Keeping up: Literacy, 2

Starting at the beginning of the year, I challenged myself to read more.  The details being that I should read one new(to me) book a month, and ideally I would read at least 2 books.
February is over, and I get to count that as the second successful month of the year.

I finished A Tale of Two Cities, which was my hover book for multiple years(At last, I'm free!).  It took a lot of will power, so when that was done, I allowed myself a book I've been eying for a  while now, Under The Overpass, and an easier book with an interesting cover, Wringer.

The main question I pose to myself when people ask me if I would suggest a book to them is, "Would I be willing to read this book again?"  If my answer is no, I am not likely to suggest the book to someone else.  Sometimes, a book is excellent, and the amount of effort it required from me was so high that I would likely never read it again, so, I would consider that an exception to my instant "no" clause.   

A Tale of Two Cities  is one of those exceptions.  I might, someday, possibly in 10 years, be willing to read it again, but really, it took sooooo much work out of me to finish it, it will take ten years to work up to that decision, BUT it is an excellent book!  It should be read.  It has an insane number of details, especially historic political details, that grate on a reader's endurance, but in the end all of those details work together, and make the story excellent.  It is dry and boring until 2/3 into the book, and then it is dry and interesting.  That big finish? The one that makes you gasp and consider getting misty eyed? Yeah, Mr. Dickens really knows how to cling onto it, because he literally holds on to it until the l...a...s...t stinking page!  There is no real warming up to it, and then BLAM!  One paragraph, on the last page, and it switches you from calling the blasted book "The nightmarish slavemaster" to "That gorgeous book."  In summary, I have told people that I think I am suffering Stockholm's syndrome with this blasted book, but I think I love it. This is the reason why I deserved a treat.  Concluding this book, would I suggest this book to you? Yes, but only with the warning that it will be a lot of work.

Under The Overpass (by Mike Yankoski) was my special treat. The first time I laid eyes on the book was at my Granny's church library.  I knew that being a guest from out of town, I should probably not snag their last remaining copy.  When I came across it while house sitting, I knew that I needed to quickly finish "The nightmarish slave master" so that I could bum this book out of my friends' library.  It is about a Christian young man, who attended a Christian college, who needed to know if his faith was genuine or just born of his life of plenty. He found a partner, and lived 5 months as homeless men in 5 of some of the most heavily homeless populated cities in America, and journaled throughout it, and then came back and wrote this book.  The purpose?  He answers this question on page 19: "1. To better understand the life of the homeless in America, and to see firsthand how the church is responding to their needs. 2.To encourage others to 'live out loud' for Christ in whatever ways God is asking them to. 3. To learn personally what it means to depend on Christ for my daily physical needs, and to experience contentment and confidence in him."  The book is raw, honest, and easily devoured.  It is somewhat choppy, consisting of short stories that don't often have a conclusion, or a desired conclusion, because the stories are real life, and sometimes we are not told the ends of the stories we encounter in real life.  It was good food for thought, while also being an easy read (it's double spaced, you will feel like a real genius flying through chapters at the speed you do).  So, would I suggest Under the Overpass to you? Yes.  I would even suggest it to non-Christian friends.

And finally, Wringer by Jerry Spinelli.  This book slipped in by the skin of its tooth, this month.  I finished it yesterday, and had honestly not expected it to be a February book.  It is from the Young Readers section of the Goodwill Bookstore.  I picked it up because of the creepy cover art and Newberry Medal on it.  I realized later that the Newberry Medal had actually been awarded for  the author's other book, Maniac Magee.  It's good to visit the chapter book section. I am actually a fan of children's chapter books, because they are written so differently. They know that if they do not grab the kid's attention upfront, the kid will not finish. Smart. This one is about a town that annually has a pigeon shooting competition in order to raise money for the maintenance of the park.  Boys, 10 and up, are given the job of clearing the field of the dead pigeons, and wringing the necks of the injured pigeons.  The pigeons are then used as fertilizer.  The main character starts off as a young child not understanding why they need to kill the pigeons, to understanding that soon it will be his job to be a wringer, and dreading his tenth birthday.  He lives in a town that "hates pigeons" and he doesn't, but he also knows that if he does not fulfill his job as a wringer, he'll never be able to hold his head up at school again.  After this, there are few predictable twists in the story to complicate it.  The reason I read this level of books, though, is because usually they are really good at enrapturing the reader. This one wasn't.  As a reader, you feel close to feeling with the main character, but he never manages to break through the wall that changes your reason to read from being because "it's interesting" to being because "I feel what he feels and I must know what happens."  The author grazes by areas that could have delved deeper, drawn the reader in, but instead he almost deals with them as a nuisance, a distraction from his pigeons.  In my opinion, which won't matter much, because you don't know the characters, the main character's best friend is far too nice, far too quick to forgive and forget, which makes her a character that lacks depth. What are we teaching kids? That we can treat our friends in the worst ways we can imagine so long as when we decide we need a friend again we turn around and say, "Sorry, I don't know what came over me."  The book ends exactly as the beginning led you to believe it would, without even making you think for a minute that it might not end that way.  In the end though, I know I can't judge it too harshly, as this book is written for 4th-6th graders.  25 year olds who read books for 10 year olds aren't allowed to be upset with the books.  It was an interesting book, that I finished like I might finish a newspaper article, but had I been 10 and reading this book, I would not have finished it.  And so, would I recommend Wringer to anyone? No, however, I would not stop you from reading it, if you decided to do so. It wasn't a complete waste of time.

Welcome to March!  Next up?

 

I'm not really sure, as far as the whole month goes, but I am still dabbling in My Friend Flicka and Sherlock Holmes when the moods strike, and I am working quickly through Unshaken which so far is an incredibly good book by Dan Wooley about his experience of being trapped under the earthquake rubble of Haiti a year ago.  Ten chapters in, and it has already stolen a few tears, here and there.  I am a little concerned about this month's reading, because as you might notice, all of the books I have left in my reserve are hardback, thick books... I knocked off my easy ones last month, after needing a break from "The Nightmarish slave master." 

As far as the Literacy Challenge goes, though, I am really enjoying it. I really have missed reading, and getting to experience at least one adventure a month has been quite enjoyable for me!  I am sure my family is about to strangle me if they have to hear, "That's interesting, I've been reading a book this week that talks about that subject, and..." one more time, but I guess they'll either have to become more patient, or I'll have to become more durable, because I don't think it's likely to stop any time soon.

If you have made it to the end of this post, congratulations! You can almost count it as one of your monthly books, it was so long!

Thanks for reading,

-Caitlin