Book of the Month - The Street Gang

The Street Gang by Michael Davis

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away,On my way to where the air is sweet.
Can you tell me how to get…how to get to Sesame Street?

As the Google seach page has been reminding us this past week, Sesame Street is 40 years old! Big Bird, the Cookie Monster, Burt and Ernie, Oscar the Grouch – all are names that parents and grandparents and their kids know well. And just in time for this anniversary comes Michael Davis’ Street Gang: The History of Sesame Street.

For those of you who remember back before there was Sesame Street, the concept of combining early childhood education with a television show was, to say the least, unique. Getting a toddlers’ attention by singing the alphabet or using a vampire to learn numbers (remember Count von Count?) was entirely new and many of Sesame Street’s revolutionary ideas were reponsible for the early educational development of many children.

Michael Davis, who was a writer and editor for TV Guide for 9 years, brings his reporter’s expertise and writing skills to the many characters – both real and imaginary – that created the Muppets and peopled Sesame Street for a long time.

Davis begins with a watershed moment for the Sesame Street Gang – the sudden death of creator and master-puppeteer, Jim Henson. As Davis lists some of the people who attended Henson’s funeral (over 5,000 people crowded into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City) you begin to realize how this “simple” children’s show touched many. As Davis says, Henson had invented characters (think Kermit) “that made you smile just thinking about them.”

But Street Gang is more than just a tribute to Jim Henson. It is a look inside that creation called the Children’s Television Network and all the people and effort that went into starting Sesame Street and keeping it up and running despite money crises, critics and detractors.

Street Gang is subtitled The Complete History of Sesame Street and I highly recommend it. It’s fun and educational….and brought to you by the letter “A.” Meg

Book of the Month - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Sometimes I like to read books that have a “buzz.” Such is true for this month’s book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published in 2008 and its sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire is already out, but the Dragon Tattoo book still has lots of people reading it and talking about it.

Here’s a hint. For me (and many people I have talked to about the book) it took about 30 pages to really get hooked. The first chapter is all about a libel trial wherein our protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, is tried and convicted of libel due to a story he wrote and published in Millennium, the magazine Blomkvist co-edits. The tale of the trial and its results is rather dry reading, but, as the reader comes to find out, everything that happens in that first 30-page chapter is important to later developments.

There are many levels of plot. There is the libel trial and Blomkvists’ efforts to prove that what he said about ruthless industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstrom was, in fact, true. There is the research (into the many generations of the Vanger family) and the investigation (into the disappearance of Harriet Vanger 23 years ago) that Blomkvists agrees to undertake for Henrik Vangar. There is the series of horrendous murders that Blomkvist accidentally stumbles upon in the course of his investigations. And then there is Lisbeth – the girl with the dragon tattoo, incidentally – her unusual (to say the least) life, her unusual appearance, her unusual outlook and her incredible talent for finding things out. (This is due in no small part to her photographic memory and hacking ability with any computer or program known to man – or woman.)

One of the things that kept me reading was the characters. Blomkvist is a really honest, likeable journalist with a passionate concern for Sweden, its politics and its economy. His co-editor, Berger, is also an honest and hardworking woman. Their relationship is a curious blend of the traditional and very modern. The Vanger family, from Henrik the patriarch, to his sisters and brothers, their wives and sons and daughters are all well-drawn and memorable. But Lisbeth is the character that, once met, held my interest and astonishment throughout.

And Steig is very clever, because he intersperses what are sometimes longish explanations of what Blomkvist is investigating with a single paragraph that keeps tabs on Lisbeth and her sometimes bizarre activities.

This book is not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. It is, however, a very good story, with some real suspense and dread. I highly recommend it. I am planning to read The Girl Who Played with Fire very shortly! Meg

Book of the Month - The Magicians

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Reason for reading: I read lots of reviews about lots of books, but the review of Grossman’s latest book (he also wrote The Codex), intrigued me. First of all, the reviewer compared it to Harry Potter and Hogwarts and I have been looking for books that are as good and as enjoyable as J. K. Rowling. Also, it sounded like a very clever mix of science fiction, reality show and magical realism.

First line: "Quentin did a magic trick. Nobody noticed.”

Plot in a (not so short) nutshell:

A group of young people are selected to attend Brakebills, a college for young magicians. They muddle through several years of magical education, pass some unusual tests, graduate and arrive in the “real” world, with not a clue what to do with themselves. (Clearly guidance counselors were not a staple at Brakebills.)

After drifting and drinking around for a while, they decide to go on an adventure to Fillory (read Narnia) to put some meaning into their lives. In Fillory they certainly have adventures, only the adventures are very real, difficult, desperate, and lead to several casualties. Our “hero” Quentin winds up in a coma for several months, gets well, shoots a Questing Beast, gets three wishes and wishes to go home.

Once home he tries to shut off all magical impulses, as well as all emotions and ambitions. He is finally rounded up by the friends who survived the Fillory expedition and they decide to return – and do it right this time.

Quite frankly I did not know what to make of this book. It seems to be a cross between (among?) Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Dead Poets Society and the Matrix. And if that doesn’t confuse you, imagine how confused I was.

When children go through the looking glass or into a wardrobe, they bring all their innocence and child-like beliefs with them. When adults (or, as in this case, young adults) push a magic button and find themselves in another dimension they bring all their character flaws, doubts and cynicism, bad manners and bad habits.

The Magicians was slow to start (I kept waiting for something to happen); full of surprises and incongruities; peopled by characters who are not very admirable. The only thing is I couldn’t stop reading it. You decide if you want to try. Meg

Books of the Month - The Hour I First Believed and Columbine

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
Columbine by David Cullen

Mr. Lamb’s book, The Hour I First Believed, is a work of fiction whose main characters are a young couple, one a teacher and one a school nurse, who both happened to have worked at Columbine High School on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 – the day when 12 students were killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors, who then took their own lives.

Lamb describes well the horror of that day, but his focus is the effect of the tragedy, first on the narrator's wife, and then by extension on the narrator's own life. Worlds were changed forever that day, and Wally Lamb does a credible job of taking us inside the event and it aftermath.

David Cullen’s book, Columbine, is, in many ways, revisionist history. Reporters, law officials and the general public have, for a long time, had a certain “take” on the events at Columbine – and Cullen’s thesis is that this “take” has been incorrect. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not social outcasts on the fringe of their high school world. Klebold had been accepted at college, had recently gone to his prom with a date, and was part of a definite circle of friends. Harris was a bit more on the periphery, but was also part of that circle of friends. He had a steady job and just recently been given a promotion.

Cullen’s bottom line is that Harris was a pyschopath and Klebold suicidal and malleable. It was a deadly combination.

What struck me in both of these books was that evil – as a force? an emotion? – was also a character. And the complicated nature of that force (whatever you call it) that drove these two boys to planning and carrying out a massacre with spirit and enthusiam is chilling.
I urge you to read both. It is quite an education. Meg

Book of the Month - Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Stout, won the Pulitzer Prize award for fiction this year. Olive Kitteridge is the title character in a series of 13 stories, all taking place in a fictional Maine town, Crosby, and all focusing on Ms. Kitteridge and her interaction with family and various townsfolk. What makes this novel special is Olive herself. Olive is a retired, seventh-grade math teacher who is “quick, sharp, big, gossipy and not an easy force to reckon with.”

Along with Olive’s character, the rustic locale of small coastal town Maine becomes a character in itself. Author Stout was brought up in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire and she knows whereof she speaks. The combination of town, town characters and Olive makes for a classy and captivating read.

Other Pulitzer Prize winners for 2009 are:

History – The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
Biography – American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
General Non-fiction – Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon. Meg

Book of the Month - My Sister's Keeper

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I am not a big Jodi Picoult fan, but I must admit that My Sister’s Keeper kept me reading (right through breakfast, at one point) until I had finished.

The story is about a loving family torn apart by one sister’s mortal illness and her parents’ attempt to deal with that illness. Kate comes down with APL, acute promyelocytic leukemia, a particularly nasty disease with a horrible prognosis. A subtle suggestion from one of their doctors leads Sara and Brian, the parents, to deliberately have a child that will be a stem cell donor for their sick child. Anna is born and does donate her umbilical cord stem cells to Kate, and all is well for a while. Until Kate has a relapse – and Anna is once again pressed into service as a bone marrow donor; a blood donor; and so it goes, until Anna turns 13 and is asked to donate a kidney. She takes all her savings and hires an attorney to file for medical emancipation from her parents.

It is the interaction and relationships of the famiily (mother, father, Jesse the older brother, Kate and Anna, her lawyer, Campbell, and her guardian ad litem, Julia that make this book of complex medical and moral issues come alive. Picoult uses all her characters as narrators and so you get various points of view – a device I often dislike, but that works very well in this instance.

My one quibble is an ending that is a total surprise and a bit contrived. But the issues brought up by this extremely difficult and complex situation and the real attempt by all the characters involved to act in a manner they consider morally sound makes for a fascinating and thoughtful read. Meg

[Incidentally My Sister’s Keeper has been made into a movie, starring Nick Cassavetes, Cameron Diaz and Alec Baldwin. The movie is due out mid-June.]

Book of the Month - Out of the Deep I Cry

Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming

I published a post in February about Ms Spencer-Fleming’s series of books featuring the Reverend Clare Fergusson and Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. I’m back again, and calling book number three, Out of the Deep I Cry, a Book of the Month because I am so impressed by this series. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s website calls her books “novels of faith and murder for readers of literary suspense” and that is indeed a good description.

The plot of Out of the Deep takes place in two eras, and the author moves us back and forth between these time periods effortlessly. The story involves the Millers Kill free medical clinic and the disappearance of its one doctor. Dr. Rouse’s disappearance and the funding of the clinic are intwined with the history of a old-time Millers Kill farming family, their tragic loss of four children to a 1920’s diptheria epidemic, the subsequent disappearnce of the father and the widow’s decision to fund a free clinic for the town. How the current doctor’s disappearance is tied to that family’s ill-fated history forms the basis of the story.

What makes this book so special is not the plot however, but the characters Spencer-Fleming creates, and especially the developing relationship between Clare and Russ. Reverend Fergusson and Sherrif Van Alstyne, from the moment they meet, know they are soul mates. The problem is that the sherif is, if not happily married, at least well content with Linda, his wife and honorably bound to keep his wedding vows. Clare is an Episcopal priest who has not taken vows of chastity, but who is certainly expected to set a moral example for her congregation, her Bishop - to say nothing of her own moral conscience.

Their struggles with temptation and attraction are the stuff of Greek tradgedy and Spencer-Fleming handles their emotional dilemmas and the story’s detective problems admirably. Meg