To Walk Invisible

This was beautiful! I'm buying the blu-ray. You can see it for free for five more days in the PBS Masterpiece website. So sad as well, but so beautifully done. Their lives must have been even harder. Somehow the way it ends so unexpectedly made me cry more than I thought I would! I just had to stay up until past 4 am to see it. So gorgeous and moving. I need to go to Haworth now to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Bucket list item!

New Book! Catastrophic Happiness

[photo to be added tomorrow]
Gone are the "good old days" when I'd get books before their release date to review on my blog.

Sigh...

I was thrilled to find out that Catherine Newman (of Ben & Birdy fame) was going to publish a new book! I was a faithful reader of the Raising Ben (Then Ben & Birdy) Baby Center column and I loved her first book, Waiting for Birdy.

Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years, arrived today and although I have only read for about an hour, I really love it.


I will write a proper review after I've finished reading it, but for now, I just wanted to register my happiness in getting a book on the day of its publication!

Mockingbird/ Mockingjay

Well, it didn't work out very well to watch the Mockinjay Part I movie almost back to back with To Kill a Mockingbird (the movie with Gregory Peck)! ;-)

Not only are the books and movie styles completely different, but movies made so many decades apart (half a century, in fact!) have incredibly different paces and techniques. So, yeah, it was almost a joke to do something like this, but it's not often that I go to the university library's Media Center to borrow DVDs (this time they had Bluray for Mockinjay, yay!!), so I got those two plus the documentary Hey, Boo which I don't know if I will finish. [Hey, if you're interested it will air again on July 10 on PBS to "honor" the July 14  release of the prequel Go Set a Watchman!].

It seems that the To Kill a Mockingird screenplay was hailed as one of the best adapted screenplays of all time and I think it's OK, but I was truly pleasantly surprised by how great and how "faithful"  to the book Mockinjay Part I was! It didn't end exactly where I'd thought and said it would end (I think that would have been way too much suspense!), but almost. It was so faithful that they even showed the lake and certain areas of District 12 that had not been shown in the previous two movies. I really really liked it!

Of course I hadn't read the Suzanne Collins book as recently as I had when I watched the first two movies, which I basically didn't like at all, particularly the first one, The Hunger Games. They cut too much of the book (in the words of my 13 year old son who has read them all and watched the films with us, in the first movie, it feels as if the games themselves last for a few days, not over two excruciating weeks). Catching Fire was slightly better, but still not that great -- too little time was spent showing the Capitol, among other faults. Their portrayal of how they controlled the Arena with a model was cool, though, as was having a view of the background of what's going on. After watching Mockingjay (on Tuesday night), I re-read the ending of the book again and I think it's pretty great. I hope the last film won't disappoint!

My husband worked on reading the trilogy over many months (maybe close to 6 months) and he finished a bit over a month ago and thought the author did a fantastic job, particularly in portraying post-traumatic stress disorder. Not a lot of time in the movie(s) shows that, even because the films don't have a first person narrator, but we get to see the effects on Katniss. Jennifer Lawrence is a great actress. Phillips Seymour Hoffman is splendid and I don't know exactly how they'll get around not having him in the sequel. He only appears at the end, so I guess they'll have Haymith say his lines.

As for To Kill a Mockinbird it also cuts most of the novel, no scenes in the school, barely any relationship with the neighbor ladies, no aunt Alexandra, but it keeps the main scenes and Peck and the girl actress who plays Scout are splendid. I think we're spoiled by the way movies are made nowadays, though. Thankfully, great books transcend the passage of time and the novel moved me greatly.

Next, I'll blog about Lois Lowry's books which I read last week (The Giver & companion books).

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Birthday!

Is/was today -- I learned that from Google's doodle:

That means she shares a birthday with my cousin Denise & my friend Simone. ;-)

Can't wait to have time to leisurely read Pioneer Girl!

Eleanor & Park (comments)

Last year at the children's lit association conference I heard a lot about Eleanor & Park (by Rainbow Rowell), so I simply had to check it out.

Friends gave us all B&N gift cards for Christmas back in the December, so E&P was one of the books I bought (as you may have seen in this post).

Some random, maybe unrelated thoughts on the book (oh, J, please don't read this until you're done reading the book, if we don't have time to talk about it, this post will be one half of a conversation, OK?):

• It just occurred to me while typing the title that it reminds me of Jane Austen & her titles (and how an early title of Sense & Sensibility was Elinor & Marianne, wasn't it?). Other than that, the book doesn't have much to do with Austen at all (and maybe, in a tangential way, with Romeo & Juliet).

• What I liked the most about the book was its development of E&P's relationship, coupled with the development (or the slowly revealing and unfolding) of the characters. The most important thing to me is that Rowell depicts very realistically how they are drawn to each other because they have or develop interests in common and become/realize they are "kindred spirits." The physical aspect of the relationship (related to the hormonal teenage years) is important and relevant, but it's not the key aspect of their relationship and I thought that was great. 

• Obviously, I liked, no, loved that the characters are so geeky and misfits. And that Park is half-Korean, leading to discussions of racial identity, prejudice, etc. (and Eleanor's only friends are African-American girls).

• The most moving moment of the book for me (I actually sobbed aloud a few times and my husband checked on me from the other room) was when P's mom finally identifies, in a visceral way, with E and accepts her. That brief scene is one of the few moments of the book in which we get some insight into P's mom Mindy's (Min-Dea? Didn't seem very authentic) expatriate experience. When faced with the reality of E's family Mindy recalls her own experiences growing up poor in Korea. 

• Considering many young people's dramatic real-life experiences of abuse I appreciate how the book treats the situation of E's family fairly "delicately." Because it obviously could have been way worse, more dramatic and explicit (although it is pretty explicit through the characters words, at times, if not actions). 

• I like the relative diversity of the book, although most characters are still white. and its focus on poverty, marginality and immigration. It's not really centrally discussed, but apparently Park's family only lives in that run down neighborhood because they'd be misfits elsewhere given that his dad married a Korean woman. Maybe I'd need to learn more about Omaha, NE in order to understand this part of the story.

• Last, but not least (and I know there were tons more things I wanted to say, but it's just hard to remember them all, especially because I started writing this post last night & am finishing it today), I like Rainbow's (what a great name, I think it fits her well!) writing a lot. I don't know exactly why, but I do.

• ... and I thought it was absolutely awesome that she had Eleanor mom humming one of my favorite and also one of the saddest songs ever (Clouds by Joni Mitchell) in one of the few scenes mother & daughter have together. This author knows her music and has great musical sensibility!! I wish I had found out her "mix tapes" or playlists for the book earlier and had read the book listening to all that music. I'll need to re-read the book to that soundtrack someday.

I'd love to read other people's thoughts on this book and I'm thrilled to discover that Rainbow Rowell has a blog. I also want to read all her other books.

Half-Way Through!

I'm half-way through Anna Karenina and I'm a bit annoyed that I'm going to have guests all weekend long, so I need to prepare (clean the house, etc) and can't spend time reading. :(

A long time ago, a blogging friend whose last blog was "Smart Cookie" and who probably no longer reads my blog wrote this beautiful post about her time in Germany and this lovely relationship she had with this (second?) cousin of hers. She cited the novel in her post and I almost didn't read that part because I didn't want it to spoil my reading on the day that I finally got around to reading it.

Well... I'm glad I did read the whole post in the end and I so wish I could go back and read it again because it wasn't a spoiler at all! When I finally got to the Kitty & Levin part that she mentioned on the post I immediately remembered my friend's story and I was so thrilled and tickled!

I know that the book will have a bad ending for one of the characters at least, but I can't wait to see what else will happen! Tolstoy is a great writer, I can't wait to read more Russian novels! I probably should check out Gogol (The Namesake piqued my attention) and, of course, I've always wanted to read Dostoyevsky.

I'll try to write some comments after I'm done reading!

Amazon just did WHAT??? Get refunded and keep the book?

WOW... I'm blown away right now, seriously. I only buy books at Amazon* (I know, I should be supporting local bookstores, etc... but I love books and I need to buy affordable books) and I always use their free saver shipping (though I've recently decided to dump netflix and get an Amazon Prime account so I can get free shipping always and be able to watch streaming video).

If you're not familiar with it, the free shipping requires that you buy 25 dollars in books, so I always need to buy "tag along" books with any purchases. This time, I was buying one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone as a wedding shower gift to a friend, and I needed to spend about 5 more dollars (a very hard thing to do), so I bought Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles Survival Guide for my son as a surprise, since he'd been asking for it for a while. Well... when we received it, it was a great disappointment to him because he had already bought the electronic book and I didn't know about it! :(

Today I went to Amazon to get the refund process started and... guess what? They told me they're giving me a refund and I can keep the book!! What???!!... these guys are making such big profits that they can afford to give me a book for free? Seriously?! I don't know if I should be happy or appalled, but the thrift-addict in me is cheering and jumping up and down! (and, best of all, my dear "thrifty person in training" son will be very relieved that we just saved 10 dollars -- he'll probably want to claim it to spend it in Legos!). What do you think of that?

In any case, I'm waiting for the refund now, I'll let you know if it really happens, but I think it will and now I'm really curious to know if this has ever happened to you before.

* And in two discount places/"warehouses" in our area. I hope that is OK, since I can't afford to support small independent book sellers.

The Joy of Books - AWESOME!

Have you seen this?

It came about because of this: (a bookcase organization project gone crazy ;)


My son Kelvin and I LOVED them just couldn't stop watching these videos over and over. And, of course, I immediately looked at these in our home library:

and felt like spending a few nights taking photos to produce similar animation  -- of course we won't do it, it's lovely but too complicated! So I'm very glad that Sean Ohlenkamp and his wife Lisa Blonder Ohlenkamp did it both at home and at Type Bookstore in Toronto.

Long live to books! (I can't bear to think that they may be on the road to "extinction")

My Christmas Books!

I received many lovely Christmas presents -- we exchanged presents among all five families, including all adults, we even had lists on Google docs ;) -- but I think these were some of my favorites! My dear sister-in-law gave me two of the films I wanted (Jane Eyre and Once) and the book on the right The Annotated Persuasion, and K gave me Michael Moore's book!! If only I didn't have to prepare syllabi and classes and could sit back and enjoy them... sigh.

I desperately NEED to stop reading stuff online and to read more books -- both to prepare my classes better and just for my enjoyment. So... one more "resolution" for me, a person who has always been pretty anti-resolution.  (see how blogging has been changing that? ;)

The Cake/ Treasure Hunt book recommendation

Not bad, huh? ;)

And here's the birthday boy with his birthday crown (he picked it on Friday at the dollar bin at target):

The party was awesome! Thanks to this great Klutz book that I cannot recommend enough:

The treasure hunts all are ready for you, all you have to do is to remove each clue (they're read to be torn off the book -- I don't know which word to use in English for pre-cut paper that you "tear" off) and then hide them according to the instructions.

The first time I saw this book was back in 2001 when we had K's 30th birthday party at a friend's house and she had a treasure hunt for him and our other friend's kids. I thought it was so much fun that bought the book the following week and saved it for my then future children. I've only used it two or three times before because most clues were too hard for my boys years ago (there are two that can be used with very young children -- a color one and another with pictures, the others are more complicated).

Today, I selected three of the hunts and hid the clues around the house. Then, I divided the 15 kids in three groups and had each group do one of the hunts. I didn't have any "treasure" (except at the end of the last hunt -- the box of favor bags) -- the hunts themselves were their reward. It worked really great and kept the kids entertained for about 30 minutes (because the last hunt took quite a while).Then, we had a simple craft (EVA sheets and adhesives, including letters for their names) and that by this time we were ready to eat.

The only drawback was the storm that we had about an hour before the party and which soaked a few chairs that we had already set up under the deck. My dad had put tarps and other large plastic sheets on the deck to try to keep the water from dripping below, but it didn't work at all! Thankfully, by the time we had to eat, the weather had cleared and we could do it under the deck.

I'm exhausted, but we're talking to K's best friend who is visiting from Brazil -- when you see a friend only once a year for a few days, there's no way not to be talking into the night. He was here when K read that fateful email from the Georgia school last year and which let us hanging until last October. I'm so thrilled that we stayed here, everyone LOVES out house (most friends who came to the party were seeing the house for the first time). I will try to post some house photos soon, OK?

A Bit of a Defensive Pessimist

I love to listen to NPR (although I do it only while driving, hardly ever at home, for some weird reason) and Fresh Air is one of my favorite programs. Terry Gross's book All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists has in my "to-read" list since it was published.

tangent:
I can't really afford to buy books and although this website is a little "nothing," I've joined Amazon's affiliate program. Now when I write about books, as I often do, I can have my links help me out if anyone ever buys the book. I know Kate bought at least one book after I reviewed it -- too bad I wasn't an affiliate back then! //end tangent

Today I listened to half of Terry Gross's interview with David Rakoff, who recently published Half Empty. As usual, I learned a lot about him in the interview and Terry asked lots of good questions. The most fascinating discussion for me took place when Rakoff explained that he is a "defensive pessimist." When he explained what that was (and I remember clearly that I was entering the highway right at that moment), I realized that this is what I do -- I imagine worst case scenarios to help control my anxiety and it actually works! And it even has a name, this interesting (if annoying to other people) strategy.

Rakoff's take on life, epitomized by the title of his book, is related to the fact that he's currently experiencing his second bout of cancer (the first was when he was 22 and the radiation that treated his lymphoma actually caused the sarcoma that he has now -- crazy, huh?). The interview is cool, you should check it out.

Now... I don't think my "defensive pessimist" side shows much in the blog, does it? It's a little harder for those around me, though.

Hardcover Books Dust Covers -- A Question for Book Lovers

Book people out there, what in the world do you do with your dust paper covers for hardcover books?

For those children's books or coffee table books whose hardcovers are in color, it's no big deal to just to toss them, but what about those books whose covers are not in color? Do you ever tape the colorful paper covers on like they do in libraries?

I'm just curious. Pack rat that I am, I've saved all of our dust covers and maybe now it's a good idea to throw them all out. What do y'all say?

"Permanently Pregnant" (this made me cry lots)

Post started on 4/22. I finished the book several days ago.

Finally, many years after first listening about the book in a Fresh Air interview with Jhumpa Lahiri (I remember clearly as if it were today, I was at a store parking lot in Massachusetts, probably with a sleeping baby, waiting for someone*), I am reading The Namesake (read an excerpt of the book here).**

Being an expatriate is not an easy thing. It's a "state of being" that is very hard to describe. I love it when my friend Aliki writes about her time or travels abroad and beautifully captures some of the feelings that consume my life daily, at times. I've been longing to read more about expatriate life and I knew this book would be just that. I have barely started, and I've already been reduced to tears by this passage:

For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy - a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that the previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.

I loved that the book begins with pregnancy and childbirth, but I wasn't expecting this great metaphor, expatriate life as a "lifelong pregnancy" without a due date and the relief and joy that come with birth.

ending the post today:

I enjoyed the book and the film arrived on Thursday from Netflix. I think my "closing thoughts" on The Nameseke are that it paints a slightly bitter picture of immigration and living as an expatriate and, particularly, the son of expatriates, torn between two countries and cultures. Although I live that "in-betweeness" every day in my life, I don't think of it so negatively. I don't think I long for my "home country" as much as Ashima did. Most importantly, I hope that the fact that I want my sons to be as "Brazilian" as they can possibly be going to Brazil only once a year at most and speaking Portuguese at home, make them feel torn later in life as Gogol/Nikhil did. (And I hope their names are different, but familiar enough not to cause them trouble!).

Of course this is only fiction, not real life, but the struggles of the book's characters did resonate with me in a profound way. When I was in graduate school, one of my closest friends was this Puerto Rican guy and when I got pregnant and had Kelvin he kept teasing me on an on about how I would have a "messed up" kid who would be asking me why he had to speak

Portuguese and be Brazilian. I hope he's wrong. I hope Kelvin and Linton can navigate well the sometimes choppy waters of being the children of expatriates.

* Thanks to Lahiri's website, I now know the exact date I listened to the interview, September 4, 2003. Kelvin was 18 months and he was probably napping in the car that day, or, alternately, I was so taken by the interview that I just sat in the car. In front of Whole Foods, I think.

**I wanted to have gotten the book through Paperback Swap, but couldn't find it the day I first checked, so I bought it for 99 cents from Alibris in the end and then immediately found it on the PB swap site. :-( I haven't joined the PB swap yet since they I couldn't find several of the (few) books I want to read.

Reading, or, Like Mother, Like Sons

I learned to read by myself even before I went to school. I was six, but at that time, most children in Brazil went to first grade when they were seven, that's when they learned to read. At six years old some children went to what they called "pre-school" and which consisted mostly of playing and school readiness activities. Two years ago the educational system changed in Brazil and now children go to the new first grade when they turn six years old (or, in private schools on the year they turn six).

My mom bought me a reading "primer" which I read before going to bed, but family legend has it that I really "learned" to read at the breakfast table, which was where/when reading really "clicked" for me. I began by spelling "oats" in Portuguese (a-v-e-i-a) and then putting it all together, aveia. From then on, I read, and read, and read some more. I was a lonely child (I was trying to find a link to the post I wrote about this, I'll include it later if I find it), so I read a lot. Even after we moved from the countryside to the huge city of São Paulo when I was 13 and I made many friends, I still read constantly -- about a book a day on 7th and 8th grades. Less in high school when I was studying all day long and very little for pleasure in college. Then, I read next to nothing of my own choice in graduate school :-(. Let's just say that there's an endless backlog of books that I've wanted to read for years, but haven't had time yet.

So... if there was one thing I wanted more than anything for my sons was that they liked to read and enjoyed books as much as I do and did. I surrounded them with books from infancy (something not hard for a passionate scholar and collector of children's books) and read to them. I couldn't wait for them to start reading. Kelvin learned to read easily back in kindergarten, and although he was good I never pushed him to start reading too much on his own. He's always been a great reader, and can read out loud with fluency and great expression. Now that he's eight and in second grade, all of a sudden I realized that he was often reading, so I began to give him longer books and he just devoured them! He read Roald Dahl's Matilda in one afternoon and one morning. 200+ pages! Then I bought The Chronicles of Narnia for us, which I never read growing up, and he's already read three books. I'm just thrilled!!

Last, but not least, I'm delighted to inform you that Linton -- who has been an enthusiastic book lover from babyhood, always sitting quietly with books for a long time -- just began to read on his own too! He's a good reader, already reading with expression, although I have to help him with his intonation at the end of sentences. Of course he hasn't even finished kindergarten, so he reads quite slowly, stopping to sound out each letter (that's so cute!) when it's not a word he's already familiar with. I'm sure he'll be reading independently soon.

And here's a question for those of you who are fan of the Narnia books -- how did you like the films? I'm going to get the first one from Netflix in the next few days and I can't wait to watch it! I had never read the books and I'm enjoying them very much and it's great to talk about them with Kelvin!

09/09/09 and Little Women

When I was younger, like twenty years younger (yikes, it almost hurts so say that!), dates such as today's mystified me. I think that on 8/8/88 I must have written half a dozen bad, pathetic, ridiculous little poems or "things"on account of the significant date. In those years, when I was 16-18, I wrote feverishly, much like one of my favorite fictional/loosely autobiographical heroines, Jo March.

Last night I finished re-reading one of my favorite books ever, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (and I can't believe I lived in Massachusetts for eight years and haven't yet been to Concord, or Salem. Sigh. Someday, I really want to go... someday soon, preferably). And all the while I had to smile because one of my blogging friends recently wrote on facebook that she never finished the book after Jo refused Laurie. I quite like that she did that, actually. Jo's rebelliousness and, most important of all, her consistency in following her dreams and ideals, has always inspired me.

Reading the book in this particularly period of my life has made me identify strongly with certain aspects of the work. I feel the same way the four girls did (particularly Meg and Amy) about being [relatively speaking] poor. It gets old and tiring after a while, but it also does good to one's character and disposition. It's not easy to bear, though... and sometimes I feel like whining for a new TV/ car/ couches the same way Meg and Amy whined about not having any nice dresses and things. I guess one could say that the book has outdated overly "moralistic" values, what with the constant references to Pilgrim's Progress, but 150 years later, these are  values that I think the world still needs and that I personally seek to uphold in my own life.

The other aspect that resonated with me strongly is that of being changed by suffering (particularly Jo after Beth's death, but also Laurie, after being refused by Jo). I know that what we/I recently went through is nothing, really, compared with other's people's financial, health, and personal woes, but now I realize that going through this small measurement of suffering has really changed me. I'm not very happy with the change right now, but hopefully it can make me stronger in the end.

I could say many more things about this book, but now I have to go and find and read the contemporary "sequel" or "other side of the story," March, by Geraldine Brooks, one of the few books that I allowed myself to purchase last year,* but which I didn't get to read and now cannot find in my bookshelves! I'll get back to you after I read it.

Meanwhile, I should enjoy the last few hours of this most rare 09-09-09 day!!

* Remember what I just wrote about being "poor"? Not being able to buy books is one of the small burdens I have to bear -- using Alcott's imagery

A Tale of Two Books

Two books were released today,* The Double Daring Book for Girls, by Andi Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz and Heather Armstrong's It Sucked and Then I Cried.

The only difference between the two, as far as I am concerned? I've had the first one (Double Daring...) in my hands for several days, courtesy of the publisher and my connection to the authors as because of my previous MotherTalk blogger experience and my blog review of the first book. I really enjoy having/reading books before they're even released! And it's even better that they're free! YAY to blogging!

Of course the one I really want to read right now is the second one. Oh well... it'll have to wait until I can afford it... Meanwhile I can enjoy Heather's blog...

* Once more I'm posting after midnight, but tweaking with the date so I don't miss posting on the "right date," please indulge, me, OK?

Persian Girls: A Memoir -- Book Review (Unsolicited)

A year ago I received this book from Mother Talk. I didn't get to participate in the Blog tour, but I received it so I could participate in the discussion of their newly open discussion forum. Unfortunately I didn't have time to do so because I was busy with the dissertation and other things, but I saved the book for later. I read it in two sittings, the first in the car on our way to Florida and the second on Saturday night. I knew I could/should be grading for the online "teaching," but I made a conscious decision to read the book instead.

I will have to be brief, but I wanted to say that I really liked the book. There is no suspense to it because the back cover already reveals what happens at the end and which motivates the existence of the book, but going back in time and examining Nahid Rachlin's childhood is fascinating. The book was also a good way to learn more of what happened in Iran before, during and after the deposition of the Shah and Khomeini's rule, as well as the hostage crisis.

I remember those events vividly from my childhood (I was 8-9). I recall the name Shah Rezah Pahlavi and hearing that he had to flee. I also remember about the hostages being freed (althouh I had no idea it was related to Reagan's inauguration). Most of all, I have a very negative image of Aiatolah Khomeini, which a prominent figure in the news in Brazil while I was growing up as well as the war between Iran and Iraq.

I enjoyed learning about those events again, this time filtered by the experiences of a woman who lived in Iran shortly before all that took place. Rachlin's description of her displacement as a foreign student also struck me, although I cannot say that I fully identify since my own culture was not as removed from this one and I was fluent in the language when I came to this country.

Most of all, I just enjoyed reading. With my intellectual life on forced "over drive" all these years of graduate school and dissertating, reading for pleasure was hardly ever possible. I need to begin to catch up! I'm so thankful for MotherTalk for giving me the opportunity to receive some free books (the same way I gladly collected books during the years I was a T.A. -- I've had a post on free books in the works for years now :-). Otherwise, I cannot really afford them.

Talking of which, I just used my gift certificate from this review to purchase Persepolis. I can't wait to read that one! I'm also thrilled that Nahid Rachlin is coming to UPenn in March. I hope I can go see her -- if the reading is open to the public (it should be since it is listed in Rachlin's website). It will be a treat if I can make it! I'll let you know!

Note: I was thrilled that I was able to write this post in 16 minutes, I hope I can continue to write posts this fast in the future ;-).

This Made My Day, I Mean, Night

I heart parodies, and I'm actually very good at writing them. I used to do it all the time with two of my best girl friends (who happen to be twins) during high school and even our college years. I actually felt like writing a parody of a Brazilian song by Chico Buarque on the day of my defense last May. Too bad I only had the idea, but not the time to complete it (song parodies were always our forte).

Anyway, I cannot believe I hadn't heard of this book until today (via Anjali, and by proxy, Laura -- thanks my friends!) because it's positively brilliant! Goodnight Moon is one of our favorites here at home (and you may, or may not know, sometimes I really do not write as much as I should about me as I should in this here old blog) and even more so because I'm passionate about children's books in general.

So, do check Goodnight Bush's website and its facebook photos. I was particularly tickled by the seal portrayed below (I'm also an ardent fan of Stephen Colbert, although I can probably count with my hands the number of times I watched his show -- we can only do it online).
I really want to buy this book!

Leaves/ Brand New Ideas and Answers

OK, I gotta write this. I've been reading blogs and commenting for an hour and that won't get me anywhere as far as posting goes...

My arms, are extremely sore because I just spent two days blowing and vacuuming leaves and I'm still not done. Not even 1/8 of the way done vacuuming (I've blown all the leaves into piles at this point). And guess what? There's going to be sleet/rain on Sunday (insert dismayed and distressed facial expression]!!! And I won't work on it tomorrow. And... "the price" I paid for this incomplete work? The boys watched HOURS of television and/or DVDs because K was busy with his applications (he came back home only 7:30 pm last night) and I couldn't let them come outside (mostly Linton who spends all day at home with me) because of the high level of noise (I was wearing earplugs) and the cold. I felt really guilty and wondered all the while if it wouldn't really have been best to pay someone to do it since K was traveling so much in the past month. We also had to wait for all the leaves to fall, which they did shortly before and during the Thanksgiving break. The other solution would have been not going to Maryland for Thanksgiving and staying to take care of the leaves, but I wouldn't have done that for anything!!

Oh well... I really enjoy doing it, though, in spite of the horribly high "price" of electronic baby-sitting. Plus, today while I was working with the leaves I had several bright ideas!! There's nothing like physical work to get one's mind thinking away and coming up with great things!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
First, though, I have an "answer" of sorts (since it's not really a "helpful answer") for one of the questions I have been raising in this blog lately: "Where do we want to go? What would I like to do with my life?"

One quick question K sent me over gmail chat today provided the answer. He asked: "Would you like to live in 'Swiss city'?" I returned to the leaves outside and though... wow, I have an answer, something I'd known all along, but had forgotten.

If I could choose where to live, something that won't get to happen, I'd really want to be able to have the opportunity to live in Europe. Not in one particular place, but preferably in various countries/ cities. Which ones? France/French Switzerland, Italy, Spain. Oh, and I think England too.

Since that's not going to happen, this answer is moot. But it's a nice "dream" isn't it? Maybe K will apply for the post in Europe, but the likelihood of him getting it is slim. I know we could also do what my BIL and SIL are doing -- work at American schools around the world, BUT, we don't think we want to teach rich high school kids for the rest of our lives. No. Probably not even for a year. So... that possibility is out. It does feel good to at least to have an answer to the question of where I'd like to live if I could choose ;).

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The "bright idea" is related to yesterday's post (thanks for all the responses, folks! Keep 'em coming!). I stayed up really really late last night reading a novel by one of the writers I'm analyzing in my dissertation. What a great book!! I hope I can blog more about it later, it made me think about my country's history, about torture and other issues. This is not what I want to share now, though.

While I was blowing leaves today I started to reflect (thinking also of an interview with Ray Bradbury that I read last night and his great book Fahrenheit 451) that books just need to be read! And I thought of my friend Cloudscome's blog and other blogs with great book reviews and dedicated to books and it dawned on my that I should start a website. The internet is making the world such a small place, putting information right at people's fingertips and I think it's pathetic that we academic researchers, particularly in literature, are not doing enough to promote the things we love and work with. This site wouldn't be a blog, though I could begin with as one, I envision a site about Brazilian books in English and, subsequently, in many other languages. Later (after a book deal was secured in Brazil at least) I'd publish in it all the data that I collected in my dissertation, all the statistics and lists, so it could be a resource for anyone in the world interested in Brazilian literature. It would be geared towards both the general public and academics and provide a comprehensive list of the books available in English (in print or not -- those can be easily obtainable in libraries) and other languages.

OK, I'll admit that this idea is not new. My advisor told me years ago that I should transform the information from my research into a website, but I had never really considered this. At the time I thought "Oh, but this is my work and why should I share it freely with people?" Well, now I know why, because books need to be read and in today's "small world" only the popular, best selling books are being read. Why not use the internet to try and disseminate little known books? I feel like getting the domain name right now, but I know I need to finish the dissertation first. Darn.

What do you think?

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Well, this is the end of "NaBloPoMo," but not the end of posting more often. I don't promise to do it everyday, but I did enjoy posting daily and I want to continue doing it as much as I can.

Released Today - The Daring Book for Girls

Do you remember when I reviewed The Dangerous Book for Boys for Mother Talk and one of you (my SIL :) suggested in the comments that I should write the girl version? Well... this version written by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz and titled The Daring Book for Girls was just released today! In November I'll be reviewing the book here for the Mother Talk Blog Book tour, but I wanted to let you know about it today. Back in May Andi emailed me and the other Mother Talk bloggers to announce that they had just signed the contract and were going to write the book jointly over the summer. I thought of announcing it here then, but I guess it makes more sense to do so now that you can actually go and get the book.

Note: the cover I included here is my own scanned copy of the book since all t he images I found online don't show the glittery silver of the words :) (and I don't even like sparkly stuff, but it looks so cool I couldn't show it to you).

I received my copy in the mail yesterday from Andi and I have to say it's always a thrill to see a book even before it's released in stores -- particularly this one which is such a great one! When I first checked the Amazon site today it was #44 in their rank, then, an hour later it was #41. A few minutes ago it was #30 and I hope it gets closer and closer to #1!!! I couldn't believe it when I saw that the boys book still remains among the 20 best sold at Amazon, at #15 (16 earlier today). Like Andi said in her note enclosed with the book, I'm definitely a big cheerleader for this book.

Here's what this week's Time magazine had to say about it, in the bottom of the Books section, it compared the Boys to the Girls book and I think the girl book does match up, but of course I'm completely biased! ;) (click on image for larger version):
I guess it's a good sign that the book was featured in Time even before its release.

Congratulations to Andi and Miriam and I hope to see them in person soon at one of the signings here in Philly!