Booktalk.

I haven't read all the Obama books for children, but I've seen a fair number come through the library.   I thought I would post my favorite and my least favorite.  Please send your comments!

Our Enduring Spirit: President Barak Obama's First Words to America illustrated by Greg Ruth is, in my opinion, the best I've seen so far.  Our Enduring Spirit is an abridged version of Obama's inaugural address (the full text of the address is in the back of the book).  I like this book because it presents Obama in his own words. It allows children to interpret Barak Obama for themselves without putting adult significance on then man. The illustrations by Greg Ruth are also wonderfully done, adding meaning to the text without overpowering it.

My least favorite Obama book isn't really about Obama at all, but about Bo, the Obama family dog.  First dog by J. Patrick Lewis and Beth Zappitello is entirely awful.  In this book, a Portuguese water dog travels the world "looking for the perfect place to live." After travelling the world, he finally finds himself at the White House door. Not only is this book full of really terrible stereotypes ofthe people and places he visits, it has an un-original ending that will make you groan out loud. 

Let me know your favorite and least favorite Obama books.  Comment here!

Puget Sound is home to more than its fair share of great writers -- Sherman Alexie, Tom Robbins, Ivan Doig, to name a few. But Washington's best current novelist, in my opinion, hails from the sunny side of our state. Spokane resident Jess Walter is one of the funniest writers alive! If you don't believe me, then read his latest book, Financial Lives of the Poets. Don't let the slightly misleading title fool you.

The book's main character, Matthew Prior, is an ex-newspaper journalist suffering through a midlife meltdown brought on by the bursting housing bubble. Matt's internet startup business that dispenses financial wisdom in the form of free verse poetry is in shambles (go figure!); his over-leveraged house is weeks from foreclosure; and his wife is on the verge of an affair with an old high school sweetheart who "friended" her on facebook. Who can blame him for taking a drag on a potent marijuana joint offered up to him by the teenage misfits he encounters on a midnight milk run to the local 7-Eleven. When he finds himself making repeated midnight "milk runs" to the 7-Eleven in search of stress relief, Matt and his 7-Eleven buddies hatch a plan that just might save him from "financial ebola." If it doesn't land him in jail first.

Financial Lives of the Poets is biting satire about the choices we make in a world filled with unchecked consumerism, online addiction, and potent BC Bud. Time Magazine calls it "the funniest way-we-live-now book of the year." Jess Walter's writing style has been compared to other well-known humorists like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Carl Hiaasen. This is his most accessible and entertaining novel to date. 

Whodathunk?  I mean, my mom was a birder for years, and those folks aren't usually your cage match types.  But every year, a number of competitive birders strain just about everything - their budgets, eyes, sleep cycles, health, relationships - to come out on top in the number of bird species sighted in North America in a single year.

This is another one of those subjects I had no interest in until a good book smacked me across the noggin (hurray for good books, and good authors).

Every year there is a Big Year, but there has never been a Big Year like 1998's epic battle between three very (very) different birders.  Mark Obmascik channels Howard Cosell as he narrates The Big Year:  A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession.

In one corner, a New Jersey roofing contractor.  In another, a corporate executive; and in the third, a nuclear power plant software engineer (all men - is it always guys who are this crazy?).  Obmascik follows the three on their wacky, sometimes hilarious sometimes tragic galavants around North America.  Like any good competition, it's neck and neck (and neck) the whole way.  I think readers of Bill Bryson will really enjoy this book, and I need to credit a co-worker for lobbing this one my way.

I was just reading an article in Booklinks about Jonah Winter when I noticed not one but two of his books displayed on the new book display at the Woodinville Library. Coincidence?  I think not!

Jonah Winter got into writting books for children through his mother, award winning illustrator and author, Jeanette Winter. He's done some fabulous collaborations with her but has also written some fine books on his own. 

I first became aware of him as an author with the book The 39 apartments of Ludwig van Beethoven.  This is wonderfully funny (mostly) true tribute to Beethoven. I read it to a first grade class and they thought it was hilarious! and we have the added bonus of a (sort-of) biography that introduces kids to a world past.

Jonah Winter's two new books are also outstanding.  The Fabulous Feud of Gilbert and Sullivan presents a snapshot into the famous light opera creators.  The illustrations are delightful. The story, just a snapshot into the friendship between the two, is something kids will relate to.  Factual stories prove more interesting than fiction. 

On a more serious note, Peaceful Heroes is a tribute to 14 people who risked their lives to help others and make the world a better place.  These range from people you're heard of (Jesus of Nazareth, and Martin Luther King Jr) and some that you may not have (Paul Rusesabagina and Marla Ruzucka).  It's remarkably well written, in language kids will understand without being watered down or over dramatized.

The Longest Night by Marion Dane Bauer and illustrated by Ted Lewin exactly fits my mood today.  With sunrise today at 7:18AM and sunset at 4:30PM, I'm feeling the short days and long nights. 

This book has the look and feel of a long northwest night.  Each of the animals, in turn, tries to bring back the sun. But only when the chickadee sings her little song, does the sun return. 

Pair this one with Raven a Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest by Gerald McDemott. 

I can be a real snob. I hate to admit that, but it's the truth; my first instinct is to look down my nose at things that are "popular" (reality TV, Facebook, Star Wars movies, and the like). This attitude has carried over into my reading life as well. Case in point: Stephen King. He might very well qualify as the world's most popular author and yet until very recently I'd never read a word he'd written. Thankfully, I'm aware that my sometimes uppity nature gets in the way and I take steps to work around it. With that in mind, I'm happy to report that I just finished 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King and I'll tell you something that you already know: this guy can write!

Ben Mears, a successful author, returns to the quiet little New England town of Jerusalem's Lot ('Salem's Lot, for short) in order to work on a new novel and hopefully lay some childhood demons to rest. He soon meets and becomes involved with local beauty Susan Norton, much to the disapproval of her mother and her former boyfriend, Floyd Tibbets. Meanwhile, the Marsten House, the dilapidated but imposing structure that that keeps an eery watch over the town, is after many years reoccupied by a pair of eccentric antique dealers, the urbane Mr. Straker and the unseen Mr. Barlow. Suddenly, strange things start to happen. Dogs are impaled on cemetery fences, people become severely ill and then quickly die, and other people...living and dead...disappear outright. Soon it becomes evident to Ben, Susan and a small group of comrades that vampires are in their midst and that the new residents of Marsten House are somehow at the center of the increasingly sinister happenings in the rapidly dwindling town of  'Salem's Lot.

I was surprised how much I liked Stephen King's writing style. The prose is stylish without being contrived or self-consciously hip. The plot unfolds fast enough to keep one's interest but not so fast that we don't get to know the characters; indeed, I was impressed with the level of character-development in this book. As for the horror quotient, I was told by a Stephen King aficionado that this book is tame in comparison to some of his other work (such as Pet Sematary, a book that is now on my list). And its true that 'Salem's Lot is rarely bloody or graphically violent. But that doesn't mean that it's not scary. "Ominous" and "foreboding" are words that well-describe this book; you get this gradually escalating sense of doom as the events unfold and that, I believe, is what makes this book really creepy.

Long story short: I thoroughly enjoyed 'Salem's Lot and look forward to my next excursion into Stephen King's psyche. I hope you check him out, too. 

But I still hate reality TV...  

Imagine the obliteration of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, Mount St. Helens National Monument, and then some.

1910's worst wildfire in U.S. history was not just a tragic loss, but an event that galvanized citizen support for forest conservation.  Timothy Egan, National Book Award winner, chronicles the events leading to the fire, the heroic and tragic stories from those few horrific days, and the nation's response in The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America. 

Although Roosevelt is listed in the subtitle, Gifford Pinchot and, indirectly, John Muir, were the driving forces behind the development of the National Forest system, and Egan spends the first portion of the book summarizing this backdrop.  Pushed through by the force of Roosevelt's will, the expansion of the National Forests was vehemently opposed by some of the most powerful senators in Congress.  Backed by timber, mining, and grazing lobbies, Congress effectively gutted Forest Service funding.  Idealistic young rangers lived a meager existence in towns that made Deadwood look like a kindergarten, desperately trying to control illegal logging and mining in an ocean of graft and hostility.

When hurricane force winds hit thousands of small fires during a summer of no rain, a handful of these poorly equipped rangers (the legendary Ed Pulaski among them) walked into a maelstrom.  Egan, again, marvelously captures a landmark natural event that changed the West.

[ see Timothy Egan at the Redmond Library:  December 3, 7pm ]

Karl Shoemaker, the protagonist at the center of Tales of the Madman Underground: An Historical Romance 1973, has one goal for his senior year of high school: be normal.  Karl is attempting to break away from the affectionately-dubbed Madman Underground - the school therapy group he's been stuck in since fourth grade - make new friends, and survive high school so that he can enlist in the military.  But how can Karl be normal when his life is completely chaotic?  His father, the town's beloved former mayor, passed away four years ago, and his mother is a hippie alcoholic who steals Karl's money and spends it on benders, justifying her excesses by saying things like, "I really needed some freedom last night."  The books' cast of characters also includes the other "Madmen" in the therapy group, some not-so-smart high school bullies and the umpteen cats - with names like Prettyangel and SkyMusic - that share the house with Karl.

Karl's acerbic, profanity-spewing voice is painfully truthful and recalls Holden Caulfield, and I loved his descriptions of small-town life.  There's plenty of pathos in this novel - most of the parents of the Madmen are either drunk, emotionally distant, or entirely absent, and the teens certainly suffer for it - but Karl's sarcastic wit keeps the story moving without wallowing in woe-is-me self-pity.  Readers of a certain age will appreciate Karl's journey to adulthood in the freewheeling 1970s.

What book (that ended up selling over 100,000 copies in the first three weeks of its mainstream release) was originally picked up by a company that mostly published pornographic titles?  What enormously successful novelist worked as a grave digger, gas station worker, English teacher, and laundry mat attendant before his first novel was accepted for publication?  And, just who IS Pansy O'Hara?

If you want the answers to these questions and many others, here's the book for you.  If you've ever wondered how some of your favorite books ended up getting published, here's the book for you.  If you like little-known facts about well-known novels, here's the book for you.

Who the H*** is Pansy O'Hara? takes 50 of what the authors call the "world's best-loved books" and gives you the back story.  They dish on Charlotte Bronte's unrequited love, on Emily Post's divorce (gasp),  and on the World War II intelligence work of Ian Fleming.

The authors include both classic and modern fiction from Pride and Prejudice to The Da Vinci Code as well as nonfiction works like The Origin of Species and even Encyclopedia Britannica.  It's a fun read for bibliophiles and for people who wonder how and where classic novels come from.  And even though some of the stories are a bit sensational and the title sounds a little flip, the scholarship of these authors is serious and their writing is top notch. 

By the way, here's the answers:  Lolita was too hot for American publishers until Olympia Press out of Paris put out a modest 5,000 copies.  Stephen King worked a variety of jobs until Carrie was accepted by Doubleday for $2500.  Margaret Mitchell originally named her fiery Gone With the Wind heroine Pansy, but after multiple revisions, decided Scarlett was a more fitting name.  Happy reading.

A ninety year-old woman recently refinanced her home six times before the bank took it away. She gave all the money - a half million dollars - to her son, he never repaid her, and now she has nothing. It reminded me of something I first read years ago, Shel Silverstein's classic children's book The Giving Tree.

The book takes three minutes to read, and here is the story: a tree gives everything to a boy that she loves; her apples, her branches, even her trunk. It makes her happy each time she's able to give something more to the boy, though each time he leaves her without a thank you. In the end after the tree is cut down the boy sits on her stump to rest, and the tree is happy.

Reading this book was always unsettling, even when I was a child. It could be a warning about the environment, but I find it interesting to think about its views on human relationships. Wouldn't the boy be better served with some solid advice rather than her branches and trunk? Can you really be happy giving everything to someone who will take everything you have?

I don't want to be too cynical. Most parents give more to their children than they receive, and most are happy in the giving. Is this a story about parenthood? Or more generally is there something transcendent about giving with a full heart, so that it doesn't matter who receives the gift or what they do with it? Maybe. But there's something awfully sad about that tree, cut to a stump, with the boy on top.