Wolf of Shadows

If my recent reading choices are any indication, I must be getting a little tired of the winter cold and ice! I've been reading books about the atomic bomb (The Bells of Nagasaki), about having to leave Earth due to an ecological disaster (The Green Book), and, this weekend, I read about a wolf and a human family trying to survive nuclear winter in Wolf of Shadows, by Whitley Strieber. I sound like I'm in desperate need of some signs of Spring!

I've actually had Wolf of Shadows on my bookshelf for 20 years, but decided to revisit it for Carl V's Sci Fi Experience. I really liked it when I first read it, and found myself thinking about it again after reading about the bombing of Nagasaki. It's a very short book and can be read in a single sitting, but it's big on ideas. It's a story of a lone wolf and a young woman and her children struggling for survival during the nuclear winter following an atomic bomb explosion near Minneapolis. What fascinated me most was that the story is told through the eyes of the wolf. This wolf recognizes the woman as the person who had been watching and studying him for so long, so he protects her and her surviving daughter. They all struggle to survive the freezing cold and encounters with hungry animals and desperate humans, as they head south in search of warmth and sunshine.

In this book, there were powerful messages about finding new ways of relating to animals and of finding better ways to deal with human conflict. What happened to the wolf and the woman and her daughter? Did they all survive this terrible ordeal? There was no answer at the end of the book about life in this post-apocalyptic world, but in his "Afterword," Whitley Strieber spoke directly to his readers and told them:

The true end of the story comes when we decide, as a species, to dismantle the machine and use our great intelligence on behalf of the earth that bears us, instead of against her.

Snow Day and Eva's Reading Meme

It's a Snow Day! When it snows in Western Washington, schools close down. We didn't get a lot of snow, but it was cold enough to make the roads icy and treacherous around the area, so...No School! It will add another day to the end of the school year, but how delightful to have an unexpected day to stay home and read and knit...and blog!

My friend, Nymeth, tagged me for Eva's Reading Meme that's been circulating around the blogging world. It's a fun one, so I put my answers together while watching the sun try to come out and melt some of the snow. It's a feeble effort (by the sun, that is!).

Eva's Reading Meme:

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

For years I've cringed away from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, because I thought it would be too heavy and too grim to read. However, it's a book my husband has great respect for, so I'm actually reading it right now, am 1/3 of the way through it, and am enjoying the beauty of Conrad's writing. It still may turn out to be too heavy and too grim for me, but my cringe is finally gone.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

I am so NOT a social event person...but for afternoon tea, I would need Elinor and Marianne Dashwood because their conversation would be rich and in no way boring! And for a world cruise, I would love to take two of my favorite authors -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Isak Dinesen because they would help me see the world with an artist's eye.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can't die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realize it's past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

I've never actually picked it up and tried to read passages from it, but my impression of Robinson Crusoe is that it could bore you to death.

Come on, we've all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you've read, when in fact you've been nowhere near it?

This sounds like something I might have done in my lifetime, especially in high school, but I honestly can't remember a specific book or incident. Really!

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realize when you read a review about it/go to 'reread' it that you haven't? Which book?

I've done just the opposite!...too many times I'll pick up a book at the bookstore that looks like something I'd really love to read, bring it home, start reading it, and discover that I've already read it.

You're interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who's not a big reader.) What's the first book you'd recommend and why? (if you feel like you'd have to know the person, go ahead and personalize the VIP).

I'd have to advise this VIP to read Redwall, by Brian Jacques, a book that, in my experience, has turned many young people into avid readers.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

This is cheating, I'm sure, but I'd love to be able to read any book in it's original language, with a clear understanding of the cultural nuances. But right now, I particularly wish to be fluent in Spanish, again.

A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

That mischievous fairy has already visited me, tapped me on the head with her magic wand, and said "you must reread all of Jane Austen's books at different stages of your life because you will understand her in news ways each time you reread her!"

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What's one bookish thing you 'discovered' from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art -- anything)?

I have loved discovering that there are so many other people out there that share my passion for reading. And I have loved the personal discovery that I enjoy writing about the books I read.

The book fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she's granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favorite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead -- let your imagination run free.

My dream library is a room full of books, shelves from floor to ceiling, with a lovely window looking out on something green, a comfy reading chair, a fireplace for evening reading sessions, and all the books I've collected or coveted over the years. There will have to be a companion chair in that room, so that B and I can continue our very pleasant discussions about the books we read.

Book Bloggin' For One Year

It was a year ago today that I started this blog, and I've really enjoyed being part of the book blogging community. A special thank you to each of you for your friendship and support. It's been a great reading and writing year for me!

The Green Book

It was a fun experiment for me to read aloud The Green Book, by Jill Paton Walsh, to my second graders as a way of introducing them to the genre of science fiction. This little book is full of ideas that spark classroom discussions and that lead to fun writing and art projects.

The language in certain parts of the book was a little bit old for my students, but it didn't matter because we spent time discussing each section we read. What I loved about reading the book to them was their excitement about the ideas. When I first started reading it to them, they listened as if it was any other book (politely and quietly). But the minute they realized that the people in the book were boarding a space ship, their focus sharpened and there was that collective holding-of-the-breath that I just love when I read a really good book to kids.

In this book, an ecological disaster has made Earth uninhabitable, and people are leaving for different planets to start new lives. When the story begins, Pattie and her family are preparing to leave on one of the last remaining space ships, and they are only allowed to bring a few items with them, including one book each. The space travel takes almost four years before reading their destination, a small, un-named planet where everything is very different from Earth. Pattie, being the youngest of these refugees, is allowed to name their new home, and because of the crystalline nature of everything on this new planet, she names it "SHINE."

Adjusting to life on this very different planet is difficult for everyone, and the survival of this small group of people depends entirely on whether or not their first crops will grow and be edible. Everyone shares in the work, and when it comes to keeping up their spirits, everyone shares the one book each chose to bring along. Those books and stories become the most important thing on the planet, and people are willing to trade very important items for a good read. While the grown-ups worry and despair, the children explore and adjust, and life takes some very interesting turns on "Shine."

My students loved the descriptions of how this planet was different from Earth. They also loved the fact that it was the children who really showed the grown-ups how to survive in this foreign environment. The children's courage, resourcefulness, and optimism led the party through the most difficult of the adjustments. It was the kids that saved the day!

Science Fiction is described as "a literature of ideas." I love introducing young people to ideas, and this was a great idea book for young emerging readers.

This was my 2nd book read for Carl V's Sci Fi Experience.

Winter Walk

Brrrrr! It's been unusually cold around here this week!

Thousand Cranes

Yasunari Kawabata won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. I read his book, Thousand Cranes, as my final book for Dolce Bellezza's Japanese Literature challenge. The writing was indeed beautiful, and I could see why he was a Nobel Prize winning author. However, I found the story to be cold and disturbing, and I can't say I liked the book very much because of that. When I run into a book I don't care for, I always worry that it is my "fault." In this case, especially because the writing was so beautiful, I really stewed about whether I just didn't understand the culture well enough, or if I was missing something important. But after thinking about it for awhile, I decided that what really bothered me is that this story focused on relationships, and is described as "a story of ill-fated love," but I saw no evidence of love between any of the characters, past or present. There were tears and anguish, but no love, and that left me feeling chilled to the bone.

First Meetings in Ender's Universe

First Meetings in Ender's Universe is a fun companion book to the great science fiction saga of Ender Wiggin, by Orson Scott Card. It contains four novellas, including the original version of Ender's Game. I read Ender's Game a few years ago and enjoyed it very much, so when I saw this book on the shelf at the bookstore, I couldn't resist getting it to read for Carl V's Sci Fi Experience.

The first novella in the book was called The Polish Boy. It was a story about Ender's father as a young boy, and gave new insights into the character of Ender Wiggin. The second novella, Teacher's Pest, was fun because it was about how Ender's parents met. Again, it gives you a deeper understanding of Ender. Then came the original version of Ender's Game, a novella first published in 1977 and later expanded to novel form in 1985. I thought it was really interesting to see how it all started. The final novella was called The Investment Counselor, and introduces the character of Jane -- an intelligence, thinking, computer program that plays an important role in the books that follow in the Ender's Game saga.

So, if you enjoyed any of the Enders books, want a little more background information on the saga, or are an Orson Scott Card fan, then this book would be an enjoyable, fast read.

A Personal Reading Challenge

To paraphrase Jane Austen, B has been "my constant companion for these 38 years." We've influenced each other tremendously and shared many things during those years, but as readers we have always been on two independent paths. Most of the time we are in our own reading worlds, pursuing our own reading interests, but occasionally our paths will cross and we'll read the same book. However, we talk about books all the time, and have wonderful book discussions about the ideas that are ignited by our current reads. Sunday afternoon, when the world was a deep gray and very rainy outside, we spent another enjoyable afternoon talking about the books that mean a lot to us.

In the last few months, B has read three books I had recommended to him. He enjoyed them in a different way than I had enjoyed them, but that made our discussions all the more interesting. On Sunday, I wrote down 6 books that he would really like me to read, and I decided to add them to my reading year as my own personal "Reading Challenge." I'm curious to find out what it was about each book he wants me to experience, and I'm looking forward to learning a little more about B in the process.

So here is the list of books I will call "B's Challenge:"

1. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
2. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
3. Immortality, by Milan Kundera
4. Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, by José Saramago
5. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, by José Saramago
6. The Curtain, by Milan Kundera
   

The Bells of Nagasaki

Today again I have survived;

I contemplate and relish
The precious jewel of life.

I wasn't planning on reading The Bells of Nagasaki, by Takashi Nagai, for Dolce Bellezza's Japanese Literature reading challenge, but I found it on the shelf at the library and decided it was an important book to read. It is a painfully honest eyewitness account of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Takashi Nagai was a medical doctor who survived the initial blast and then did everything he could to help the injured and dying around him, despite being gravely wounded himself.

He tells this story from a number of different angles. First, he describes his own experience in survival that day. The destruction around him was unfathomable, and the human loss excruciating. Then, as a scientist, he tried to understand the power and physics of the bomb, which he described in four parts: the enormous power, what happened to the elementary particles, the heat, and the electromagnetic waves. His explanations were both clear and terribly sobering. As a medical doctor, he then wanted us to understand the atomic bomb wounds, which was the hardest part for me to read. He also gave a day-by-day account of the Relief Center work he organized with his surviving colleagues from the hospital.

His explanations of "the stages of reconstruction" of Nagasaki were very interesting. During the first month after the bomb, people lived in dugouts and underground shelters. Then, between the 2nd and 4th months, huts were built. By December of that year, carpenters from other cities had arrived to help build provisional houses, thankfully sheltering people from the cold winter winds. Slowly, the people of Nagasaki began to rebuild their lives: "Little by little, people are putting things in order and rebuilding their homes. Though it may not be apparent to the eye, the atomic desert is gradually sending forth new shoots of life."

Dr. Nagai lost his beloved wife in the blast. He fought his own battle with leukemia before his death, trying desperately to postpone the day when his two children would become orphans. He was a deeply religious man, a devoted father, and a compassionate healer and teacher. During the last years of his life, when he was confined to bed due to the ravages of his atomic bomb disease, he wrote many books, poems, and papers in the spirit of peace. His writings, a powerful plea for peace in this atomic age, touched the hearts of many people around the world. He died in 1951.

Helen Keller and Louis Braille

One of the things I love the most about teaching is being able to use books to introduce young people to some of my own heroes. As a 6th grade teacher, I loved introducing my students to Ernest Shackleton. Last week, I pulled out two old favorite books to share with my 2nd graders: Helen Keller, by Margaret Davidson, and Louis Braille, also by Davidson. My 2nd graders listened breathlessly to Helen Keller's story, and then asked a million questions. After hearing the story of Louis Braille, they debated with each other about who was more important -- Helen Keller or Louis Braille.

Both books are perfect for this age group, and I was very pleased to overhear a conversation between some of my students on their way to recess yesterday. It went like this: "You guys run and ask Helen if she wants to play Helen Keller with us, since her name is Helen. I get to be Annie Sullivan, though." On the other hand, when I called one of my boys up to my desk and asked him why he had covered his ears when I was giving instructions on an assignment, his answer was "Well, I was trying to see what it would be like to be like Helen Keller." I suggested he try it out at recess instead of during math. But I'm pleased that they are all so taken by the stories!

My Invented Country: A Memoir

In the introduction to her book, My Invented Country: A Memoir, Isabel Allende explained that by "some blood-chilling coincidence--historic Karma," she had experienced two life-changing September 11ths. Her world changed the first time on September 11, 1973, the day of the military coup in her beloved Chile, and on that day she lost a country. After living in exile in various locations, Allende now makes her home in the United States. She has struggled since that day in 1973 to redefine herself: "...if someone had asked me where I'm from, I would have answered, without much thought, Nowhere; or, Latin America, or, maybe, In my heart I'm Chilean. Today, however, I say I'm an American..." For many years, she felt like an outsider in this country until the tragedy of September 11, 2001, an event that unified all Americans in grief. It was then she realized that in that shared grief she had gained a country.

This book is a fascinating exploration of memory and nostalgia. It is a courageous and honest account of her struggles to come to terms with the loss of her country, and it chronicles her growth and development as a person and as a writer.

I write because I need to remember and overcome. It is from memory and a sense of loss that the passion to create emerges. Every book is an act of love, an offering that I prepare with great care, hoping that it will be well received."

She shares her deep love and nostalgia for her lost country and culture in her descriptions and reminiscences of the politics, food, manners, myths, and customs of Chile. I learned a great deal about the character of the country and the culture of the people from her stories. But she explains that the Chile of her memory is "an invented country..."

...From the instant I crossed the cordillera of the Andes one rainy winter morning, I unconsciously began the process of inventing a country...

...Through the intervening years, I lived with my eyes turned south, listening to the news, waiting for the moment I could go back, as I selected my memories, altered some events, exaggerated or ignored others, refined my emotions, and so gradually constructed the imaginary country in which I have sunk my roots..."

It became clear to me, as I read this book, that Allende had finally reached a point in her life where she could stop briefly and look back over her shoulder at the pathway she has walked since 1973, and really understand each turn and obstacle along the way. She has made peace with the enormous losses she has suffered, and finds joy in her writing and her family. She is "proud of being bicultural." ... "I have tried to keep my language, my traditions, my sense of honour and my roots alive and vibrant. You don't have to give up all the good things, just keep adding all the good things that this country can offer you."

She poignantly shared with her readers the understandings she has come to about herself, and explains the importance of writing in her life:

...My heart isn't divided, it has merely grown larger. I can live and write anywhere. Every book contributes to the completion of that "country inside my head," as my grandchildren call it. In the slow practice of writing, I have fought with my demons and obsessions, I have explored the corner of memory, I have dredged up stories and people from oblivion, I have stolen others' lives, and from all this raw material I have constructed a land that I call my country. That is where I come from...

I loved the fact that she would share so much of her "life-processing" with me, and I admired her emotional honesty, as well as her resilience and optimism. This is a hopeful book and a poignant look at the life of an artist.This was the third book I've read for Melissa's Expanding Horizons reading challenge, with my focus on Hispanic/Latin American authors, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Reading Rug

The photo above is of the beautiful rug my 2nd grade parents bought for our classroom as a holiday gift. They know that we love to sit together at the front of the room and share books. It's where I read aloud to the kids, and until the holidays, the kids would just sit on that old gray school carpet underneath it. This is so much nicer, and although you can't tell the size of it from this photo, all 28 students can squeeze onto it to listen to a story! And this class loves to listen to my read alouds, so we named this wonderful gift our "Reading Rug."

Since January 1st, sitting on our Reading Rug, we've read quite a few books together. My class loved listening to Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux last month, so during the holidays I picked up a boxed set of her Mercy Watson series. As I read each one aloud, the kids laughed and laughed, and begged for more. Then they each wanted to read the books by themselves. They've worked out some kind of queue, and those three books are slowly being read by each child in my classroom. Reluctant readers? Not with Mercy Watson in the classroom and a beautiful Reading Rug to sit on while you read!

Ombu Trees

Far Away and Long Ago, by W. H. Hudson, is the second book I read for Melissa's Expanding Horizons challenge. I really enjoyed the book, and look forward to reading some of his other works, which includes the novel Green Mansions. I vaguely remember watching that movie ages ago, starring a very young and beautiful Audrey Hepburn.

Yesterday I posted about Far Away and Long Ago, his memoirs of his childhood in Argentina, and mentioned that Hudson's birthplace was an estancia in Argentina named "Los Veinte-cinco Ombues," which means "The Twenty-five Ombu Trees." I had never heard of an ombu tree until I read this book, and I loved his description of them, so I went searching for photographs. What amazing trees!

The house where I was born, on the South American pampas, was quaintly named Los Veinte-cinco Ombues, which means "The Twenty-five Ombu Trees," there being just twenty-five of these indigenous trees--gigantic in size, and standing wide apart in a row about 400 yards long. The ombu is a very singular tree indeed, and being the only representative of tree-vegetation, natural to the soil, on those great level plains, and having also many curious superstitions connected with it, it is a romance in itself. It belongs to the rare Phytolacca family, and has an immense girth -- forty or fifty feet in some cases; at the same time the wood is so soft and spongy that it can be cut into with a knife, and is utterly unfit for firewood, for when cut up it refuses to dry, but simply rots away like a ripe water-melon. It also grows slowly, and its leaves, which are large, glossy and deep green, like laurel leaves, are poisonous; and because of its uselessness it will probably become extinct. Like the graceful pampas grass in the same region. In this exceedingly practical age men quickly lay the axe at the root of things which, in their view, only cumber the ground; but before other trees had been planted the antiquated and grand-looking ombu had its uses; it served as a gigantic landmark to the traveller on the great monotonous plains, and also afforded refreshing shade to man and horse in summer...

Far Away and Long Ago

Allá Lejos y Hace Tiempo

W. H. Hudson was born in Argentina in 1841 to American parents. He spent his early childhood on an estancia called "Los Veinte-cinco Ombues" (the Twenty-five Ombu Trees") outside of Buenos Aires, and it was there he began to develop a passion for the flora and fauna of the Argentine pampas. And it was those early experiences with the natural world that shaped the boy into the much respected naturalist, ornithologist, "defender of nature" and gifted writer. When he was 77 years old, he wrote a memoir of his childhood, Far Away and Long Ago. That memoir, which I just read for Melissa's Expanding Horizons book challenge, has touched my heart.

I know that I am partial to all things Argentine because of the year I spent there as an exchange student. But this book is so beautifully written, I would have loved it anyway. It is written with a grace and sensitivity that his colleague, Joseph Conrad, envied.

In this book, his memories become stories that carry you along as he paints vivid pictures in your mind of the landscapes, the wildlife, the people and the experiences of a young boy discovering his world -- the boy on his horse, completely free to explore the beauty of the pampas from early morning until dusk. He spent hours observing the birds, and although his brothers would sometimes tease him, they respected his unique abilities at such a young age.

He was also a great observer of the humans around him and included tales about the neighbors, the gauchos that worked the estancias, the schoolmasters that came and went. There are stories of his escapades with his brothers, including one that told of a mock knife fight they had when his older brother wanted to practice the self-defense lessons given him by a local gaucho. Hudson was wounded during that "fight," but won the respect of his older brother by not telling on him.

His boyhood ended suddenly, he explains, at age 15, when he became ill with Typhus, followed shortly afterwards by a serious bout with Rheumatic Fever which damaged his heart. The doctors told him he would not live very long, and facing the loss of everything he loved sent him into a period of dark despair. In the chapter "A Darkened Life," he describes poignantly this crisis and his painful transition from the joyous innocence of his boyhood into manhood. When he recovered, and was able to finally assess maturely what he had lost and gained from those traumatic changes to his health, and also realized that he could live 20, 30, 40 more years, he rejoiced:

...That was the life I desired--the life the heart can conceive--the earth life. When I hear people say they have not found the world and life so agreeable or interesting as to be in love with it, or that they look with equanimity to its end, I am apt to think they have never been properly alive, nor seen with clear vision the world they think so meanly of, or anything in it--not a blade of grass. Only I know that mine is an exceptional case, that the visible world is to me more beautiful and interesting than to most persons, that the delight I experienced in my communings with nature did not pass away, leaving nothing but a recollection of vanished happiness to intensify a present plan. The happiness was never lost, but, owing to that faculty I have spoken of, had a cumulative effect on the mind and was mine again, so that in my worst times, when I was compelled to exist shut out from nature in London for long periods, sick and poor and friendless, I could yet always feel that it was infinitely better to be than not to be.

Today, the Argentine home where Hudson was born has become a museum and a beautiful ecological park. One of my favorite passages from the books gives you a strong sense of that time and place, and a lovingly tender memory of his mother:

All that I remember of my early life at this place comes between the ages of three or four and five; a period which, to the eye of memory, appears like a wide plain blurred over with a low-lying mist, with here and there a group of trees, a house, a hill, or other large object, standing out in the clear air with marvelous distinctness. The picture that most often presents itself is of the cattle coming home in the evening; the green quiet plain extending away from the gate to the horizon; the western sky flushed with sunset hues, and the herd of four or five hundred cattle trotting homewards with loud lowings and bellowings, raising a great cloud of dust with their hoofs, while behind gallop the herdsmen urging them on with wild cries. Another picture is of my mother at the close of the day, when we children, after our supper of bread and milk, join in a last grand frolic on the green before the house. I see her sitting out of doors watching our sport with a smile, her book lying in her lap, and the last rays of the setting sun shining on her face.