See you soon!
And yes, Maverick is both a rose and living in difficult conditions. His father is in jail, presumably for gang-related activity (he was the "crown".) His mom can barely pay the bills. He is in a gang and selling drugs. AND then one day he is asked to join a girl at the hospital where a DNA test is being run on her 3 month old son. That is the day he is thrown into the life of fatherhood when the girl leaves the hospital without the baby. Maverick is thrown into a life of sleepless nights, exploding diapers, and of forehead kisses. This new responsibility brings up all kinds of questions, such as how is a 17 year old boy supposed to support a son.
No, life for Maverick doesn't get easier from here. And this is not a novel that is tidy. Maverick struggles with decisions that will impact his family for years. Sometimes there are no easy answers.
This is a story of fatherhood, of family, and of friendship. It is a story of responsibility, and consequences for actions, and struggling to figure out what the next steps in life. This is also the prequel to The Hate You Give.
As far as I am concerned, this is a five star novel.
Find it on the shelves at South or the Nashua Public Library. NPL also has both audio and ebook copies through Libby.
James Hamblin, a doctor and journalists, helps us get answers (or mostly more questions) about how our hygiene practices impact us and our largest organ - our skin - which is impacted by the world around us. This book lets us consider questions such as:
Are we too clean?
Should we be using antibacterial soap?
What products should put on our skin? our hair? under our arms?
How does our skin microbiome impact our health?
Should we eat a pound of dirt before we turn one?
What kinds of regulations are in place in the beauty industry vs the health industry? Does it matter?
Why do some beauty products work on some of us and not on others?
What are the most important things to do to stay healthy?
So many questions, and so much food for thought in this book that begins with the sentence,
"Five years ago, I stopped showering."
And ends with:
"From pharmaceuticals to soaps and other personal care products, Americans are clearly overpaying for - and overusing - products and services that are supposed to make us healthier. The pattern of consumption is unsustainable, and much of it may be doing more harm than good. The greatest advances were those basic gestures at exposing people to nature - letting us have space to move, clean air to breathe, people to socialize and build relationships with, and plants, animals, and soil that bring us the microbes we evolved to be covered and sustained by." (page 251)
Finally, the last chapter shares a lot of information about the history of city planning and outdoor spaces including a mention of conditions in the tenements in New York City. For this reader, that included checking out the digital displays in the Tenement Museum. (Note that not all of the links were working but I found that I could skip around those links to read these historical stories.)
This book was found in print at the Nashua Public Library
The characters are beautifully drawn - Linus, basically an orphanage investigator / Department in Charge of Magical Youth caseworker who is rule centered and thorough. Arthur - the father figure. And then there are the kids - each a magical being. The really cool thing about this book is that each character is more than the sum of their parts. Both individually and as part of the story. For example, one of the children is Lucy, the Antichrist (but we do NOT use that word) who is six years old and speaks in dark words and thoughts. BUT he loves to help in the kitchen and go on adventures. Arthur truly believes that nurture can overcome nature and is working with Lucy to overcome his evils. Linus want to protect the children.
This book has met with some controversy. Klune had the threads of this story running through his mind but then learned of the Sixties Scoop, in which Canadian indigenous children were placed into government sponsored facilities with the goal of adopting them out to white families - and this story gelled for him. (You can read his interview here.) Some people are angry believing that Klune co-opted a story that was not his to tell. But I do not fell that to be the case. Note that the sixties scoop is not that only time that children have been torn from their homes and placed in government facilities, this has happened in other times and places. Note The House in the Cerulean Sea is not about that experience. Note that it isn't even hinted at. And note that this book is about kindness and hope. Finally note the words of Mark Twain,
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
This book gathers the threads of various ideas and weaves them into a new and different story that is fun, funny, and heart warming. AND a little bit Harry Potterish as it weaves realistic fiction and fantasy together.
There are lessons in this book about how we treat each other and how we treat ourselves. Here is one of my favorite quotes,
"Humanity is so weird. If we're not laughing, we're crying or running for our lives because monsters are trying to eat us. And they don't even have to be REAL monsters. They could be the one we make up in our heads."
If you want a treat, if you want a reality check steeped in fantasy, if you want to laugh - read this story.
(It is available through the Nashua Public Library in both print and as an ebook)
Empower is not the only professional development book that I read this summer, but it is certainly the most fun and thought provoking. This book is all about student choice and the process of learning and stoking the fire of learning excitement within students (and consequently in teachers.)
I love to learn. I love to share the love of learning. I am excited about the seeds that this book has both planted (new ideas) and watered (ideas that I already had that have been reinforced.) 2021/22 will be a great school year. I can just feel it. See you in a bit.
Honestly, Patron Saints of Nothing has many things that I love to find in a book:
* I have never visited the Philippines and knew nothing about it.
* There are interesting characters in this book - some fully formed but some intentionally vague
* There was a connection to life as I know it. Patron Saints centers around the drug war in the Philippines and the politics behind it. In the USA we have the "War on Drugs" which has shaped our society in ways that make me uncomfortable.
* And thinking about uncomfortable - I spent a lot of time feeling uneasy about characters and how they were acting in this story.
* There was character learning and growth - the majority of this book took place over the course of the week and during that time Jay, the main character, grew from a teen to a man.
This book took me so long to read because I had to keep stopping to Google stuff:
* A recipe for Sinigang soup
* The poem, "A Litany for Survival" by Audre Lorde
* Images from and information about the Philippines - both the country and the slums
* News about the Philippine drug war - both current and past
* Background on President Duterte
* And the list goes on
Finally - the most interesting character in this book is Jun - though he is no longer alive. The memories and flashbacks of this character pushed me to think about the bigger questions in life. And that is always a good thing.
Don't pick up this book unless you want your mind to be challenged to think in new ways.
Muiriel was born into the foster system when she was abandoned at birth. The nurses in the John Muir named her after the John Muir Medical Center where she was taken as a foundling. And this was the beginning of her strength.
The story opens as she leaves another foster placement. Her social worker, Joellen, is taking her to an island outside of Seattle where she will live with a foster mom who decided to take one last foster placement - a teen (though prior to this she has only fostered little ones). Muir takes pride in "packing lightly" and depending on no one but herself. But this island and the community there challenges her beliefs about herself and about her world.
Jennifer Longo wrote this book (as stated in the Author's Note at the end of the story) because her daughter, who was born into the foster system, noted that she often doesn't find herself represented in books. Longo listened to a number of kids who live or lived in the foster system and this story came out of those voices.
Longo states: "Voices of adults, well intended or not, overwhelmingly drive the myopic, adult-centric false narrative of foster care and adoption in America, talking over those of the kids in foster care who are screaming and no one is listening."
At the end of this story there are several resources listed for more information. One of these resources is Aging Out Institute. There are others listed in the book.
You can find a copy of this book on the Nashua South shelves (as soon as I donate this copy!)
Thanks for the recommendation from Valerie a guidance counselor from Londonderry.
