Twilight - Stephenie Meyer

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Category: Girl meets vampire. Acquired: Snohomish County Library. Read: November, 2008 Briefly: Sometimes you just gotta read a book to see what all the buzz is about. This was one of those times.

Prologue: While I was waiting for this book to arrive at our local library branch, I saw a couple episodes of an HBO series based on a similar premise - vampires living among humans, with romantic attachments. The show was nasty and violent, and ultimately pretty frightening - not in an Alfred Hitchcock sense, but more in a Sodom and Gomorrah sense, illustrating just how far the desensitization of Western culture has progressed. All that was in the back of my mind as I approached this book. Was it going to be depressing to think about 20 million teenagers reading this? Was it going to be the final proof that we've totally lost our minds?

Summary: Lo and behold, I found the exact opposite. Not only would I not mind my teenagers reading it, I found reasons why I might even encourage them to do so. Here's a couple:

• First of all, the characters are actually virtuous. Bella (love that name) works hard at school, cares about other people, respects her parents and tends to think before she acts. This was all portrayed matter-of-factly, as if it's just how normal kids act. No preaching, just good examples. Even vampire-guy Edward has his head screwed on reasonably right - he understands that evil lives within him, and is decidedly not OK with it. He resists it constantly. He wrestles with his temptations, and celebrates when he's able to conquer them. He grieves over his failures. Why would you not want your kids exposed to that?

• Secondly, the boundary between good and evil is crisp and unambiguous. There's plenty of evil around (just as in real life), but the author doesn't candy-coat it. There's no moral relativism - no attempt to excuse the larger vampire community for 'just being themselves'. They eventually earn some praise in the story, but it's by overcoming their natural tendencies and conforming to a higher moral standard. Just like you and I try to do.
  

I was also half-expecting the story to be, at some level, a sermon about tolerance. You know, about how we just need to look beyond our prejudices and accept that we're all the same (happy sigh). Again I was pleasantly surprised at the author's unwillingness to go there. Yes, Bella exercises some laudable open-mindedness - hormone-assisted, to be sure - in getting to know Edward. But there's never any side-stepping of the fact that he comes with baggage, some of which is personal, some cultural and some, uhh... genetic. Confronting and dealing with that baggage is a big part of their story. Confronting and dealing with baggage ought to be a big part of our own stories as well.

Yeah, I haven't said much about actual plots and themes here, and I don't really plan to. Ask any female over the age of 6. Nor am I planning to see the movie, or read the rest of the trilogy, or buy the T-shirt. It was a fun diversion while it lasted, but now I could really use a dose of Tom Clancy.

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

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Category: Biographical Acquired: Borrowed from T&B Library Read: October, 2008 Briefly: Precocious youngster narrates his family's four-year stay amidst the flora and fauna of the Greek Island of Corfu in the mid-1930's.

Summary: This book covers a snippet of the author's early adolescence, at a time when his family simply decided to move to a villa in Greece for a few years. How nice. Not only was it a good adventure for Gerald and his quirky brothers and sisters (and long-suffering mom), it was also the time when his lifelong interest in animals first began to take root. While others were swimming, shopping, boating or following other pursuits, he was climbing trees to find nests, or looking under rocks for spiders and scorpions. A good many of these creatures found their way back to the villa, which enlivens the story from time to time.

Here's what I didn't know. While googling the author's name to find a photo of the book cover, I discovered that the story is substantially true, and that he grew up to become a renowned naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist and TV presenter. Sort of a British Marlin Perkins, for those of you old enough to remember. He even received the Order of the British Empire. For more info on this interesting guy, take a look at his article in Wikipedia.

The Verificationist - David Antrim

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Category: Strange Fiction Acquired: Borrowed from T&B Library Read: November 10, 2008 Alaska Flight #910, SEA->SNA Briefly: Just your typical story of a psychologist who has an out-of-body experience at a pancake restaurant.

Summary: Seriously, that's the plot line. OK, there's more, but what makes this story fun is that it's written from the point of view of a psychologist who's in the process of cracking up. He clearly has no clue what's going on, even as the truth gradually unfolds for the reader. Despite his downward spiral, his narrative remains dispassionate and professional - full of the kinds of vocabulary and clinical observations you'd expect from a psychologist (at least, a rather pompous and self-absorbed one). His journey into fantasyland is a bit over-the-top, but hey, what's normal anyway?

The Tummy Men - Virginia Voelker

Category: Fiction. Or is it? Acquired: Christmas, many years ago. Read: October 2008, with grandson Saben. Briefly: how the digestive system really works.

Summary: how many kids get to read a bedtime story that was written, illustrated and published by their great-grandmother? This book is the printed version of the story that my siblings and I grew up with, gradually developing and embellishing it as we dawdled over our dinners.

The gist of the story is that our stomachs are inhabited by Tummy Men, who use the food we send them in various logical and reasonable ways. French fries are skis, peas are baseballs, etc.

After preserving the oral tradition for several decades, Mom put the story into verse in the 1980's. She added hand-drawn illustrations, had it copied and bound, and gave it to us in time to share with our own families.

And now, it becomes part of yet another generation. This blog entry commemorates my first reading of it to Saben who, at the age of 3 1/2 years, laughed all the way through. Annika and Seth, you'll get your turns soon enough.

For those unfamiliar with the story, here's a couple of excerpts:

Now stop and think -- do you suppose it really could be true
That there's a special place down deep inside of you
Where little people live and do their work and play
And wait for us to send them food about three times a day?

They use the food you send them to keep your body strong
And when that job is finished they play the whole night long.
The little girls just love to run and jump spaghetti rope
While boys build sleds of celery for going down the slope.

You won't find it at Amazon, but I might let you see my copy when you come to visit. Unless it's bedtime, when it'll probably be in use.

Thanks, Mom.