Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Ellen Kindt McKenzie’s Drujienna’s Harp, which I hoped I would love but did not, sadly. I guess sometimes books just don’t click for whatever reason.

What I’m Reading Now

Mary Downing Hahn’s Stepping on the Cracks, which is set on the American home front during World War II and is about two girls, Margaret and Elizabeth, who live next door to each other and are best friends, which all in all ought to be crack for me but in fact I just can’t get over how mean Elizabeth is. She’s always teasing Margaret for being a ‘fraidy-cat to make Margaret do whatever Elizabeth wants, and when she and Margaret discover that the bullying neighbor boy is hiding his brother the deserter in a cabin in the woods, her first impulse is to blackmail the neighbor - and then she’s like, “Nah, maybe we should tell on the deserter.”

And, okay, the bullying neighbor boy totally brought that blackmail on himself - he destroyed their tree house! It’s only just he should built them a new one! - but tattling on the deserter just seems… ehhhhhh. (Admittedly she backs off on the idea two chapters later, but still.) It would get him sent to jail or shot; it’s just a really mean interfering kind of thing to do to a guy who’s just living in the woods not hurting anybody.

So right now I’m team “new friends for Margaret.” Unfortunately there don’t seem to be any new friends in the wings, unless I suppose she befriends the mean neighbor boy. But frankly it seems more likely that Elizabeth will befriend him, in that “not dating because they’re too young but you can totally tell they’re going to get together once they grow up” way which is an actual relationship category in children’s books. They have so much in common! They’re both so mean.

I’m also keeping on with Kathleen Norris’s The Cloister Walk, which has settled into a discussion about the Psalms, which I find far less aggravating than Norris’s musings about The Poet’s Calling. In fact some of it is quite interesting! I’m at the part where she’s talking about the anger of the Psalms, which is making me want to read the Psalms themselves.

What I Plan to Read Next

THE ALA JUST ANNOUNCED THE 2018 NEWBERY & CALDECOTT WINNERS. Awww, the Caldecott winner looks super adorable: just look at this cover. It’s called Wolf in the Snow and it’s about a wolf cub and a girl who rescue each other and it has strengthened my long-held belief that the Caldecott people are obsessed with snow. There are five Caldecott books that reference snow directly in the title and two others with illustrations all about snow (The Polar Express and Owl Moon).

The Newbery Winner doesn’t ring my chimes the same way, largely because the description is so vague (what do they mean when they say “the characters are the definition of creative agency”? That could mean anything), but we’ll see how I feel about it once I’ve read it.

Comments

[asakiyume]

That's all right--there's a lot that's offputting about Drujienna's Harp; I can recognize that even though I did end up loving it. rachelmanija read it too and was similarly disappointed. (Though the particulars of the disappointment may have differed.)

Tell me more about your reactions? It's been ages since I read it..

Re: Caldecotts and snow, I'm now imagining that to get on the committee, you have to pass through the snow initiation...

[sovay]

So right now I’m team “new friends for Margaret.” Unfortunately there don’t seem to be any new friends in the wings, unless I suppose she befriends the mean neighbor boy.

She could befriend the deserter.

[sovay]

Off-topically, I found some fanart from the Panem AU where President Snow actually understands propaganda.

(After some research: they were movie posters! I'm very impressed. Based on your reviews of the movies, though, still from an AU.)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, the Caldecott does look good! (And if there is an obsession about snow, it must have been passed down from team to team across the years. Looking at the judges suggests that it's done in the same way as the CKG medals (which were, after all, based on the Newbery and Caldecott), so you'd have a pretty quick turnover. A secret handed down from librarian to librarian...?)

You're right about the Newbery description, though. That is a lovely literary bit of completely meaningless gobbledegook. All I can tell is that there is Filippino folklore and possibly a well, but maybe a metaphorical well; you couldn't commit to anything going by that info.

[missroserose]

Oh dang. I actually read Stepping on the Cracks when I was in elementary school, and although I don't remember much about it, I do recall not liking Elizabeth much. Weirdly, my most vivid memory is of the title scene at the opening; the rest is mostly pretty vague (although I do recall a conversation between the deserter and Margaret that was surprisingly touching, though the content has long since fled my brain). Honestly I'm not sure if I even finished it - I have no memory at all of the ending.