Goodreads Review: Desert Queen by Janet Wallach

Preface: Once again, I'm going to try keeping track of the books I read this year. I was doing pretty well at this last year until October or so when I lost the notebook where I'd been writing them down. Argh. I'm on Goodreads but haven't really used it much except to look up possible reads - although it's not quite as easy without a smartphone, I'm going to give that a try this year. And maybe take a shot at talking about the ones I like. This one, for starters. 

  Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia by Janet Wallach
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book about a really fascinating woman who completely sidestepped the expectations of her time (partly by choice, and partly by circumstances, and to her joy and sadness both), and also an excellent look at the process that produced the modern Middle East. I knew that the countries we see in the news now were somewhat of an artificial creation dating to the decline of the British Empire, and I'm sure a poor history teacher or two tried to get some details into my skull at some point, but that was all a long time ago so I was quite ready for a review.

Does require reading with relativism filters on - as a modern reader, the paternalism of the British/Western attitudes - even those of Miss Bell herself - made for some uncomfortable passages, but this is how it was done (and maybe is still done today - and certainly the oil that was a key driver in proceedings then absolutely continues to be - that part wasn't any shock) and the read is well worth the occasional gritting of teeth in which you may find yourself engaged.

Also fascinating to read the final chapter of this 1996 book, knowing what was yet to come, including, so sadly, the looting of the very museum that was one of Bell's lasting achievements in the newly-minted county. In fact, my next stop after this is going to be Wikipedia's article about the museum, just to refresh my memory of what happened, and find out how it's doing now, and that's always one measure of success for a history for me - if I put down the book at the end and then start doing additional reading, just because it sparked curiosity, it was a good one.

View all my reviews

"River" Reading with Elisha Cooper, Community Bookstore, Park Slope

One more full vacation day before I head back to work, but today I did do a work-related (but in a fantastic way) thing.

Note - Links to additional readings of "River" appear at the end of this post - if you're in the NYC area and interested in the book but haven't got time to read my entire event review, scroll on down to the end; also, click here for book details. 

It was a stormy, rainy, windy day here in Brooklyn, so not a great day to sneak out for one last paddle (I might do that tomorrow though). I did want to do something though. One of my Sebago friends has been putting together some music sessions and there were enough takers for one today - that was tempting, but then I went on Facebook and saw that Elisha Cooper, author/illustrator of my new favorite Scholastic book, River, was having a reading at the Community Bookstore in Park Slope. The Q train wasn't running this weekend so there was going to be maybe a little extra waiting in the rain for shuttle buses, so I was still ever so slightly on the fence, but when the friend I'd asked for a ride to the club ended up deciding not to go because she got the cold that's been going around (sounds like the same one TQ and I started our vacation with), I decided storytime was the thing to do.

In case you missed my first post about River - I found out about this book from Nikki, a delightful Scholastic sales rep with whom I'm Facebook friends, much earlier in 2019, when she first posted about getting a peek at the F&G (folded and gathered, one of the last steps of a picture book before it finally goes into print - as the name suggests, it's basically the cover and all pages of the book, folded and gathered together in the same way the final book will be printed, but unbound and without the hard cover, providing one last less expensive chance for the author, editor, and design staff to look things over for any final changes that need to be made - also lets the sales reps and other interested parties see something very closely resembling the final book) of a book about a woman DOING A SOLO PADDLE DOWN THE HUDSON.

It's not actually a book about me (in fact, Cooper used his daughters as his models, which I think is pretty cool). But it's about as close to my heart as any book we've published, in the just under 2 decades I've worked for Scholastic, has been - because I paddled part of the voyage that Cooper's strong and competent main character travels, and that trip was one of the best things I have ever done for myself.

And Cooper, an incredibly accomplished author and skillful storyteller, captures the voyage so beautifully. His renditions of the section of the Hudson that I paddled (his character begins at Lake Henderson in the Adirondacks and finishes at Sandy Hook, NJ, while I put in at Waterford and finished in Red Hook, Brooklyn, so she overlaps me by a little - but a stretch that I've paddled on other occasions - at the south end, and by quite a lot at the beginning) are just spot-on and brought memories of my own trip just flooding back.

So I set out into the wind and the downpour to go to his Park Slope story hour - and it was lovely.

The bookstore is a small independent one, so the crowd wasn't huge. The book is interesting in that it's not a goofy silly giggler a la The Wonky Donkey, but Cooper engaged the kids with questions about things like what you would want to bring on a river voyage like this (the kids had some good answers, too), and then did a walk through the book's events, not reading line by line but giving a good sense of the story and sharing the splendid art. I was absolutely delighted to hear one of the parents there say, at the end, that the book was giving her the inspiration to think about doing an adventure with her family - I think that's what this book is all about and it was great to hear somebody pick up on that so immediately and directly.

He finished with an actual little bit of an art lesson and talk about his earliest artistic attempts trying to draw the animals on the farm where he grew up. That was really interesting - particularly his comments about how frustration with not getting things quite right was something that started early on and continues to this day. I think good stuff for kids to hear - helped me too, actually, I fell behind on my Inktober efforts and wasn't particularly thrilled with some of my catch-up efforts, but I came home after the event and sat down and just quit stressing out about making things look nice and just had some fun with the catching up - even did an extra drawing for today's "Coat" prompt, just for kicks.

He finished with some really cute caricatures of the kids who were there - he asked each of them what their favorite thing was and then drew them with those things.

Sorry no pictures - I took some but then quite idiotically hit "delete-all" before I'd actually uploaded to my computer. :( Fun morning, though.

I hadn't gotten my hands on a copy of the book through work yet so I went ahead and got one there (and because I like to support my local booksellers and because I have only once in recent memory walked into a bookstore and walked out without something besides what I came for, I also picked up Where the Crawdads Sing - so many people I know love that book and I thought of it just before I had the staff ring up my copy).

Elisha signed it and this is now a prized possession - it would've been anyways but check out the inscription!

I managed to get it home dry and then spent a lovely bit of time curled up on the Evil Futon of Nap (my ultra-comfy chaise-longue-esque futon that lures me into a doze almost every time I settle in for a read) with the book and a cup of hot cocoa. I didn't even nap this time.

If this sounds like fun to you, and you're in NYC, there are 4 more similar events scheduled.

He's going to be VERY busy next weekend - Patagonia in SoHo on the 2nd - not sure what time, I'll find out UPDATE: Patagonia event cancelled for now, possibility of a reschedule.

On the 3rd, he'll be back in Brooklyn for back-to-back events at the 2 Greenlight Bookstores - 11:30 in Prospect Lefferts Garden, and 1:30 in Fort Greene

And then on the 17th, he'll be at the Stories Bookshop and Storytelling Lab in the North Slope at 10:30 am.

Hope paddling friends - or anyone with a young person who likes to dream of adventures who stumbles across this - can make it! 

River Day!

 Hooray, Hooray, It's River Day! Elisha Cooper's lovely new picture book is in bookstores today, and he'll be making a number of appearances in the Northeast, with several in NYC, over the next few weeks.

 I've been saving this video for today - he shares a number of scenes from the book (you'll see why I'm so ridiculously over the moon about this one) and in a very sweet moment, he also talks a bit about the models for his main character. When I first got my hands on the book, one of my first reactions (naturally) was that it was really interesting and nice that the book was about a woman doing a solo paddle, when it would've been just as easy to have it be a guy, but being someone who tends to accept things at face value, I didn't really think to wonder why, but it's neat.

 Elisha's events are listed here

 And it sounds like his pre-release Sunday special event in Rhinebeck, where book sales for the day appropriately benefited Riverkeeper, was a success.

 Note: I am an employee of Scholastic, the company that is publishing this book, but this is not my job (I'm in finance in fact) - I'm just delighted with the book and want to tell everyone in the world about it!

River - Book Signing in Rhinebeck, Sunday, 9/29/19

Further to yesterday's post about this new Scholastic title that I'm so excited about - if anyone from the Rhinebeck area happens to stumble across this within the next 2 days, and you're interested in getting a signed copy of the book, meeting the author, AND supporting Riverkeeper, all at the same time, Oblong Books has got you covered. Click here for details and to RSVP. Wish I could go!

note: I am a Scholastic employee but this blog is purely a personal hobby - I'm sharing this here because I just love the book.

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River, by Elisha Cooper

Well, how perfect that I have been in a Hudson River vein for the last couple of posts - because today I'm going to stay in that vein to tell you about an absolutely gorgeous book about a woman's solo paddle down the Hudson that's coming out next week. Here's Elisha Cooper's cover for River. 

And here's Trusty Romany looking south on the Hudson River back in August 2014, when I was able to make a long-held pipe dream of a solo paddle down the Hudson into reality.

I've worked for Scholastic for 18 years now and of all the books we've published in that time, this may be the one that gives me the most personal delight.

I found out about it from Nikki Mutch, a lovely Scholastic sales rep with whom I'm Facebook friends. I'm in finance, and not high up in finance, which means that I don't really hear much about books we're publishing. Nikki shared it on Facebook back in April as she was getting ready to sell our Fall 2019 list. I saw the cover and her description and just about fell off my chair - she told me who I could talk to about getting an F&G (Folded and Gathered, an unbound preliminary print run allowing for adjustments before the final version) and when I read it - oh, it just gave me chicken skin. Here's what I had to say after the first reading:

ok I might be just a tiny tiny tiny bit excited about a book that Orchard Books is publishing this Fall. 

It's a story about a woman doing a solo paddle down the Hudson River. Friends will understand exactly why this just makes me smile from ear to ear just saying that! No, no, no, it's not actually about me, but reading the F&G of Elisha Cooper's book and seeing the glorious watercolors with which he's illustrated it just brought memories of my own voyage flooding back!

Fall seemed so far away then - but now here we are, and it comes out next week, and check out this great review from Kirkus!

This book would give a kid some great paddling dreams of their own to dream -- and it definitely gives this grownup an itch to go do it again - and maybe take more time this time, I only did a part of the trip described in the book.

Glorious. Elisha Cooper truly captures the river that I (and so many other boaters) love.

PS - for trip reports from my 2014 paddle, click on the "My Hudson Voyage" link below. 

Loved This Book - Can You See Me

Lifted from a Tuesday night FB post written not long after I'd finished reading the book. I think "I missed my subway stop because I was reading your book" is one of the highest compliments I can pay an author, and this one did that! I'd intended to share this here then, but then I read that heartbreaking story of that poor woman dying of measles complications and chose to post that instead. 

My logging of books I'm reading this year went by the wayside after June for some reason. I think I got a little discouraged by somebody mistaking my list for recommendations - it was a kind comment but sort of embarrassing because I get so many of the books that I read off out of either the giveaway shelf at work, the book swap shelf in the basement, or the local Little Free Library. The result of this is that my reading list is about as well-curated as a squirrel's collection of acorns in the fall.

However, I am going to mention this one, because it was a really good read. It's one from the giveaway shelf at work (I work for Scholastic but this post is purely my personal opinion); it was originally published by Scholastic UK in Spring 2019 and is coming out here in the states in March 2020. It's a middle-grade novel written collaboratively by Libby Scott, a young autistic writer who came to the public eye when her mother shared a short piece she'd written on Twitter and it went viral, and author and teacher Rebecca Westcott.

The main character, Tally, is autistic, and the book begins just as she's getting ready to start 6th grade at a new school and follows her as she tries so very, very hard to fit in. It's so well done, I just found myself really feeling what it felt like to be in Tally's shoes. Interesting thing is that there were descriptions of going into tailspins that just reminded me SO much of things I felt myself as a kid, and even sometimes still as an adult...I read an essay once that really struck me about how children and young adult books can serve as windows or mirrors. This book was a fascinating window into life with a condition I don't really know that much about, but there were mirror moments too as I remembered times when I was just overwhelmed and couldn't keep my feelings in check right when I most wanted to. As far as I know, I'm completely neurotypical, but oh, there was common ground for me here, and I suspect many people would feel the same.

I finished it on the subway ride home tonight and was so engrossed by the end that I missed my stop and had to switch to a train back the other way at King's Highway. That only happens when a book has completely grabbed my attention.

Goodreads page for the book

Window and Mirrors essay

More about the tweet that went viral!

River, by Elisha Cooper

Been neglecting the blog again as I've had quite a bit going on both at work and in my personal life (mostly good, including some fun plans shaping up for another step in my post-cancer paddling skills redevelopment this coming June, but keeping me busy). But I did just want to do a quick post about a book that Orchard Publications (a Scholastic house, and in fact the one where I began my Scholastic career with an unexpected temp job in the chaotic days after 9/11 - I'm still so grateful that that happened!) is bringing out this Fall.

I'm just a tiny tiny tiny bit excited about this book by Elisha Cooper. It's a story about a woman doing a solo paddle down the Hudson River. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you will understand exactly why this just makes me smile from ear to ear just saying that - it reminds me so much of my own solo trip from Waterford to Brooklyn back in 2014. It doesn't come out until October, but when I found out about it, I was able to get an f&g* version, and seeing the glorious watercolors with which he's illustrated it just brought such good memories of my own Hudson voyage.  Mine was half the length of the trip in the book, of couse, but still one of the best things I think I've ever done for myself - I'd been wanting to do it for years and then one year everything just fell gloriously into place, so off went trusty Romany and I for a week on the river. Boy. The book actually has me wanting to go back and do it again, and maybe a little more next time.

There's an excellent interview with Elisha at the Mr. Schu Reads blog talking about the creation of River. This is going to be a great book for paddlers (especially Hudson River paddlers) to share with kids in their circles!

 Disclaimer: I work for Scholastic, but Frogma is a purely personal blog and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

*f&g = folded and gathered, it's one of the final proof versions of a picture book before it goes to press - it's basically the book printed as it's going to be but not bound yet, just the pages for last reviews before the final edition 

March Reading Part 1

Oof! Hate that I left the blog on a bummed-out note before budget season pulled me off for a while!

I'd had my March reading queued up for a lunchtime post for some time, but then all lunches were working lunches up until yesterday. Have been doing some fun things at the club too (a friend coordinated a paddle on the 13th, another gorgeous day, and then on the 14th there was a trip-leader review session and a garden committee meeting) but the book list is sitting here, so here we go.

Disclaimer thing: I'm a Scholastic employee but all opinions expressed here are just my personal ones. I'll mark all the Scholastic books with an asterisk.


Dactyl Hill Squad 2, Freedom Fire* by Daniel José Older - Started off the month with this second installation of the Dactyl Hill series.  The Squad is a close-knit group of kids from the Colored Orphans' Asylum in Manhattan who escape to Brooklyn during the horrors of the draft riots. The dactyls are Pterodactyls - in Older's fantasy, dinosaurs survived and humans use them instead of horses, including the flying ones! Great fun and excitement with a lot of very serious history folded in. I get grouchy about series sometimes but so far each book is something of a cohesive story -- I particularly hate getting to the end of a book and just being dropped instead of being given an ending. Only now I have to wait for Book 3!  Goodreads page 

Where She Fell*, by Kaitlin Ward - Another Scholastic title. Teenaged girl falls into a hole in a swamp notorious for disappearances, finds that some of the previously vanished are alive and well (except for, muahaha, an odd little quirk of not really wanting to escape the way you'd expect they would...) and living in a network of underground caverns. Adventure ensues! Maybe not as thought-provoking as some of our YA stuff, but the underground world is interesting and creative and it made for a quick, fun subway read. Goodreads page

The Cider House Rules, by John Irving - I reread this old favorite after being horrified to discover that there's a far-right movement (including a relative of mine who's been elected to the Idaho legislature and so is in a position to try to push this through, that's how I learned about the thing) of fetal personhood bills being introduced here and there across the country, even in true-blue Washington State. Doubtless after a chance to challenge Roe v. Wade. Full rights for the fetus from the moment of conception, NO exceptions - the minute a woman becomes pregnant, she's just a walking incubator, regardless of her situation in life (unless she's well off enough to go to another state - they're not quite ready to put women under house arrest to stop them, although if you read the bills, you wonder if that might be under consideration). None gone through so far but there's a wave, I keep reading about another one here, another one there. Just makes me so, so sad. I turned to Irving's tale of decency, caring, courage, and sympathy for comfort. Excellent read always but especially in these times when so many in this country are pushing to force their beliefs on others without a thought to who gets hurt.  Goodreads page

The Hero 2 Doors Down*, and Child of the Dream: A Memorial of 1963* - both by Sharon Robinson. Speaking of things to read when you're not feeling so good about people - anything, I think, by Sharon Robinson will do. The first is a sweet middle-grade book telling the story of how a Brooklyn Dodgers-loving kid growing up in East Flatbush came to be lifelong friends with the one and only Jackie Robinson and family when the Robinsons first moved to Brooklyn and rented a house in East Flatbush (the home is still there, maybe sometime I'll go check it out). A true story with some details lightly fictionalized to move the story along, as explained in an afterword section. I grabbed the book for some Jackie-loving young relatives in Texas but had to preview it, of course. Enjoyed it so much that when I overheard a couple of editors discussing Sharon's next book I mentioned it and was rewarded with a practically hot off the presses Advanced Reader's Copy of Child of the Dream, which comes out in September. This one is Sharon's own recollections of what it was like to be a 13 year old member of a family playing an influential role in the Civil Rights movement. Amazing, I could hardly put it down. That went to Texas too. 

Part 2 titles - ARGH, sort of. I'd written up all of these and then through some accident of having an earlier version open in a window and saving that one, I lost 'em all. Not such a bad thing though, made for a VERY long post and I was thinking maybe it would be better broken into 2. Here were the rest of the March books with Goodreads links. Oh, btw, April 27th is Independent Bookstore Day, support your local independent bookseller! 

Rock/Salt/Stone
Other Islands of NYC
March
Because of the Rabbit*

*All titles marked with an asterisk are Scholastic publications. I'm a Scholastic employee but this is a personal blog and all opinions expressed here are mine alone.

February Reading

There's more Florida to come (next up - a really amazing birdwatching day at the Myakka River State Park, shown above) but first, continuing on with my plan to keep track of my 2019 books, here's February's reading:

Barren Island by Carol Zoref: This was a find through the Sebago Canoe Club, one of our members read it and suggested a one-off book club type discussion. I would call it a coming-of-age story, it's about a young girl whose family immigrates to NYC and ends up being part of a tiny community whose men work for a rendering plant on Barren Shoal, a tiny sandbar of a place located off of the real-world Barren Island. An excellent fictionalized slice of history in the years leading up to WW II. PS - excellent teacher character!

Martin Rising: Requiem for a King by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. Loved this poetic ode to the life and death of Martin Luther King and the inspiration he left behind, with wonderful illustrations. Teacher friends - Great additional history and suggestions for classroom use at the end. I absolutely inhaled it, as I sometimes do when I'm hypnotized by a book, as I'm writing this I think I need to go back and take a little more time with it sometime. 

Island People: The Caribbean and the World, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro: A travelogue with intensive history. When I went to The Strand to see if they had Barren Island (they did, yay!) this was out on one of the theme tables, and it caught my eye because my Brooklyn neighborhood has a very strong Caribbean presence and I know some pretty remarkable people (friends, co-workers, and one really great boss back in my banking days) whose roots are in the Caribbean, so I have some sense of things I've learned from them, and this looked like a good book for learning more, which It was. It reminded me of Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes in that this someone who's not from a place (in Jelly-Schapiro's intro he refers to himself as "a white kid who'd grown up in snowy New England") but has taken the time to learn about it and now wants to share. It gives an interesting sense of the distinctions between the cultures of the different islands. This one was a slow read, it was interesting going from inhaling Marting Rising to this one, because this is very much a book that says "Slow down, there is a lot to learn here", and whisking over, say, the development of the political parties on an island on one page leaves you somewhat at sea a few pages later. I was able to get myself into the right careful-reading frame of mind fairly quickly though and did learn some interesting things, as I'd hoped. I think the next step would be to go back to that same Strand table and find something by someone who IS from there, for a more local take.

That's NOT what happened by Cody Keplinger: This is the March reading for the Scholastic employee book club. This is a story about 6 school kids who witnessed and survived a school shooting and how they come to terms with the mythology that sprang up in the aftermath - a mythology that left one of them a "hero" and one of them demonized. I'm a WTC survivor so this was, uh, shall we say, a highly accessible premise for me (see also Facebook every September 11th...always interesting feeling the nerves get going at the patriotic memes when it's still so real and personal for me and the myths are a really flattened version of my sense of the day). Loved it, looking forward to the discussion.

Finally - Ruff vs. Fluff by Spencer Quinn. My cousin Michael first told me about Spencer Quinn and then Scholastic started publishing kids' books by him. YAY! Tons of fun, crime stories with kid heroes, told from the point of view of their pets. I loved the Birdie & Bowser books I was able to get my paws on and this new one with Arthur the Dog and Queenie the Cat is also great. And that was February.

Right now I'm nosing around in a book of Grimm's Fairy Tales (not the Disney versions) and then with all of the anti-abortion stuff in the government, including some absolutely horrible legislation a relative who's just joined the Idaho legislature is working with a more experienced rep to try to push through (I've never prayed so hard for family to fail), I'm thinking it might be a good time to revisit The Cider House Rules.

January Reading

No, no, I didn't read ALL of that in January. Just still tickled by finally owning enough bookcases for my whole personal library! I went back for the matching one they had at the secondhand furniture place after overfilling this one and that should cover it for a while. Happy happy joy joy!
January reading (lifted directly from last night's long FB ramble):

I've been thinking that it would be interesting to actually keep track of the books I read for a year. I am an inveterate bookworm and between the books I own, a variety of sources of free books (work giveaways, apartment giveaways, Brooklyn Library, Sebago Canoe Club Library, Ditmas Park Little Free Library) and sufficient discretionary income for the occasional bookstore binge, I'm always working on something, and with my 1.5 to 2 hours of commuting time pretty much entirely dedicated to reading, I get through so many books in a year that I would never be able to give you a list at the end.

I would be able to tell you the ones that stood out, and maybe that list would be better as it would reflect on the quality rather than just quantity, but there are so few books that I just end up not liking that maybe a full list would be fun.

So here's January 2019:

Finished David Cordingly's Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailor's Wives (had started reading in December 2018). Nonfiction, a wide variety of good stories including some wonderfully brave women who stepped up and assumed leadership roles in eras when a proper woman wasn't supposed to do such things. I'm not sure where I got this but it's going to the Sebago library even if it wasn't from there originally (it's not labeled as such, which they usually are)

First complete book of 2019, quite intentionally, that was how I wanted to start my reading year: Michelle Obama's Becoming. I read this so slowly, savored every word. Keeper. Miss the Obama White House SO much.

Tin by Padraig Kenney - Advance Reading Copy from work, comes out in March. Aimed at ages 8 - 12 but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Alternative history with robot children, themes of friendship, loyalty, family, and at the risk of making it sound heavier than it is, some serious consideration of what it means to be human. Will put this out in the Ditmas Park Little Free Library (like to get the work finds into general circulation).

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster - Vaudeville era story of a guttersnipe orphan boy who's taken from his uncaring aunt and uncle by a man who teaches him to fly. Again, meditations on family, loyalty, betrayal, this time at an adult level. This one's a keeper, it was a rip-roaring adventure with a lot of underlying thought and that's the kind of thing I'll speed read the first time just to see what happens, then go back for a more leisurely revisit.

Missing by Cath Staincliffe - I like a good murder mystery every now and then. This one was British and featured a good female private investigator protagonist who I liked very much. Put it out in the Little Free Library when I was done with it, I don't tend to hold onto a lot of mysteries.

The Fairy Tale Detectives: Sisters Grimm Book One by Michael Buckley - I think my friend Mandy Huang was telling me about this series last year and I found Book 1 on the giveaway shelf at work this year. Premise: What if Grimm's Fairy Tales were actually case histories of crimes and the fairy tale creatures who were the victims and perps were alive and well and living in a small town by the Hudson River? Good fun and there was a really cool author addendum at the end talking about common elements and themes you find in fairy tales and offering readers who'd like to try their own hand at creating a re-told version ways to start playing with that. That was kind of cool - I'm alway somewhat awed by storytellers, it's such a sort of mysterious skill to me, and here's and author saying to "Here's how I do it, now why don't you give it a try too, it's fun!" Totally neat thing for kids.

Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel Jose Older - This one was the pick for the Scholastic employee book club January meeting. I've been trying to attend for months now, finally actually made it and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book is kind of a crazy fun conglomeration of genres - premise is what if they had dinosaurs instead of horses during the Civil War? So, alternative history, real history, action/adventure, dinosaurs, and a little bit of magic in a very recognizable NYC, with a fantastic bunch of kids displaced from the Colored Orphans Asylum by the Draft Riots in the lead roles - we need diverse books and this one's great. This one will probably go to the Little Free Library.

Both of those are from series, which I don't always love - I actually tend to get very cranky if I get to the end of a book and the author leaves me hanging, but in this case although it's very clear that there's more to unfold, the authors have basically wrapped things up well enough so you aren't left going "BUT YOU DIDN'T FINISH WRITING YOUR BOOK YOU LAZY BUM!". Both authors left you at a reasonable close to an episode and although you know there's another one coming it feels like you could step away from the characters if you want to. For the Sisters Grimm, if I ran across another one I would read it but I don't feel any particular need to go hunt down the next one. I am looking forward to the next installment of the Dactyl Hill Squad and since I sit near the editor I'll probably be able to get my hands on that pretty easily.

Last book of January, another work find - Floored: When Seven Lives Collide by (no really): Sara Barnard, Holly Bourne, Tanya Byrne, Non Pratt, Melinda Salisbury, Lisa Williamson, and Eleanor Wood. Collaborative YA fiction from the UK, 6 assorted teenagers get onto an elevator at the United Kingdom Broadcasting Offices together and something happens that causes them to bond as a group of friends, dramatically influencing their lives for years to come.

More friendship, family and loyalty - was that my January theme or is that just how authors do? Hmmm.

December Ducky Doodle - The Famous Fancy Duck of Central Park (with review of the Harry Potter History of Magic exhibit)

So, hooray, last week I broke out the colored pencils and crayons again and produced another ducky doodle. When I shared this one on Facebook I called it the "Ardith Bondi Duckydoodle Challenge"; the inspiration for it was twofold, with the original prompt being the stunning photo below of the increasingly famous "Hot Duck" of Central Park. Seriously, I've been thinking of him as the "Fancy Duck" -- because isn't he just the fanciest duck you've ever seen? -- but apparently "Hot Duck" is getting to be his accepted nickname as his likeness spreads across media both social and traditional, to the point that if you google "Hot Duck" it will most likely auto-suggest Central Park.

He's not really supposed to be here, the best guess is that he's a pet somebody released, but he seems to have settled in just fine and posts about him are all the rage among the NYC social media set. I will most likely try to go see him at some point, I don't really have a zoom lens that will do him justice but I'll take my camera and just plan a picture-taking day in the park, and if I get to see the duck, yay. If I get to take a picture, double yay, but with so many great photos of him out there, getting the shot is not really that important (kind of like I don't worry so much about getting whale shots on the American Princess because I know Artie Raslich will almost certainly share something spectacular from the same trip).  

Ardith Bondi, the photographer who got this lovely shot of the fancy duck, is another friend I've met through Gotham Whale, the local citizen science group that researches our local marine mammals from seals on up to the humpbacks who have returned to our area with increasing frequency as our waterways (which have grown cleaner and cleaner since the Clean Water Act was enacted) support larger and larger schools of menhaden (the small oil-rich fish that is a favorite summertime food for whales). I'm not sure I've ever met Ardith in person but we're Facebook friends, I love her photos and always look forward to her postings. Click here to see more of her photography.

She'd gone to Central Park to see if she could get some fancy duck photos back at the beginning of November; she said there was a mob of people there and it was hard to get a clear shot, but her patience was rewarded with this lovely photo of the mandarin in a perfect showboat moment, fluffing out his feathers at some pesky mallards. I'd seen a few shots of him at this point but this was the one that made me think "Oh, wow, I gotta draw that duck!"

That ended up not happening until Inspiration Part 2, which was (of all the unexpected sources of inspiration ever) this year's Scholastic Trade holiday party.

Ordinarily, "inspirational" is the last adjective I would apply to a company holiday party. I'm an introvert, not an extreme one but enough so that the small talk just feels awkward. I like Scholastic's more since the company's been doing them in house for the last few years, it really helps to NOT have music blasting the way they do at the catering spaces you can rent for your company's holiday shindigs (I hate that, I'm bad enough at small talk without having it be impossible to hear what anyone says back to you), plus the food service company that runs our company cafeteria and coffee bar actually does a really good job with the food and decor, but I still just consider myself bad at company parties.

This year, though, the Trade division got an extra special treat - somebody on high decided we were going to have our party at the Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibit at the New-York Historical society. I'd already been to see this as a fun warm-up for seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Halloween, but I was delighted to have more time to go back and look over the exhibit again. The Harry Potter series is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and the exhibit was curated by the British Library in honor of that milestone. They did a wonderful job of putting together examples of real-life historical artifacts and tying them in with the world that J.K. Rowling created, and the art is plentiful and luscious -- there are Harry Potter drawings and paintings by Mary Grand Pre (the illustrator of the American editions), Kazu Kibuishi (my favorite of all the Scholastic Graphix imprint artists, who did a lovely set of covers for a 15th anniversary paperback box set), Brian Selznick (Hugo Cabret illustrator who did covers for the 20th anniversary box set), Jim Kay (illustrator of the magnificent illustrated editions that are the latest offering in the Harry Potter re-issues, just glorious stuff so far) and J.K. Rowling herself - she's quite talented on the art side too and you get to see a lot of these charming little drawings she did to help herself envision Harry's world. So those are scattered all through, and then many of the historical artifacts are also beautiful, with illuminated manuscripts and scrolls and globes and, oh, all sorts of lovely things to look at.

This did actually end up being the first time I've ever gone home from a company party hungry. Food and drinks were not allowed in the gallery, just in the lobby area. I had one drink and a couple of hor's d'oeuvres and then dove into the exhibit. By the time I came back out it was five minutes before time for us to get out and all the food was gone - but I didn't care and if I were to go back and do it again I would do the same thing. Sometimes you feed the mouth, this time I feasted my eyes and went home going "MUST ART! MUST ART!" - fixed myself a super-quick dinner (because I was ravenous, lunch had been a long time ago) and then set myself a challenge of drawing Ardith's duck in half an hour. Nothing to do with the exhibit, just been thinking of drawing him for a while so being in a drawing mood, I picked him as my subject. And the 30-minute challenge was just because with no art training, I can be really slow figuring out how to show something, but I needed to get some sleep and it was already late. I dispensed with my usual obsessing over the reflections in the water (seriously, I think I spend twice as long on the background as on the subject when I do these drawings) and pulled it off it 45 minutes and was pretty happy with it too!

So there is both a review of the Harry Potter History of Magic AND my NYC social media participant mandatory #hotduck entry!