A Matter of Perspective, II: Ukraine

March 21, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

I had a bad day Friday. Not really any particular reason why - I was just in a crummy mood. Everything was pissing me off. It was just little things - nothing important - but I just kept getting mad.

I tried to think about things with a different perspective. It helped some, but in thinking about these things differently, I came up with this blog post.

Toddler Troubles

Friday morning did not start off well. My two-and-a-half year old woke up, called for help, and then when I went into her room to help her, she screamed in my ear.

We were both in a cranky mood, so rather than deal with her, I let her watch her new favorite show, "Little Baby Bum." This means that I had the most obnoxious kids' songs stuck in my head all day.

Did I mention she's two? We're solidly into the terrible twos and she was defiant all day long - didn't want to eat, didn't want to nap, wouldn't pick up her toys, wouldn't go potty when I asked her to...

But... I started thinking about Ukraine.

I woke up in my nice warm bed, with my husband and my dog, and my daughter down the hall. We were together and we were safe. There are families in Ukraine who wake up cold and uncomfortable from sleeping on the floor in a basement or underground train station. There are families who have been separated. There are families who have lost a pet, parent, or child.

Even though Elianna and I were both cranky, I could easily turn on the TV to entertain her. I can't imagine what you do with a cranky toddler in a bunker. I have stupid songs about going to the doctor stuck in my head; but it's not air raid sirens, or the throbbing silence after an explosion too close by.

Elianna didn't want to nap, or eat, or go to the potty. But we have plenty of food, a safe place to sleep, and plumbing. I can't even imagine how you would deal with a recently-potty-trained child while fleeing a war zone.

We are fortunate.

Doggie Downers

Athena pooped on the floor Friday morning. She hasn't done that since Elianna was a newborn. She also was obviously in some kind of mood - she kept whining at me, but didn't want to go outside (or at least didn't want to stay for more than 30 seconds).

But... we have a safe place to take our dog out to the bathroom. What do you do with a dog in a bomb shelter? They go in a corner, I guess.

When Athena is antsy, I can snuggle on the couch with her or play with her - usually she just wants attention. What do you do for a dog who is in a strange place with too many other people and animals, while the thuds and reverberations of bombs and gunfire peirce the night?

We are fortunate.

Waistline Woes

I've gained a lot of weight since "the holidays." A lot of my pants are way too tight now. This fact was not helped by my lunch on Friday, which made me quite gassy.

I had a load of previously-mentioned too-tight pants in the wash... and the stupid detergent pod didn't disolve. So I had to run it again. And then AGAIN.

Finally, at the end of a long, frustrating day, having decided I didn't care about trying to eat healthy, I went out and bought ice cream to eat with Jason while we watched a movie.

But... I have a closet full of clothes (and, if need be, I have access to amazon and Kohl's). Many Ukrainian families have had to flee with only what they can carry. How many pairs of pants do they have - two? One?

I have access to fresh, healthy vegetables... and when said vegetables make me gassy, I have Gas X and ginger ale on hand, too. What are the Ukrainians sheltering from the bombs eating - MREs? What happens when their stomachs are upset?

I have a washer and dryer and detergent. I have a closet full of clean clothes... or, at least, I-spilled-some-juice-on-this-I-should-wash-it clothes. My clothes are not covered with mud from a long trek to the border, or smoke and concrete dust... or blood.

And I can get in my car and drive on my nice safe road to the grocery store and buy myself comfort food for a treat. When will these poor people see ice cream again? When will their roads be repaired? When will they feel safe again?

And speaking of "the holidays," we aren't that far out from Passover and Orthodox Easter. Will there be a ceasefire, truce, treaty by then? Or will Ukrainians still be trapped, their holidays lit not by candles, but by molotov cocktails and building fires?

We are very fortunate.

I don't often post about current events on here, and I usually don't try to take on a heavy-handed "be thankful for what you have" message... but I felt like this needed to be said.

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Dragonwings: A Superior Book

March 8, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

I feel like Dragonwings, by Laurence Yep is something that I should have read as a kid and for whatever reason it was never on the agenda. I feel like it's the sort of thing I would/should have read in my American Girl/Laura Ingalls Wilder/Julie of the Wolves phase. It was put back on my radar due to this article.

Dragonwings is a book about Moon Shadow, a young Chinese boy who's father, Windrider, has been working in San Francisco since just before he was born, at the beginning of the 20th century. At the age of eight, Moon Shadow is sent to join his father and several other male relatives in their laundry company. He has grown up hearing both tales about the wonders and opportunities of the land of the Golden Mountain (what the US was referred to as by the Chinese during this period), as well as the dangers and cruelties perpetuated on the Tang people (what the Chinese referred to themselves as) by the American "white demons*."

*It should be noted that "demon" in the context is not a great translation from the Mandarin. It means something like spirit or ghost. It's a supernatural being that can be evil, but can just as easily be benevolent. Like the Fae of European tradition - some will kill you as soon as look at you, but some will help you.

As I always do when I see that a book has been challenged or banned, I like to look at the reasons why in addition to reading the book for myself. Per the article, reasons for banning the boom include:

-"Use of the terms such as 'white demon,' curse words, violence, drug use and prostitution in describing the experience of an 8-year-old boy and his family in San Francisco in the early 1900s."

-“'prohibited concepts' in instruction, such as that one race or sex is inherently superior to another"

-"This book is not appropriate for any American student"

-'If a line is not drawn in the sand, 'We’re going to continue down the woke CRT agenda.'”

Let's examine these, shall we?

"Demon"

Yes, even though Moon Shadow consistently refers to all Americans as "demons," he learns over the course of the book from the age of 8 to 15, that just because a person is American doesn't make them evil... just as, sadly, he finds that not all Tang men are good (more on that later). He originally decided to "educate" his landlady, Miss Whitlaw, on the "true" nature of dragons. In Eastern mythology, they are wise and benevolent creatures of water, and he is appalled to find that she only knows tales of evil, fire-breathing Western dragons. Later, as they bond, Miss Whitlaw suggests that perhaps the true nature of dragons is somewhere in between - neither wholely good nor wholely evil.

As an adult reader, of course I understand that the dragon is a metaphor for humans. A middle school student might need guidance to come to this conclusion, but the point of the book is clear: all humans are flawed, and capable of both good and evil.

I should also point out that this broad prejudice of one culture vs. another is pretty period-accurate for both sides. I recently reread my blog post about a Victorian Arctic explorer who conistently runs up against the problem that his native crew is almost universally untrusted by his fellow Europeans. Everyone assumes that they just lie all the time. This book takes that "these other guys are all, and always, bad" mentality, looks at it through the perspective of a child, and slowly, inevitably shows this boy learning that that is not the case.

Curse words

Fifteen-year-old Moon Shadow says "bastard" and "son of a bitch." Once. After having been attacked and robbed at knifepoint. Oh, my god, Becky. Look at those curse words. They are so vile.

Violence

Yes. There is no getting around the fact that there was violence in American history. To deny that is disengenuous, and does a terrible disservice to those who suffered it. Yes, there is violence in the book. Multiple characters discuss the lynching of their fellows. Though this, happening "off screen," is so mild as to almost pass over the heads of younger readers.

Windrider tells Moon Shadow that his grandfather was hanged by his hair from a lamp post. If I had read that as a 6th grader, myself having hip-length hair, I would not have realized it was lethal and would have understood it as bad bullying, not as murder.

Moon Shadow punches a neighbor boy in the nose after months of having been tormented by him and his friends.

Much of the violence, though, revolves around Moon Shadow's cousin, Black Dog. As an opium adict, he disappears for months at a time, usually resurfacing either when he has to be pulled out of an opium den, or when he attacks someone for money to feed his addiction. In the end, Black Dog ends up being just as bad as the worst "demons."

Then of course, there's the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. While most of the destruction is handled with tact, Moon Shadow sees the building next door collapse - one minute the scared faces of his neighbors are there, the next there is just a pile of rubble. As he and his father help dig for survivors later in the day, they occasionally see an arm or a leg sticking out at an odd angle. But even then, the horrible injuries there must have been on both the dead and the survivors are never really described.

Drug use

Yes. You can't fully understand the San Francisco of the time - nor the reasons the Chinese were seeking work in America because of the Opium Wars - without touching on the drug trade... and the consequences thereof. Additionally, the drug use is absolutely not glamorized. Those who use opium are showed either in a filthy stupor, or having resorted to robbery and attempted murder to fuel their addiction. Any middle schooler reading this is going to say, "ew, opium. That'll mess you up."

Prostitution

Prostitutes are mentioned maybe twice. Barely. They are mentioned as one of many, many people who work in the Tang section of town. They are never defined as to what they actually do. They might as well be fishmongers or haberdashers for as much description as they are given and as much as young teen might understand the word.

"Prohibited concepts" in instruction, such as that one race or sex is inherently superior to another

In some cases, Moon Shadow is justified in his fear of the "demons" - they lynched his grandfather simply for refusing to cut his hair. But as time goes on, Moon Shadow discovers that there are good demons as well as bad. Yes, there are racist, antagonistic Americans who shout slurs at him, white boys who threaten to beat him up... but his father is offered a job by a wealthy white man who recongnizes Windrider's skill with repairing engines. They start renting from Miss Whitlaw, a sympathetic white woman who is interested in the Tang culture (she adores the decoration on the box of tea that the Lees give her in thanks when they first move in). Miss Whitlaw and her neice, Robin, encourange Moon Shadow's growing English and reading skills and bond over books. Moon Shadow has such an affinity with Miss Whitlaw that he is certain she was a Tang empress in a previous life.

When the 1906 San Francisco earthquake strikes, Miss Whitmore's house is the only one for blocks left standing. She and the Lees immediately jump into helping the survivors. We see Chinese immigrants helping evacuate, white people refusing to help, but other whites helping. When fire sweeps through the reckage, all the survivors - Tang and American - flee to the Golden Gate park. Moon Shadow's elderly uncle hosts Miss Whitlaw for dinner in his tent; Windrider refers to her as a superior woman, borrowing his uncle's phrase of highest praise.

Shortly after, though, all the Chinese are forcibly removed from the camp by soldiers. Miss Whitlaw protests and very nearly comes to blows with the soldiers over the removal of her neighbors. But even here, Moon Shadow notes that there are good soldiers and bad: some soldiers helped set up the surviviors - of all races - with tents and food, and warned them of the spreading fires; others are shooting anyone seen near the wreckage on sight. There are even soldiers who fall in between - outwardly polite, but who begin looting as soon as they think the survivors can't see them.

If anything, the book ultimately presents both sides as nothing more than human - some good, some bad, but most of them a mix. The book is about overcoming prejudices - from both sides. Most Tangs are distrustful of the "demons." But Moon Shadow's father has no problem writing to the Wright brothers for information on how to build his own flying machine. They write back promptly, seemingly unphased by the foreign names at the bottom of the letter, saying that there are so few aeronauts that they consider them to all be part of one small brotherhood.

As always it makes me wonder if those deciding on the ban even read the book in question. I strongly suspect they did not.

"This book is not appropriate for any American student," one member of the school board that chose to pull the book claims.

Excuse me? How? It's a good, solid middle school text. I read both To Kill a Mockingbird and Jurrasic Park as required reading in middle school and both make this one look extremely tame. Seriously, though, unless you've been so carefully monitoring your child that they're only watching Word Party on TV or online, your child has already seen and read worse - and usually not with a literature teacher to guide their reading and discuss how it makes them feel.

Coleman said if a line is not drawn in the sand, 'We’re going to continue down the woke CRT agenda.'

Wow. Just... WOW. This book was written in 1975. For those of you who, like me, perpetually feel like the year 2000 was just a few years ago, let me break down the math for you. This book is almost FIFTY years old. It is no more woke than Julie of the Wolves or To Kill a Mockingbird.

Some people like to throw "CRT" around as the new scary buzzword. Most people don't even know what it is. In all honesty, do you want your child to grow up thinking (falsely) that Ameican history was just an episode of Leave it To Beaver? Children in pre-school and kindergarten are taught to share. They aren't taught, "You can play with Janie and Jaxson - but don't share your toys with Yue Ying. He's different."

Human history, when you get down to it, is in, large part, people being nasty to each other. It isn't just "white people are mean to non-white people." The British persecuted the Scots and the Irish for various long swaths of their history. Mongols invaded China. Japan invaded Korea. We all know what's currently happening in Ukraine. There's an old joke that goes something along the line of "a billion years from now when the planet is hurtling toward the sun, there will be microbes in the Middle East who hate each other."

Another point I'd like to bring up: when I originally posted that I planned to read this book due to the banning in Tennessee, one of my readers commented "to consider a book 'banned' because a school board dropped it from the curriculum as required reading after a parent complained ... seems like a hyperbolic use of the term."

I should clarify that I use the term "banned" more loosely that the American Library Association . I used "banned" rather than "banned or challenged" simply because it's one quick easy word that gets the point across. However, per the ALA, "A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials." In this case as another article clarifies, the book was indeed taken from the students mid-reading:

"Kahla Williams said her daughter was on Chapter 10 when the school made the decision to move to the next learning module.

'The book was just taken from them. They didn't get to finish it. They're not testing on it,' she said."

In this case, my use of the term "banned" is appropriate - students who previously had access to a book no longer have access to it. That is banning.

And, yes, as an avid reader and former children's library worker, I have a different view on what's appropriate for a 6th grader than some. But to be perfectly honest, I would have no problem giving this book to Elianna YOUNGER than 6th grade.

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Friggin' February

February 28, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

December is always the month that I expect to get nothing done, and I meet that expectation.

February is always the month where I think, "well, LAST February sucked, but THIS February I'm going to get my act together"... and then I don't.

So, really just brief updates for you this month.

I feel like maybe I'm starting to round the curve of wanting to get back into things. Still don't know WHAT I feel like working on, just that I feel like I want to do something.

As to my goals for February:

-Goal: Submit three stories (or one story to three publications)

Actual result: I didn't submit any. I've been struggling with finding the right markets, and questioning myself with what's truly ready.

(Related to that, if any of you who are not already beta readers for me would like to be, please PM me your email through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or by using the email form on this site. No writing or editing experience necessary! Sometimes I want the opinion of "the average Joe on the street.")

-Goal: Increase Facebook following from 99 to 109

Actual result: no change.

-Goal: Increase LinkedIn following from 69 to 76

Actual result: 72 connections, an increase of about 4%

-Goal: Increase Twitter following from 16 to 20

Actual result: 37 followers, an increase of about 57%

Y'all. Y'ALL. I met my follower goal the night I posted my previous goals. I thought about going back and updating the blog post... but then I also said, I could go through and do that every week and drive myself crazy.

I went into starting a Twitter account with the caveat that it might be the hardest to grow an audience on, because it's the one that requires the most interaction, but I've increased my following by over 50% each month since I've been keeping track. (Granted, when your following is 10 or 30, an increase of 50% isn't a lot. I don't expect to keep gaining by 50% or more each month for much longer.)

Next month's goals: Pretty much the same as this months, honestly.

-Submit three stories, or to three publications. Yes, I know I should do more than three a month, but I think trying to increase my goal when I didn't submit this month is shooting myself in the foot, as far as motivation, anxiety, and guilt go.

-Increase online following as follows:

Facebook - break 100 (change of 1% - yay, easy math! ; )

LinkedIn - increase to 75 (change of about 4%)

Twitter - increase to 50 (change of about 35%)

I will also be switching up the contents of my My Works page this month, so keep an eye out for that.

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Upstairs, Downstairs

February 20, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

Yesterday, I did something I don't normally do. I started a new book while I was still reading another one. I don't mean that I decided not to finish the book. I checked out a new book from the library and I'm reading one upstairs at bed, and the other in quick snatches downstairs. I haven't done this - have an "upstairs" book and a "downstairs" book - since Elianna was a baby (and by that I mean a "wake her up to feed her every 2.5 hours" baby).

Why did I do it? The short answer is that the book I put on hold at the library came in.

The long answer is a little more complex.

As you might have seen me post on Facebook or Twitter earlier, another book has been removed from the curriculum in another Tennessee school system.

I've never read Dragonwings, but I like historical fiction and grew up on tales of plucky immigrant homesteaders, so between that and the fact that I'm making it a point to read books I see in the news being banned or challenged in schools, this was a no-brainer. This one came in quickly (as opposed to Maus, which I'm still waiting on, though I have read Maus at least once before...) I also happened to see a book Friday evening detailing George Takei's family's experience in the Japanese-American internment camps of WWII. Having requested that one, Dragonwings coming in, and now being first in line for Maus, I figured I was going to have to shift things a little a multitask if I'm going to get these books read before they're due back. (Fortunately, the other book I'm currently reading, Fangirl, is my own copy, so there's no rush on that one...)

Another reason why I decided to read both at the same time instead of simply set Fangirl aside for a while (aside from the fact that I'm really enjoying it) is that Fangirl and Dragonwings are different enough that I'm not going to have a problem switching back and forth. (Imagine if I were reading The Mists of Avalon and Half Sick of Shadows at the same time - yikes!)

In any case, now you know what's going on if I suddenly start posting more "currently reading" posts the next few days.

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Half Sick of Shadows, Sick of Anachronisms

February 6, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

Ok, first, let me say that I know that King Arthur is a legend far removed from any real historical character at best, and complete fiction at "worst." However, it's universally accepted that King Arthur is "medieval" - which, yes, I know that leaves about a 1,000 year swath in which the tales can be set. They were first written down in the 12th century (though mentions of names from the Arthurian legends can be found as early as the 800's), but most Arthurian scholars now agree that if Arthur were a real person that he likely lived around 500 AD - technically medieval, but so close to the fall of Rome that it straddles that ancient/medieval line. Personally, this is the era I think of when I think of King Arthur... but my perception is colored by the fact that I saw The Mists of Avalon (set in that early 500ish-600ish "the Saxons are invading" era) before I read any of the original (Mallory or Monmouth) Arthurian works.

Still, going on the "classic" interpretation of Arthur being high medieval (knights in armor) - such as you would expect from Mallory, Monmouth, and De Troyes - or even going on the idea of Arthur somehow being Victorian - per the works of Tennyson and the Rossettis (which of course is at odds with British history of not just the British Isles, but a good chunk of the world being united under Victoria) - that still leaves things just all over the place in terms of artifacts, costumes, architecture and other details in this book. Yes, I know it's a legend - put pick an era and stick with it.

(I recently watched a video on Youtube where the creator broke down the MuLan films by what time period the legend of MuLan is supposed to be set in. This is exactly what I'm talking about. This "legend" is supposed to take place in such-and-such century - let's try and make our film accurate to that period.)

In any case, first - how to classify the time period, as it is written in Half Sick of Shadows?

Throughout the book there is the constant reminder that "Albion" (an old word for England - not including Scotland) is not unified - placing this pre-Alfred the Great (late 9th century). Characters also comment multiple times that someone wearing a risque outfit would get stoned to death if seen like that in Camelot. While I don't know for sure that stoning people for infractions took place in medieval or ancient Britain, that definitely does seems more of an early period punishment (whereas late medieval/early renaissance, you could just as easily be labeled a witchy temptress, but that would get you hanged or burned at the stake, not stoned). But there are also knights in full plate armor (late medieval, and Renaissance era) as well as architecture described in such a way as to make me think of high Gothic (approximately 1100) or later. Glass windows and mirrors are commonplace. The clothing feels even later - corsets are prevalent in the court of Camelot, and at a coronation the courtiers are wearing powdered wigs. Between that, the teacups, the hot cocoa, and the mention of chenille - a fabric that wasn't invented until the 1830's - I want to ask the author if this book takes place inside a Rossetti painting (the Rossettis being Victorian painters that were fond of painting knights, ladies, and other Arthuriana). There was even a point where Merlin mentions that Excalibur was placed in the stone by the ancient first king of Camelot that I started to wonder that maybe this whole thing was taking place in the far future.

I know that's a big long rant. I did mostly enjoy the book. The characters were interesting, the whole premise of moving between past, present, and future as Elaine's visions unfold was fascinating. Indeed there were several nights that I was up reading later than I should have been.

There were a couple places I was disappointed, though:

Visions of the future/spoilers follow

-What happened to Mattie? At one point Elaine, a seer, is introduced to her neice Mathilde (referred to as Mattie to differentiate from another relative by the same name). Mattie has seen the same vision of Elaine's death that Elaine references at the beginning of the book. After the scene where she's introduced to Morgana and Elaine, who discover her skills as a seer, Elaine arranges for Mattie's family to come to court at Camelot so that she (Elaine) can mentor her. But after that scene Mattie is never seen nor referred to again.

-Elaine's saccrifice negated Elaine and the reader both know from the get-go that Elaine will drown, and that it will be her own choice not to fight back up to the surface. We know this, we know this, we know this. We know this, just as anyone who has read Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalot" (or heard Loreena McKenna's adaptation thereof, or listened to Emilie Autumn's "Shalot" which of course is a retelling of Tennyson's work) knows that Elaine, the Lady of Shallot, dies. It's the why and the when that we don't know.
In the end, it turns out that Elaine, having spent the last 400 pages seeing visions of the people she loves the most betray each other in ways that she is tangentially involved in, in ways that she has "set them on the path" of, she decides to take herself out of the equation and drown herself in the lake that surrounds Avalon. It seems a fitting end to a young lady who has spent her time sacrificing to protect others, to a character we know MUST have a tragic end. But wait... what's this? Elaine is... not dead? Brought back to life by the Lady of the Lake? She's now the new Lady of the Lake and... basically hides out on Avalon to watch fate unroll.
I mean... I love a happy ending. I love a book where when all seems lost the characters are somehow able to pull a happy ending out of the air. Don't get me wrong, when it's done well it's incredible. But this made it seem like there was no depth or meaning to her sacrifice, and made the fact that Arthur, Gweneviere, and Lancelot would mourne her unnecessarily seem cruel to those characters. (Though I will say that the author explains in her afterword that she started writing this in high school, rewriting, and rewriting again, and finally finishing over the course of more than a decade. So maybe the ending was something she came up with as a teenager. It is not only what I would have written in highschool but also what I would have wanted to read in high school. And as someone who has been working on 3 novels for more than 10 years now I don't exactly have room to talk...)

1: -What happened to Mattie? At one point Elaine, a seer, is introduced to her neice Mathilde (referred to as Mattie to differentiate from another relative by the same name). Mattie has seen the same vision of Elaine's death that Elaine references at the beginning of the book. After the scene where she's introduced to Morgana and Elaine, who discover her skills as a seer, Elaine arranges for Mattie's family to come to court at Camelot so that she (Elaine) can mentor her. But after that scene Mattie is never seen nor referred to again. -Elaine's saccrifice negated Elaine and the reader both know from the get-go that Elaine will drown, and that it will be her own choice not to fight back up to the surface. We know this, we know this, we know this. We know this, just as anyone who has read Tennyson's The Lady of Shalot (or heard Loreena McKenna's adaptation thereof, or listened to Emilie Autumn's "Shalot" which of course is a retelling of Tennyson's work) knows that Elaine, the Lady of Shallot, dies. It's the why and the when that we don't know. In the end, it turns out that Elaine, having spent the last 400 pages seeing visions of the people she loves the most betray each other in ways that she is tangentially involved in, in ways that she has "set them on the path" of, she decides to take herself out of the equation and drown herself in the lake that surrounds Avalon. It seems a fitting end to a young lady who has spent her time sacrificing to protect others, to a character we know MUST have a tragic end. But wait... what's this? Elaine is... not dead? Brought back to life by the Lady of the Lake? She's now the new Lady of the Lake and... basically hides out on Avalon to watch fate unroll. I mean... I love a happy ending. I love a book where when all seems lost the characters are somehow able to pull a happy ending out of the air. Don't get me wrong, when it's done well it's incredible. But this made it seem like there was no depth or meaning to her sacrifice, and made the fact that Arthur, Gweneviere, and Lancelot would mourne her unnecessarily seem cruel to those characters. (Though I will say that the author explains in her afterword that she started writing this in high school, rewriting, and rewriting again, and finally finishing over the course of more than a decade. So maybe the ending was something she came up with as a teenager. It is not only what I would have written in highschool but also what I would have wanted to read in high school. And as someone who has been working on 3 novels for more than 10 years now I don't exactly have room to talk...) -Gweneviere is a warrior AND a werewolf Yes, really. Full stop. Um, excuse me, why isn't this the main storyline? That sounds funny and sarcastic, but I mean it sincerely. When you have a character whose story is explosively more interesting than the other major characters' stories, it makes me wonder why she isn't the focus. I say this as someone who is very aware that the main character in at least one of my novels-in-progress may be overshadowed by cooler characters in her story.

-Gweneviere is a warrior AND a werewolf Yes, really. Full stop. Um, excuse me, why isn't this the main storyline? That sounds funny and sarcastic, but I mean it sincerely. When you have a character whose story is explosively more interesting than the other major characters' stories, it makes me wonder why she isn't the focus. I say this as someone who is very aware that the main character in at least one of my novels-in-progress may be overshadowed by cooler characters in her story.

With all that said, though, it wasn't a bad book. Honestly, most people aren't anywhere near as picky as me about all the stuff I went off on above. So, really, this time around I will say don't let my opinion color whether or not you read the book.

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Following for February

February 1, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

Just a few quick notes on January, since I haven't gotten a lot done:

One of my goals was to make three submissions this month - and I did! Yay!

My platform goal was to increase my social media following. My goals were:

Facebook - goal: 106 (actual: 99)

LinkedIn - goal: 66 (actual: 69)

Twitter - goal: 10 (actual: 16)

For February, aside from trying to figure out how to get my motivation back, I will aim to keep similar submission and following goals:

-Make at least three submissions (a single submission to at least three markets, or multiple stories to one market)

-Increase my followings by:

-10% on Facebook (from 99 to 109)

-5% on LinkedIn (from 69 to 76)

-10% on Twitter (from 16 to 18)

So far, Twitter has been growing the fastest, which I did not expect... but I also don't expect that pace to stay. But, if I do increase by say, 50 or 100 percent by the end of the month, then Twitter's goal for March will be quite a bit higher.

If you're interested in helping me increase those numbers, make sure to like, share, and especially to follow me on social media!

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Writer's Block or Pandemic Fatigue?

January 21, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

Guys, I think I'm having a little bit of an existential crisis about my writing.

I've really been dragging my feet about it the last couple months. The idea of finishing and publishing a novel seems daunting, not inspiring. Looking for places to submit my short stories seems tedious and not worth the effort.

I've been "supposed" to be working on Brinyor since November, but find I keep delaying rereads and editing in favor of making a map I probably won't use, in depth costume research I probably don't need, in depth linguistic name research that I'm probably the only one who cares about it...

I've been "working" on Brinyor for ten years - Wolf and Sheath, and BrightFire for twelve and eleven years, respectively. (I guess I should quit thinking such uncharitable thoughts about George R R Martin, huh?)

Maybe it's the pandemic fatigue talking - here we are almost two years in, and we just had another exposure scare. (I guess I shouldn't complain - I know a lot of people who have had it; I know some people who have had it twice.) I was supposed to be getting back into things, being productive, now that we're through the holidays and Elianna was going back to school (prior to quarantines and lack-luster ice storms).

I just don't feel the drive. Some people get up in the morning and they HAVE to write, like they have to breathe. Most successful authors will tell you "you have to write every day." I'm definitely not doing that right now. People say, "If you REALLY want to do something, you'll FIND the time, you'll MAKE the time." But you know what I'm making time for? Naps. Admittedly, I have never been ambitious about ANYTHING, so maybe this isn't such a big change. But I am starting to wonder if I'm wasting my... time? Time may not even be the right word, since I'm not even spending that much time on it right now.

But if I don't write, if I'm not a writer, what am I?

(It's an open answer, possibly even a rhetorical question, and in no way meant to be a downer. I've just been rolling this all around in my head recently.)

...though Jason is feeling the same way about some of his leisure activities, so it helps to know I'm not the only one.

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A Comedically-Malfunctioning Vacuum Cleaner

January 16, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

What constitutes "age appropriate?" It's different for each kid, isn't it?

Take Elianna, for example. She's almost 2 1/2. She loves dinosaurs. She watched the last season of Camp Cretaceous with us and was never bothered by snarling dinosaurs ("Whatchu DOIN', dinosaur?!") or by antagonistic robots ("robot dinosaur!"). She occasionally sees snatches of Jason's video games; once, recently, having the bad timing to walk into the room as one character hit another and knocked him out. ("Guy fall down?" "Yes, a mean man hit him and he fell down. That's why we don't hit." "We don't hit. Guy fall down, take a nap.") But we were watching a different show with a comedically-malfunctioning vacuum cleaner and she started screaming.

Or, take, for example, the fact that when I was eight or so, the Giant Mouse of Minsk from An American Tale gave me nightmares. When I was ten, I had three months of rabies-based nightmares and paranoia (I would NOT sit with my back to an open door for fear a rabid rodent would creep in and bite me) after reading Old Yeller... but only one year later I was watching Jaws (and Shark Week) and reading Jurassic park without issue.

Every kid is different and, moreover, what bothers every kid is going to be different. A young child may be scared by something innocuous, but not bothered by what you would expect. A middle schooler may completely miss a reference to sex or violence, but be traumatized when the dog dies.

When I worked in the children's department at a local library, one of my favorite patrons was an 11-year-old who reminded me a lot of myself, both in the volume of books read and in genre choices. She'd come in every other week and make a beeline for me, asking, "What's new? What's good?" She had burned through most of the juvenile-level books and was mostly out in the Young Adult section. She could have asked our adult reference librarians, who were technically over YA.

I don't know if it was just because we had developed a rapport, or because I was the youngest full-timer there (I was 30, and looked younger, and I'm also quite short), or if it was simply because we had the same interests - fantasy and adventure, with an occasional dash of history or sci-fi. She was very mature as far as reading level and vocabulary, and she, like I, loved doorstopper tomes. She hauled a huge black vinyl bag with her to stuff all her books into (she often checked out close to a dozen and, yes, did read most of them in two weeks). It became harder and harder to find things that would interest and/or challenge her that would also be "age appropriate." After we had been doing this for a while, I started to ask her, "are you OK with this, are you OK with that?" As young as she was, I still tried to avoid things I knew to have more sexual content. I recall one time I weighed the pros and cons of giving her a book I'd just finished that I had really enjoyed.

"It's kind of dark," I cautioned. "The main character gets put on trial for witchcraft." I paused, sizing up this even-shorter-than-me bookworm. "Would torture bother you?"

"I think I would be OK," she answered confidently.

"Would it bother your parents?"

She shrugged. "I don't think so. If I got upset, they'd be upset, but I think I'll be OK." Still not entirely sure, I gave it to her anyway. Two weeks later she came back for the sequel.

I bring up these stories because recently there have been more and more school boards and school districts being pressured, or even making rules, to allow parents - one single parent, in some cases - to remove books they don't like from the library. While I do agree that certain books don't belong in school libraries - 50 Shades of Grey springs to mind - I also think that a parent's dislike, mistrust, or even misguided rumor-fueled opinion of a book should not outweigh the expertise of teachers and librarians whose area of study is choosing developmentally appropriate books for a certain age group.

Should I go to Elianna's preschool and demand that they remove any books with vacuum cleaners in them? Of course not. Should my mom have gone to our local library or Blockbuster and demand that no one be allowed to watch An American Tale or Old Yeller? Of course not. One parent, one individual, even a vocal minority of annoyed or misinformed people should not be able to make snap decisions on what books hundreds or thousands of students have access to.

By all means, be involved in your child's education. But be aware that just because YOU don't like the book doesn't mean that no one should read it. The book you hated may be the book that finally gets a reluctant reader interested in reading, or may be the book that helps a struggling teen realize they aren't alone, or that helps a child understand an important lesson about the world. Let them read. Or, to quote Finding Nemo:

"I promised I'd never let anything happen to him."

"Well, that's a funny thing to promise - then nothing'll ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo."

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What To Do In '22

January 1, 2022 Elizabeth Ivey

It's time for my annual update on goals!

First, what my goals were in 2021, and how I did with them (full post on that here.

Because I was trying to be a little less vague about my goals, some of them were more time-specific (do X by the end of January):

-Get back into my writing schedule - Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings.

-check

-Submit either one story to at least three publications, or at least three stories to one publication each by the end of March.

-check

-Resume my weekly blog schedule.

-check

-But within the first couple weeks of the year, examine my current writing schedule and see if I want to move which day I do my blog. (I currently am "supposed" to be posting a blog every weekend, but that hasn't happened in a while.)

-check

-Resume my monthly project/status updates.

-check

-Finish rereading Bright Fire by the end of January.

-If I recall correctly, I did

-By the time I finish the above, decide what work I want to do next on The Wolf and the Sheath.

-I did work on W and S for a while, but I didn't make a lot of progress

Other things I did last year included:

-revamped my platform. This included updating my website's layout and imagery, and adding a Twitter account.

-made nine submissions (which admittedly isn't a lot, but it's something).

-made decent progress on setting relatable, achievable goals and meeting them. I figured out a formula of sorts of how much to increase followings on various platforms by and did pretty well with that.

So what are my goals for 2022? Honestly, I haven't given it a lot of thought. For the moment, I will continue my status quo:

-Continue my regular writing schedule (Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Thursday mornings and evenings, Sunday evenings, and alternating weekends (the last of which I have not been good about).

-Continue my social media posting schedule: Writerly quotes on Mondays, alternating Writing Prompt Wednesday and Throwback Thursday, and posting a new blog at least every-other weekend.

-Make three submissions by the end of January. Whether or not those publications/contests allow for simultaneous submissions will help determine what my next submission goal is.

-Continue to increase my following on various online platforms by approximately 10% each quarter.

-Update and/or swap out material on my website quarterly.

"But what about writing," you ask, "all these goals seem to be platform-oriented." You would be right. I haven't had my head in the writing end of the things the past couple months - even NaNoWriMo was tough for me this year. I haven't really given a lot of thought as to what writing goal to set or how to measure it. I've been working on Brinyor since November, and I'd like to continue that. I did a little bit of research for it, and a little map and costume sketching over the past week or two, so maybe that will give me some fresh inspiration.

In any case, I will definitely make an update post at the end of the month, so maybe I'll update my writing goals at that time.

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The Toymaker's Apprentice: A Holiday Treat

December 31, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

So... I wanted to make this post earlier. (Heck, I wanted to finish the book on Christmas, but it ended up being the 27th.)

When I checked out Flygirl, by Sherri L. Smith, I noticed that she had a book entitled The Toymaker's Apprentice. From the seven-headed, seven-crowned mouse on the cover, I knew it was about/based on The Nutcracker. For those of you that may not know, I was in The Nutcracker four times as a kid. The full ballet is one of my very favorite pieces of music EVER. Y'all... I had to read this book.

Now, first of all, I want to say that this book is based on a 200 year old novella and a 120 year old ballet, so if I spoil the ending for you, well, that's on you ; )

The Toymaker's Apprentice is the story of Stefan Drosselmeyer, the second cousin of clockmaker Christian Drosselmeyer (who is THE Drosselmeyer from the ballet). Stefan longs for something more than his role as his father's apprentice. His father, Zacharias, is a traditionalist. Carved wooden toys - not clockwork or automatons - are what Zacharias Drosselmeyer encourages. But, reeling from the death of his mother, and the sudden appearance of his enigmatic cousin, Christian, Stefan is hit by revelation after revelation. Christian was banished from his royal appointment! Christian has been charged with curing a cursed princess! The only cure is a possibly-mythical, impossible to crack nut! Christian is being pursued by spies! The spies are mice! And they can talk! The mice kidnap Stefan's father!

Christian, Stefan, and Christian's jailer and friend, the astronomer Samir, set off for far-off Boldavia, to save a princess, rescue Zacharias, and defeat a revolution of mice.

Meanwhile, in Boldavia, the Queen of Mice has given birth to... a son? Seven sons? She refers to them in the plural but, to the shock of her subjects, her newborn has one body and seven heads. Famed rat scholar, Ernst Liszt, has been hired to tutor the... princes?... and even he is very uncertain about the queen's plans for her offspring. She names her sons for famous human conquerors, in hopes this will serve as portentous to their future, and her eventual goal of conquering the humans.

The chapters alternate between Stefan's, Ernst's, and eventually the mouse prince's points of view. Of the seven heads, the central one, Arthur, becomes the dominant personality of his brothers. Gentle Arthur, who wishes to be a scholar, but also wishes to live up to his mother's expectations that he and his brothers will be warriors, strikes up an unlikely friendship with the imprisoned Zacharias. Together, they bond over Zacharias's love for the son he misses - how Arthur wishes he had a parent who cares like this! Arthur's friendship and encouragement helps Zacharias continue the work his captors have designated for him.

Of course, I went into this story know what the ending was going to be... how it HAD to be, given the source material. And yet... I kept wondering, kept asking, how does Arthur go from sweet scholar to dreaded Mouse King, sworn enemy of the Nutcracker? How can Stefan defeat a city filled with countless mice out for revenge? And the answers... oh, the answers. I love a good tragedy. I can't tell you the last time I've read such a sympathetic and tragic villain as Sherri L. Smith's Mouse King. And the final interaction between the Mouse King and the Nutcracker, between Arthur and Stefan - two BOYS who love their parent and would do anything for them. Glorious. A real Christmas treat.

Read this book if you are a fan of: The Nutcracker; Young Adult or Middle Grade fantasy or adventure (like Terry Pratchett's YA novels? This is for you); Harry Potter; The Ranger's Apprentice series; The Colossus Rises, by Peter Lerangis; coming of age stories; steampunk (I mean... this is more clockwork punk, but I don't think that counts as a genre...; The Larklight series; retellings of classics/fairy tales; historical fiction; talking animals...seriously, y'all I could make a whole readers' advisory list.

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It's Not Trash - It's Art Supplies

December 26, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

OK, y'all - confession time. I'm a paper hoarder.

I keep scrap paper. I use old emails and letterhead to print coupons or drafts. I keep gift bags. I have a big stash of large scraps of craft paper and magazine cutouts. I almost got rid of the last of these when we were cleaning and reorganizing when I was pregnant with Elianna... but ended up keeping them because I knew that in a couple years I'd want to start doing art projects with her.

Part of this comes from when I worked at a public library during the recession. We had NO BUDGET. Any piece of paper that could be reused was. Anything that wasn't meant for public use was printed on the back of previous printouts. Old summer reading folders were cut up for scratch paper for the public (you know - you walk in, you jot down the call number so you can go find your book).

I got a full-time job in the children's department of the busiest library in the county just as we were starting to get just a wee little bitty bit of of supply budget back. I got $100 - to last for craft supplies for a year.

In a way, it was a fun challenge. What can I do with the craft supplies we already have in the closet? What can I do with faded construction paper instead of throwing it out? What can I do with the legal sized printer paper no one uses anymore? With the magazines that aren't sent to be bound or aren't sent to the book sale? For that matter, what are my coworkers throwing out that I can use? Give me your Kleenex boxes, your toilet paper rolls, your scraps of Christmas wrapping paper! I went dumpster diving in the office recycling bin for colored copy paper and lean cuisine boxes. And we made some really fun crafts, if I do say so myself.

But talking about craft projects reminds me that it actually goes back farther than the library. My mom was a Sunday school/Bible school art teacher, then a pre-school teacher, then a free-lance art teacher. She saved toilet paper rolls and those little green plastic baskets strawberries used to come in. She saved egg cartons. As an art teacher, we couldn't throw away my dad's lactose-free milk cartons after Halloween because my mom needed them as the base of the gingerbread houses her class would make in December. You threw away bubble wrap? How dare you! "That's not trash, it's art supplies!" was a constant cry in our house.

Recently, I joined a couple groups on Facebook focused on repurposing and reusing things with a mind to sustainability. One of my fellow group members proudly posted a picture of her stash of Christmas bags saved from previous years. I commented with a picture of my own even larger stash, and the caption "look upon my bags, ye mighty and despair!" It was well-received.

So now, here I sit: in the next room is my daughter's Christmas tambourine that I made with her class using rings of Coke cans. On my desk is, admittedly, a fresh notebook and smaller notepad for jotting ideas and to-do lists (but I will turn those pages over and write on the back). But on the other side of the desk is scrap paper I've doodled poetry on, a map for my book that I drew on the back of an old email, a 2020 planner that will be pulled apart next week to use for scrap paper... oh, yes, and I still have large scraps of construction paper from the cornucopia project Elianna and I made for Thanksgiving.

I also have a bag full of laminated Russian onion dome towers made out of scrap paper... but that's a topic for another post.

Snowman made with: construction paper, crayons/markers, glue, and buttons (supplies we had) and donated fabric scraps (thanks to my mom!). We only bought the marshmallows and pretzels.

Fall wreath made from glue, paper plates we had on hand, construction paper we had on hand (including faded paper that was used for the painted leaves), and donated paint. No supplies purchased!

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Review: Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

December 12, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly." Langston Hughes

Ida wants to fly. Ida yearns to fly. Flying reminds Ida of her deceased father, who taught her. But Ida is a woman. In 1941. Oh, yeah - she's also Black. The thing is... Ida's father's side of the family is mixed. She inherited his very fair skin. She has "good hair." When she dresses a certain way, walks and talks a certain way - and avoids her darker family members and friends - she can pass for white.

Honestly, if timing had been different, if the War hadn't started, if her older brother hadn't enlisted as a medic... If her younger brother hadn't found an article about how the army was putting together a group of female pilots (the Women's Army Service Pilots, or WASP), Ida would have just continued what she was doing - scrimping and rationing, cleaning houses, collecting scraps for the War Effort - indefinitely. But not only does she itch to fly, she also itches to do something, anything, to help bring her brother home sooner. So, doctoring her father's pilot license and borrowing a nice hat and fur, she joins the WASP.

I had been curious about both the WASP in general, and this book specifically, since I read Orleans by the same author several years ago. Somehow it got forgotten, pushed to the side. But after Out of Darkness, I wanted to read another historical novel about someone outside my own experience... and this one immediately resurfaced in my mind.

It was a good read, an interesting peek into both the life of a Black woman at the time, and any woman in the army during WWII. Actually, I should say, civilian women among military men. The WASP were not militarized until the Carter administration, and as such, the ladies are treated as the lowest of the low - interlopers, unworthy, given all the planes and tasks that the men don't want to deal with. Made to bunk in poorly thrown-together rooms on the base, or to stay in boarding houses off-base. Asked to show their worth by flying an experimental plane dubbed the "Widowmaker" when no man wants to touch it because of all the problems and accidents it's had so far. Some of the men don't think women should be there, don't think they should be flying. Others discount their instincts or their careful checking of equipment.

In addition, Ida has to deal with the added stress of "passing" - of hiding her true self and heritage, as not only are Black women not allowed in the WASP, but her basic training takes place deep in Texas where a Black woman caught passing will find herself in immediate danger. Though, interestingly enough, Ida isn't the only one dealing with prejudices. She immediately takes to two other bunkmates, becoming fast friends, and the three of them are referred to as a "carny," a "hick," and a Jew.

I enjoyed the book, and I enjoyed learning about the challenges these ladies faced. The pacing wasn't what I would have expected for a wartime novel about a woman hiding her identity, but it was a good read with important themes. I felt the ending just sort of... happened. It wasn't terribly climactic and became more about Ida's thoughts and which of her relationships had changed. Though, a big message of the book is about that transition of early adulthood - you grow apart from your childhood friends. You wonder if your fate lies with your family or with your dreams and skills. Should you pursue your dreams, no matter what, or should you do what others expect of you?

But don't worry, just because Flygirl didn't take off for me the way I expected doesn't mean I'm done with Sherri. I've already moved on to another book of hers, The Toymaker's Apprentice. And I'm loving it so far.

Whataya Know, NaNo?

December 1, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

Wow, December already? November just flew by... which is odd, because SO much happened in November. It seemed like one of us was always sick - sinus infections and COVID boosters for the adults, colds and pinkeye for Elianna. Fun. Add Thanksgiving to that mix and... well, who decided November was a good month for NaNoWriMo, huh?

So, first I'll talk about what I did in November, and then I'll launch into my goals for December and January.

In an attempt to kick myself into gear a bit, I decided to do a modified National Novel Writing Month challenge in November. My goal was not to write a new novel, but rather to try and crank out new material I need to flesh out Brinyor, one of my current novels. My intent was to write every day and, even thought many days I only managed about 20-30 minutes after Elianna had gone to bed in the evening, the first 2.5-3 weeks of the month I did pretty well. But, the week of Thanksgiving, everything kind of fell apart at once. To twist a line from Ian Malcom, "life, uh, gets in the way."

I knew I would be unlikely to write on Thanksgiving itself... but I also wasn't expecting people to get sick, Elianna to take a big step back in night potty training and/or willingness to go to sleep (cold, pinkeye, picking up on our stress? possibly also teething - I mean, that'll do it). She's gotten very defiant about naps as well and, as we speak, is sleeping on the floor on the opposite side of the room from her bed because she likes her play blanket and giant stuffed corgi and, well, Jason and I are tired of fighting with her at 4 AM. Two-year-olds, man.

But, yes, less griping, more progress reports. I managed to write a little over 17,000 words for Brinyor in November, in addition to spending some time working on my platform (including my newly-added Twitter. I even submitted a story to a podcast.

So, on to my December goals, which are... really low-balling it. Honestly, between holiday prep and Elianna being out of school for two weeks, I'm going to cut myself a lot of slack. If I can keep my current writing and social media schedule,* reread what I wrote in November, and start inserting it into the main body of the novel, I'll be happy.

*-Writerly quote of the week, plus business - social media, platform work, submission research - on Monday

-Work on my monthly goal while Elianna is at school on Tuesday

--Writing prompt of the week (alternating weeks) on Wednesday

-Work on my monthly goal while Elianna is at school, and alternating Throwback Thursdays on Thursday.

-Blog each weekend (unless I've done it earlier in the week)

-Alternating weekends to really focus on writing.

In fact, I have so little faith in having time to write this month, that the above goal is actually going to be my January goal, too. More of a six-week goal (because I know I'll be pretty useless the latter half of December) than a monthly goal.

Review: Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez

November 21, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

As some of you know, this book was put on my radar because a mom at a school board meeting in Texas pitched a fit about the reference to anal sex on "page 39." The book was pulled from two middle school libraries in the district shortly after that. I don't know how many more other schools may have pulled it at this point, because the video from the school board meeting has spread like wildfire.

I had initially posted a news story about the board meeting on my Facebook page, but after Banned Books Week, I was contacted by the author's publicist to ask if I was interested in writing a blog post about Ashley's response (which you can read here).

As I often do when someone makes a stink about a book being inappropriate, I got curious and decided to read it. (That's what I do, y'all - banning a book just makes me want to read it more.)

So I checked out a copy from the library. I actually don't check out books for myself from the library that often, because I really only get a short window of time at night to read and I'm always concerned I'm going to run out of time and that someone else will be waiting for the book, so I won't be able to renew it. I was even more concerned when I picked up the copy I'd requested. I was not expecting a 400 page tome. But I shouldn't have worried - I ploughed through the book quickly, often staying up well past when I should have gone to bed, especially as I neared the end.

What follow are, first, a basic review, and then, secondly, my thoughts on the offensive phrase that got the book pulled as compared to other content in the book.

Review, with minor spoliers

Out of Darkness is the story of Naomi and Wash. In New London, TX, in 1937, a Black boy befriends a Mexican girl who has recently moved to town with her stepfather and her half siblings. Her stepfather is white, and the twins (Beto and Cari), though mixed, pass for white, especially since their father enrolls them in school as Robbie and Carrie Smith. Naomi, however, is dark enough that Wash first mistakes her for Black and wonders how he could have missed a new girl in "Egypt Town," the Black Quarter.

Naomi has many struggles. Her stepfather, Henry, works long hours in the oil fields and is often away, leaving her to care for her younger siblings, run the household (cleaning, mending, cooking, shopping) while also attending high school full time.

Naomi is quiet and keeps to herself. The boys at school think she's exotic and alluring, despite being aloof. The girls at school have nasty things to say about her. (Well, the boys do, too, but it's a different kind of nasty.) But with Wash's genuine attention to and friendship with Cari and Beto, she begins to open up and find some enjoyment in her new life.

But, alas, no one's going to read a 400 page book about Wash and Naomi and their Happy, No-Conflict, Idyllic Life. This is Texas. In the 30's. A Black boy and a Mexican girl can't be friends. A Black boy and "white" children can't be friends. And most of the kids at the otherwise all white school look down on Naomi. Those would be enough problems to deal with without Henry's long hours, alcholholism, possesive nature and his... history with Naomi and her mother. That would be enough to deal with without the school using raw natural gas for heat rather than safer, refined gas or oil from the oil company. That would be enough to deal with without falling in love with the "wrong" person. And that would be enough without the literal powder keg of the school exploding, and the figurative powder keg that goes off when a black boy carries the body of a dead white girl out of the rubble.

The author, Ashley Hope Perez, skillfully layers in foreshadowing until you know, YOU KNOW, something terrible is about to happen. But, with that said, it was still beautiful, even the dark parts. (Even the many, many dark parts.) It is an amazingly well-written tale of love, friendship, family, hope, despair, possession, toxic relationships, abuse, racism, and disaster. It is fantastic.

There are better reasons to ban a book - warning for spoilers and potential triggers

I am so aggravated that the book has been pulled from school bookshelves because of a line where highschool boys fantasize about Naomi, and suggest "put it in her cornhole." That's worth pulling the book? Wash and Naomi are both called the "n" word. But that's OK - at least it's not "cornhole."

Another phrase that upset the mother at the school board meeting was "pussy, or the idea of pussy," again, brought to us by the fantasizing of the boys in Naomi's class. That's worth pulling the book? The book opens with an explosion - a true, historical event that still stands as one of the worst three disasters in Texas history. There are details about the rescue workers collecting small body parts and putting them in baskets, while parents had to identify their children by clothing or birthmarks because their faces weren't recognizable. But that's OK because at least those bodyparts weren't a "pussy."

As the book goes on, we learn more about Henry and Naomi's relationship. Henry started making her touch him when she was seven. He tries to force himself on her in the kitchen as a teenager when he comes home drunk and mistakes her for her (long-deceased) mother. But that's OK - it's not "cornhole."

Naomi's mother had a history of miscarriages - and young Naomi was present for at least two of them, and remembers them in great detail. But that's OK because it's not "pussy."

Henry makes Beto go hunting with him to "make a man out of him." He forces him to shoot a bird even when it becomes clear that the boy doesn't want to. Henry bullies him so badly that eight-year-old Beto wets his pants.

There are also beautiful, tender, intimate moments between Naomi and Wash, serving to offset Henry's force and lack of concern about consent.

Henry drinks. He sleeps around. He sees a man catch on fire and burn to death at an oil rig. He has a tin of condoms in his drawer (referred to exclusively by brand names like "Romeos)... but when a doctor told him his wife couldn't survive another pregnancy, he protests, "she's my wife - a man's got a right." Naomi remembers lying awake at night before the twins were born listening to the mattress squeak while her mother cried. But that's OK because no one says "pussy" or "cornhole."

Cari, Beto's twin, dies in the explosion. Her face is smashed. So many children die that Henry decides to make a coffin rather than wait for one. Meanwhile, Cari lies on the kitchen table while Beto mourns underneath.

The white men of town (it was the whites-only school that exploded) decide someone needs to be held responsible. They focus on Wash, who was nearby (because he worked on the property), mostly because he had the audacity to touch a dead white girl. His family are terrorized and beaten. Their house is burned. Henry forces Beto to throw a rock through the window of his friend's house. Henry forces his son to watch his friend be beaten by an angry mob.

I wanted so badly, SO BADLY for this book to have a happy ending. But Naomi and Beto both survive the explosion - a miracle. Wash narrowly avoids a lynching - another miracle. So when Wash and Naomi reunite and attempt to run with Beto, and Henry catches up to them, you know that three miracles was too much to hope for.

Hnery, by now very far gone, and showing his true colors, forces Beto - at gunpoint - to tie Wash to a tree so Henry can beat the already-injured teenager more. He forces both boys to watch while he rapes Naomi. He gives Beto a sadistic choice - shoot your friend, or watch me shoot your sister. Beto makes a third choice, but too late to protect Wash and Naomi. But please, by all means, protect us from the words "cornhole" and "pussy."

And yes, that all sounds horrible... but I still loved the book. It's still worth the read. Sometimes you need to read things that bother you.

I am not, of course, suggesting that the book should be banned for ANY reason. Is the book for everyone? No. Is it appropriate for middle schoolers? For most of them, no, but then again, I am not the mother of every middle schooler in Texas, so I shouldn't be the one to make that call.

What Do You Know About Collection Development?

November 13, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

As many of you know, I worked in libraries for a long time. I am not a librarian, in that I don't have a Masters of Library Science degree. However, despite this, in some of my positions, I was somewhat involved in collection development, under the supervision of a librarian.

First, what is collection development? For sake of a quick and easy answer, it's how libraries decide which books to add to their collection. There is a LOT that goes into it, including patrons' demand and quality of the literature in question.

My first stint at collection development was when I worked part-time in the Cobb Library's genealogy and special collection room. We got a lot of donations. A LOT. Sometimes those books were great; a local genealogist had researched, confirmed, and compiled his family's history going back multiple generations, and offered us a copy of the completed book. Great! Someone else gave us a moldy copy of a county history we already had multiple copies of. Not great.

Moldy books aside, one of the things I did with the donations were to confirm that they were pertinent to our collection - genealogical resources, local (Georgia or Southeastern US) history resources, Georgia authors, etc. Once that was done, I looked them up in an international database to see if another library had catalogued it. If so, I printed this information and left the book for the department's head librarian to confirm as a candidate to add to the collection. Of course, she had additional criteria and made the final call, but in the time that I worked in this department, I helped add over 1,000 books and periodicals to our collection in that way.

When I worked at an academic library at a local university, my CD duties got stepped up a notch. By this time I had been working full time in the children's department at a busy library for a few years, and had much more donation processing experience under my belt, in addition to more understanding of how a healthy library collection grows. I was assigned to a new and recently funded project - creating a "popular browsing" collection for the smaller of the two campus libraries.

I was very excited. The campus I was on housed many of the STEM courses, as well as some niche creative majors like video game design and fashion technology. We had a very diverse population - more international students and non-traditional (23 years and older) undergrad students than our larger sister campus. We had a lot of requests for Sci-Fi, fantasy, anime, and YA books, as well as trendy authors such as George R R Martin (this was during the hey-dey of the Game of Thrones TV series).

As someone who also enjoys Sci-fi, fantasy, YA, and George R R Martin, this was right up my alley. Does that mean that I just ordered my "to read" list and have done with it? Oh, no.

I did a lot of research. I checked best seller lists and looked for announcements of the winners of awards (Pulitzer, Printz, Georgia Book Award, Nebula, and Hugo to name a few). I looked at reviews - not on Amazon, but in resources like Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal - publications intended to help librarians choose which materials to spend their limited resources on.

I made a color-coded excel chart (because, as anyone who has worked with me in the past ten years knows, of course I did). I had so much fun... but I also took it very seriously. I had a small budget, all things considered, and was constantly asking myself, is it worth the eight, fourteen, or twenty dollars to buy this book? Will our patrons read it?"

The opposite of collection development is what is often called "weeding." This means deciding what books to remove from a collection. What? Remove books? No, say it ain't so! Well, I know it sounds shocking (especially if you've read my Banned Books posts), but just as a healthy collection needs to have books added regularly, it also needs to be trimmed occasionally. Think of it as cutting your toenails. Or better yet, like pruning a tree or weeding a garden (which is why I like the term "weeding").

If you have a teenager looking for a book to read and they pick up a copy of a book with a super 80's-tastic cover, as opposed to something trendy and "lit" (am I using that right, you hip groovy cats?) they probably aren't going to read it. A water-damaged copy of a best-selling author is going to sit on the shelf untouched. A computer science student isn't going to get much help from "Computers and You: 1982 Edition." Your collection has to stay interesting. It has to stay in good repair. It has to stay relevant.

In my time at Cobb Libraries, I also helped with weeding which, once I got past the scandal of "you mean we might GET RID of some of these books?!" I found very interesting and even satisfying. Again, I was doing this under the supervision of a librarian. I had certain criteria and certain steps. Sometimes I was given a list of specific titles to pull to look into further. These were either older (potentially outdated) non-fiction, or books that hadn't checked out in a given period of time - usually five years, though sometimes shorter if it was pulling specific copies of books we would have had a lot of. When Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban first came out, the library got dozens of copies due to high demand. But if you have five copies out of 50 that haven't checked out in several years, maybe it's time to consider pulling some.

Of course, the first thing we checked was number of titles at each branch. If a small branch has three or four copies of the same book and there are larger branches that don't have one, you send it to another branch where it might get some new, interested patrons looking at it.

Damage was another consideration. If I pulled a book that was falling apart, missing pages, water damaged beyond minor staining, etc., I checked how many copies we had and usually set it on a pile for the librarian to confirm removing from the system. The exception was if it was the last copy of the book, or if it was a high-demand book (say, To Kill a Mockingbird) and we were concerned about not having enough copies.

And as for outdated, well, let's just say that if Indiana Jones would pick up the book and say, "This belongs in a museum," it should probably be weeded...

Also, weeding doesn't mean "throwing away." Books that we removed that were in good condition were sent to the book sale. Books in bad condition were sent to recycling. Irrelevant material (like bound copies of tech periodicals from the 30's that were available on the library's online database) were sold to film companies to use for props. I know some libraries even use weeded books as craft supplies.

Of course, as you would expect at a public library, sometimes public opinion tries to get involved in collection development - "why won't you add my self-published memoir to the collection?" "when are you going to get some copies of 50 Shades of Grey?" "When are you going to REMOVE 50 Shades of Grey?" This is why many libraries have a collection development team, a collection development policy (often available on the website, or, if not, in print upon request), and a weeding/request for removal policy. This is so when your lowly part-time shelver starts getting these questions thrown at him, he has a group and a policy to refer people to.

Recently I've been seeing more in the news about parents and politicians getting involved in trying to pull certain books from libraries, or bar others from being added. And while, to a certain extent, I do believe that parents should be involved in what their children read, pitching a fit and demanding that a book be removed when you've only read page 39 is not the way to go about it. What do you know about collection development? Where did you get your MLS degree?

Now, like I said, I'm not a full librarian. There are many library professionals out there who were far more qualified than I to choose books to add to a collection. But I like to think I gave it a good, well-educated, unbiased attempt. I even added books, or kept potential weeding candidates that I personally didn't want to read, or had read and hadn't liked. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean you shouldn't read it.

NaNo? Maybe So...

October 31, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

The night is dark... A restless spirit moves through the house... Something calls my name...

"Elizabeeeeeeeeeeth... you know you want to do NaNoWriMoooooooooooo..."

So it's the same debate every year - to NaNo or not to Nano? And I think I will this year. Not the normal National Novel Writing Month - because I need to finish one of the novels I've already got started - but a modified version. A few years ago, I took one of my works in progress and wrote a new scene for it every day for a month, rather than trying to meet a certain word count. That worked pretty well for me - it rejuvenated my interest in the story, and got some new material down. Of course, that was the November before Elianna was born, and the November before Baldur died, so suffice to say I've had a lot going on since then...

But, in any case, I'll be doing that again this year with Brinyor. Fittingly, I started Brinyor for 2011's NaNoWriMo, so it feels right to try and get some fleshing out done to it for its 10th anniversary. (Oh, god, y'all, I've now got three novels I've been working on for ten-plus years...)

However, despite this decision, I'm not going to press myself super hard. I've spent September and October dealing with colds, sinus infections, potty training, and another round of colds and sinus infections. I never did get around to decorating for Halloween, and Thanksgiving and Christmas loom. I'm going to try really hard not to beat myself up if I can't get a scene, snippet, etc. written every day. I mean, the point is to try, yes, but I need to walk the line between making time to try and dreading doing so because I have too many other obligations.

We'll see what happens and, as always, I will have an update for you at the end of the November.

Out of Darkness, Out of the Library

October 24, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

I posted a brief little tidbit about this on my Facebook page a week or two before Banned Books Week. There was a school board meeting in Texas (because they always seem to be in Texas) where a mom went on and on about Out of Darkness, a book in the school library that had a reference to anal sex. The rant went viral, and multiple schools in the district ended up pulling the book off shelves. (For those of you keeping track at home, that means the book was successfully banned.)

It is worth noting that, like many controversial Young Adult Books, Out of Darkness is a Printz Honor book.

Recently, I was contacted by the publicist for Ashley Hope Perez, the author of Out of Darkness, asking if I'd be willing to write a blog post about Perez's response to the controversy. She sent me a YouTube video and I have to say, I love the author's attitude - a perfect blend of snark and passion.

Having watched the video and looked into the book a little more, I now plan to read it. Who's with me?

See more about Ashley and her works here.

High-Stakes Secrets

October 17, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

Psst... Can you keep a secret?

Recently I've been consuming media about secrets - what a character will do to keep a secret, what happens when a secret gets out...

Jason and I recently watched There's Someone Inside Your House. It's a horror movie about a killer making his way through high school students with secrets. At one point, one of the characters throws what he calls a "secret" party. The attendees are encouraged to share their secrets, the idea being that if your secret is out, the killer no longer has a hold over you. These being high schoolers, the secrets range from crushes to miscarriages. Though as you might expect, not everyone confesses the Real Secret, the Big Secret, the High-Stakes Secret, and people keep dying.

I also recently finished reading Speak, a book about a high schooler keeping a secret that takes such a toll on her that she pretty much stops speaking all-together. Read more about that here.

It made me start thinking about my stories. What secrets do my characters have? What secrets do they consider to be high-stakes? When I was in high school my Big Secret was who I had a crush on, which seems so stupid now. But it's a matter of perspective. Sometimes it's a matter of culture or your place in society, too. A secret that is a big deal for a character in one story, in one world, may be laughable to worry about in another story and world.

I have neglected my characters' secrets. I don't even know what secrets some of my characters have. I need to go through my stories (and especially Brinyor, now that I've decided to workshop it some) and figure out what people's secrets are.

Oh-well-tober

October 4, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

The downside to the timing of Banned Books Week is that since it's always the last week of September (and often a couple days into October), I don't have a good opportunity to post about my October plans and goals in the time frame I normally do. Oh, well.

I've been working on-again off again on updating my platform since March, yet, somehow, it feels like I haven't gotten much done on that. I have fantastic new pictures I need to switch out on all my sites - here, Facebook, and LinkedIn - and somehow have not gotten around to it. I've been dragging my feet on getting a Twitter account up and running.

Additionally, because I've been focusing on the above (have I, though?) I haven't been doing much writing. I have an idea for a cosmic horror short story that's been tickling the back of my brain for a month or two now. I have pieces that are done that I need to be submitting. And, of course there are those three unfinished novels always looking over my shoulder...

In fact, I think what I'd really like to do the next couple months is focus on one of those.

I've been working off and on (very off sometimes) on finishing The Wolf and the Sheath for the last couple years and... while I'm not saying I can't or don't want to work on that one, I also wonder if maybe working on a different one might give me a little freshness and inspiration.

I still don't know what I'm doing with BrightFire. It needs a massive rewrite.

But I do think that I will go back and reread Brinyor. Depending on how it sparks as I reread it, I might do what I did for W and S for NaNoWriMo a couple months ago - go through and make a list of what scenes and transitions I still need, and then spend time each day in November adding a little. No, most likely not the 50,000 words in 30 days/1,700-some-odd words per day - but something.

I'm not saying it will be easy, and it will be the first time trying something like this since Elianna was born. But she's very good at playing on her own, looking at books, even going potty on her own now. In fact, I've been strongly leaning toward converting the downstairs diaper changing station back into a desk. It's in the room that she mostly plays in, so it would be a good place for me to work while she plays, rather than coming up to my office (which is a MESS*) and either trying to keep her from messing with stuff, or keeping an ear out for her while she's across the hall in her room. (Though, honestly, we could probably try her hanging out in her room - she can keep herself occupied with books for quite a while, like someone else I know.)

*Yes, I could clean it. But right now my time limitations are "clean OR write" and I really need to get back to the latter.

I Challenge You!

October 2, 2021 Elizabeth Ivey

I wanted to start this post with “every day, a book is challenged,” or “X number of books are removed from library shelves each year,” but I couldn’t find an exact statistic. What I DO know is that despite the surprise demonstrated by someone I know each year when I start explaining banned books week, I stumbled up two separate news stories just in the past couple weeks about multiple books being removed in one school system, and one book being removed in another. That was without me going looking for stories about book banning – just things that showed up in my everyday internet use.

Additionally, when I started looking at reviews for just a single book I was reading for this blog series, I found calls to have it removed from school libraries. I think challenges happen a lot more frequently that we realize. I think removals (a successful ban) also happen more often than we realize… but I also think one plus side to social media over the past several years is that it has become easier to share when these challenges and bans happen. The multiple-book ban I mentioned above? It was rescinded a couple weeks later due in part to very vocal students on social media.

So, I have a challenge for you – listen up and speak out:

If you hear of a book being challenged or banned, check it out. Look into it. Don’t let it lie. Even if you don’t like the book personally, there’s a big difference between “I don’t like this book” and “no one should read this book.” I hated Beloved, but I will stand shoulder to shoulder with you and defend your right to read it.
Check out that challenged book. Read it. Write a review for your library, or for Goodreads, or both. If you think you’re going to like it, or you just want a challenged book to grace your bookshelf, buy it. Write a review on amazon, or wherever you bought it.
Step it up a notch. Get involved with your local school board. If you hear about a book being challenged or banned, write to them. Make a stink on social media. Go to school board meetings.
Or, if you’re not outgoing, not outspoken, don’t have the energy for that kind of fight or attention, simply check the book out. Libraries keep statistics on how often a book circulates (checks out) – the more frequently it’s checked out, the less likely it is to be removed from the collection.

So pick up the gauntlet – and pick up a banned book.