before introducing sex into their relationship too.

Her best friend and roommate Katchoo (short for Katina Choovanski) hates Freddie, and not just because she’s in love with Francine herself. Into this already complicated relationship steps art student David. His persistent pursuit of Katchoo — despite her telling him to piss off as she’s uninterested in men — is meant to come across as romantic. Despite their differences, and through the trials that beset them, the three form a supportive bond that is not without its jealousies.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/23/strangers-in-paradise-vol-i-by-terry-moore/