TwentySevenLetters / B

But wait! There’s more!

Scott Westerfeld isn’t the only author I’ve been reading lately… I’ve been steadily plowing through a pile of YA quasi-utopian fiction, in preparation for making a booklist in the not-too-distant future. So far, it’s anyone’s guess if I’ll ever finish it, but there it is.

The Diary of Pelly D., by LJ Adlington. This book was actually named to ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults list for this year. I have no idea why. Seriously. I wanted to like this book. I really wanted to like this book. The flyleaf description sounded like Holes crossed with… I dunno, something more sci-fi than Holes. Instead, it turned out to be The Diary of Anne Frank crossed with suck. Futuristic utopian suck, at that. The basic premise: a 14-year-old boy (Toni V.) has been assigned to a work crew rebuilding City Five after a war. In his digging, he finds a diary, written by a girl named Pelly D. She’s the most popular girl in school, very impressed with her own importance, snubbing the uncool kids and setting trends and dating the hottest guy. But then the government starts doing gene tagging—testing everyone’s DNA and marking their hands according to what gene class they’re in—and despite the government’s assurances that all three gene classes have much to offer society, some are apparently more equal than others. Suddenly Pelly’s not so great anymore.

There are a lot of problems I have with this book. The time frame is one of them. The implication is that the diary is pretty old and has been buried for (at least) decades, but it’s never really stated. The diary is from right before the war and it’s found in cleaning up said war, so it doesn’t seem all that long in between. On the other hand, gene tagging was just starting when Pelly D. was writing her diary, and there was a lot of outrage and protest surrounding it, but for Toni V., that’s just the way it’s always been. People are tagged and sorted. Shrug. Which would imply that it’s been at least a couple of generations since the diary was written and buried.

Astute readers have probably already figured out that this whole book is leading up to some futuristic holocaust, with the green-tagged Galrezi class being forced into ghettos and eradicated. This all seems to happen within a year of the initial push for gene tagging. It’s hard to get a handle on how long a year is, since at least some of the months go up to at least 53 days.

Another problem is just the character of Pelly D.: I hated her. What a self-absorbed, whiny little twit. Okay, sure, we’re watching what happens when someone on top of the social pecking order suddenly falls to the bottom. But. Once she’s hit bottom, that uncool kid she snubbed? Wow, he’s pretty nice! And cute! And great! And we're so in love! And it’s pretty stupid.

But now here’s the real kicker: while this book pretends to be a sci-fi utopian drama, it really is just another holocaust book. I’m not really sure why the ALA picked it as a Best Book (especially since it isn’t even particularly well-written—not terrible but nothing great), except that it’s impossible to pan a holocaust book without being an asshole. It’s impossible to ignore a holocaust book without being an asshole. Because to not praise a book about the holocaust is to be actively xenophobic. (Have I mentioned what a bad graphic novel Pascal Croci’s Auschwitz was? How the story felt cobbled together out of multiple survivors’ stories (because it was, in fact, just that) into a disjointed whole? No? That’s because I can’t criticize holocaust books in this culture without being an asshole.)

At least in the excerpts posted on Amazon.com, Booklist has all sorts of good things to say about it, praising its originality and depth. I just don’t see it. It’s inspired by diaries found buried in the Warsaw ghetto (so claims the About The Author note), and frankly, aside from the futuristic setting, it doesn’t seem too much different from The Diary of Anne Frank. At least School Library Journal seems to get it: “The true horrors of what is happening are muted until the end of the book, taking away much of its power. The concept is interesting and the world of Tony V is well rendered, but in the end, the novel disappoints.” You said it, SLJ.

Coming up: books what don’t suck!

Hey, I’m back!

That would be more exciting had anyone noticed I was gone. Anyway, I went to Canada, spent some time with friends, played a bunch of games (Munchkin is awesome, and I wish we had more people around to play with), and now I’m back.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading, and I’ve been meaning to blog it for a while. Of course, my efforts to keep a running tally of what I’ve read over the whole year were pretty much blown by New Year’s weekend, when I read a couple of books but never wrote down what they were. So there went that idea.

Anyway, I’ve been reading a lot, which is kind of a nice change for me. I have no idea what I do with all my time, that I get through so few books. I’m not making much headway through my To Be Read shelf, though, due to the occupational hazard of working at the library and taking other books home for free.

So. Several of the books I’ve read have been by Scott Westerfeld, whom I’ve decided is one of the greatest sci-fi-ish writers for young adults. A lot of his books aren’t what I’d call specifically science fiction or fantasy, but sort of a blend of the two without being either. So Yesterday (plugged on the Humorous Fiction booklist, though I’m not really sure I’d put it there were I to do it over again, though the writing is pretty witty) is really the most realistic of his books, and even that one has hints of speculative fiction. He’s currently working on two different trilogies, and I’m eagerly awaiting the third book of both of them.

The Midnighters trilogy is about the secret hour that happens at midnight—the hour at which the whole world stops, except for those few people born at the stroke of midnight and the ancient creatures who hunt them. It’s not the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but it’s engrossing and interesting and well-written and enjoyable. Which is more than I can say for a lot of books of this stripe.

His other trilogy … well, the first book is Uglies, but I don’t think there’s an official name for the series. Anyway, it’s a Utopia, more or less, where every citizen gets plastic surgery at age 16 to become Pretty. Pretties live in their Pretty cities and have their Pretty parties, and really it’s all pretty great. Except for the people who don’t want be be made into Pretties, and the only option is to leave society all together. And for the people who want to be pretties, but are being blackmailed into betraying those who have left. Book two is, predictably, Pretties, and book three (due out in March, I think!) is called Specials.

Other things I’ve been reading: well, I think those will be separate entries, since it took me all day Saturday just to write this one. So: to be continued!

My plan to Take It Easy

I was working Saturday. My plan was to not really do too much—I’d filled the whole week with my usual assortment of mini-projects. Once again, my piles were gone: labeling, covering, washing, discarding, and even some of the repairs. I figured I’d take it easy on Saturday—maybe some shelf-reading if I felt really ambitious, but mostly just sort of chill a bit.

I am incapable of Doing Very Little.

I did some minor weeding in the teen section (just packing up duplicates for storage; I need the shelf space and there’s always at least one copy of some of these books on the shelf). Some shelf-reading and shelf-shifting, also in the teen section, and replenished my displays. I found a roll of the tape I’ve needed to finish the repair pile and whipped through that. And I finished a new booklist I’d started in late November and wandered away from.

The booklist is specifically for graphic novels across a broad spectrum, from Spider-Man to Blue Monday to Owly. I was careful to use all new titles—the books on it are ones that have not appeared on previous booklists. I’m hoping to get it uploaded sometime this week, but I’m not (yet) making any promises. I’ll announce it when it goes up.

I’m kind of thinking about another booklist, another sci-fi-ish one that’s less sci-fi and more just… futuristic? Utopian? Not quite either of those, but a list including books like City of Ember, Uglies, Mortal Engines, maybe even The Giver. Maybe throw in some other series, also, like Midnighters or Guardians of Time. Other suggestions are, of course, welcome!

More Warm Fuzzies

We opened at noon today, and by that point I was up to my ears in a Project (changing some bad shelving for better, more efficient shelving that doesn’t suck). The door opens, and I hear someone calling, “Hello? Hello?”

I abandon my project and find the woman, and ask if I can help her. In slightly broken English, she asked where she can join the school. The school? Yes, the school; they take books and read them. I finally realized she was talking about the adult literacy classes (because the instructor usually comes up here to pick some picture books about ten minutes before class time), and said someone at the adult reference desk downstairs would be able to help her, since we don’t have any information about adult programs here in the children’s room. She insisted, though, that someone downstairs sent her up here. I don’t know who, and whoever it was, was mistaken in thinking we’d have the information.

“This is my country,” she said. “I come here from Portugal, I have a grandson, but I no can read English to him. In my own country, I no can read things. But there is a school that can help me. Please, I want to be in the school.”

I gave her the phone number for the literacy department, and said she can call them to find out when the next session starts, and sign up for the class. “You’ll call me?” she asked. No, you can call them and they’ll tell you everything you need to know. I don’t have any information, but the people at this number can answer all your questions. “I give you my telephone and my name, and you call me? I want to go to the school so badly.”

How can you argue with that? So I agreed to call her after I talked to the literacy people. She burst into tears. “Thank you so much. God will bless you for your help. I want to read. I want your help. Thank you for helping me read.” She wiped her eyes and walked out.

I called the literacy department, and the next class session starts a week from Tuesday. They’ve put her on the list, so she’s guaranteed a space in the class. All she has to do is show up. I called to tell her that, and she immediately started sniffling again. “Thank you, thank you, you are so good to help me. God will bless you. I will read, and God will bless you.”

Even if I do nothing else of worth today, I’ve made an elderly Portuguese woman cry with happiness. And I’m on God’s to-do list. And that’s not bad for one afternoon’s work.

Warm Fuzzies

Friday night, I went grocery shopping. (This sort of activity is important when you like to not starve to death, I find.)

While poking around the bread aisle, looking for croissants (they were out), I ran into a patron’s mom, who happens to work in the bakery section of this particular store. The patron in question is one of my favorite kids—she’s smart, funny, very helpful, and, well, very chatty. But the sweetest 12-year-old you could hope to meet, and whenever she’s in, we end up talking for a while—half-hour, forty-five minutes, sometimes even an hour, when it’s not busy.

Anyway, her mom said hello, and that she’d been hoping to see me. She wanted to tell me how glad she is that her daughter (T) has someplace safe to go, with people who like seeing her. And that she’s glad that T has me to talk to, because it’s just T and her little brother at home and she doesn’t have many close friends or relatives—so Mom’s very happy that T likes me and can talk to me. “You’re like . . . a big sister to her. I’m so glad that she has someone like you to talk to.”

I’ve been living off the glow of this pretty much all weekend. I’m touched, really, and giddy with the knowledge that someone really appreciates me, and the work I do here. Conversations like that one really do make the everyday aggravations matter so, so little.