Have Y'all Finished Harry Potter Yet?

I want to blog about it, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I thought I'd wait awhile. I'll obviously put spoiler warnings on it, but since this is the very last book, I don't want to ruin anyone's fun.

42% Dangerous

Inspired by Jill (yet again!), and in honor of Banned Books Week, I'd like to look at the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Challenged Books. For the record, I have read 42 of the books and 28 of them are currently on my bookshelf at home. As you may have guessed, the ones in bold are the ones I've read and commentary follows.

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Why on earth is this book challenged? Because the main character says "Damn" once or twice? Because a child dies? I mean, really, you'd think this would be a darling of the conservative family values set, given that the whole theme is about the value of family and the fragility of life.

10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry

I've heard this book has been challenged because it "celebrates infanticide". And every time I hear that, I want to hold the moron whose mouth the words are coming out of down and force them to read the book over and over until they understand what is written on the page AND the subtext, which amounts to: following the rules blindly can lead you to do something horrible, so horrible that you'd never believe yourself capable of it if you had to name it for what it is.

15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck

Again, I'm not sure on what basis anyone could possibly ban this book. It's practically a bible of rural family values and an incredibly touching story, too. In fact, this ranks right up with "Where the Red Fern Grows" on my list of books that I must have a box of Kleenex to read.

18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

Katherine Paterson apparently ranks right up with Judy Blume on the "Moron Parents Hate My Books" list. Unlike Judy Blume, she doesn't talk about sex in semi-explicit and matter-of-fact terms, so I'm not sure why she gets the Religious Right's panties in a knot. I own this book in English and Spanish and I can't figure out why it should be a problem for its intended audience in either language.

22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

I remember reading that this book was extremely controversial in an exhibit of Maurice Sendak's work last spring. (And if that traveling exhibit comes to your home town, you should absolutely go and see it. Maurice Sendak was a genius.)

26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl

Mention witchcraft and you MUST be advocating a conversion to Satanism!

28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry

Whaaaaat? Why? There's no cussing (unless maybe someone says damn once or something). Anastasia lives in a two parent nuclear family with a stay at home mom. She doesn't talk about sex or use racial epithets.

30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume

I remember you had to get a permission slip to read this book at our school library. My mom checked it out, read it, then rolled her eyes and signed the permission slip when I was in the third grade.

33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

I bet you can't even carry a copy of this to school today.

34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Yet another book that makes me want to hold the people whining about it down and make them read it until they understand it.

42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume

Yes, girls masturbate. Welcome to the reality of life.

47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Another tearjerker book that made me think about my preconcieved notions for a long, long time after I read it. In fact, far from being banned, I think it should be required reading for everyone.

48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar

I like Louis Sachar and this sounds intriguing. I must locate it and read it.

50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

Yet another book that leaves me scratching my head. He's clever but fairly innocuous and very definitely kid oriented. Perhaps there was too much of a scatological bent?

52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell

Finbar found this book at Half Price and bought it out of curiosity. It's far, far lamer that I could ever have expected and reads like something written by a particularly politically active 15 year old.

58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney

This book is an ABC Afterschool Special in written form. I bought this book and its sequels because of the whole adoption angle in it.

69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

I never really understood why this book was required reading for 7th graders at my school. It's really far too subtle for most of them to truly get, so they mostly get hung up on the gorier aspects of the story. I think it would be much more appropriate for a slightly older audience-- maybe 9th or 10th grade.

71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman

This book was in a big box of very old "Little Golden Books" at my Grandmother's house when I was a child. I don't really remember it, per se, so I suppose the story didn't make a particular impression on me or cause me to develop racist ideas. I remember the book only because there was a pancake house near us named "Sambo" and I loooooved their pancakes, so seeing the name "Sambo" on the cover of a book made me think it would be a wonderful book. On an unrelated note, the Swedish word "sambo" ("domestic partner" would be the English equivalent, I suppose) makes me giggle a little for the same reason.

91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

This book was on a waiting list a mile long when I was in elementary school and was featured in an episode of a PBS reading show. (I can't remember the name of the show, but it was the one where an unseen narrator read the book aloud while a disembodied artist drew scenes from the book on light blue paper with pastels.) You did not, however, need a permission slip to read this book.

97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier


Go forth and read banned books my friends. It's one of the most edifying forms of social protest.

Brian DePalma Will Have to Make the Movie

First of all, if you have not read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, DO NOT continue to read this post unless you do not care about spoilers. This will be your only warning, don't come crying to me if your fun gets ruined.



Here, have a little extra space, so the stuff doesn't show up on the front page when the blog loads.




To quote Harry, "Glad we got that straightened out".

Four hours of escapist reading-- and frankly, there isn't much out there that actually makes me stop worrying about law school and finances for more than two minutes at a time-- and all I can think to myself is "Whoa." I would like to take a moment to congratulate myself on one correctly spotted plot prediction. I'm not patting myself too hard on the back because, frankly, any one with a passing familiarity with the epic adventure/quest genre should have made by the end of book three. But, holy schlamoly, I did not see Snape coming. And this one is sooo dark. So violent. Not gratuitously so, but still, the new curses, the Inferi, the ending battle, and lots of little bits in between take this firmly out of the realm of children's literature, much more so than even Order of the Phoenix, which I would have placed in the YA section more for the complexity of its underlying themes than for violence. Hulio and I went for lunch before I left town today and two young boys came in clutching their copies, bookmarked toward the front of the book and I wanted to run up and tell their mother not to let them read it, they're too young! But of course, that was too lunatic, even for me, so I'm only blogging about it.

Unanswered questions for me, based on my one reading (and I'm sure I'll come up with more as I re-read slowly now):

*What is up with Trelawny constantly wandering the castle reading omens from the cards? I doubt that J.K. Rowling threw that in just for creepy effect (although it is a highly effective way to creep someone out), but I just can't figure out what that is supposed to mean.

*Malfoy-- redeemable? Regretting his decision to follow Voldemort? Or just too coward to kill? Why did he go to cry to Moaning Myrtle of all people/ghosts?

*Why don't they EVER listen to Hermione? "There are some curses that are unbreakable, some poisons with no antidotes".

And some random commentary:

* LOVE the fact that Tom Riddle showed sociopathic tendancies as a child (killing the rabbit). Makes it so much more complex that he's not just "carried away", if you will, sort of explains why he's more evil than your average bad wizard.

*Not so enamored of the Harry-Ginny pairing, at least not as presented in this book. Willing to wait to see what happens next before passing judgement. Love the Remus/Tonks pairing. Love the hormonal teenagers.

*Interesting that, for all the Weasley parents talk about Harry as being part of the family, they never write to him at Hogwarts.

*Also interesting that Voldemort as a physical being in the present tense of the book never shows up, even once. We see him only as a memory.

*J.K. Rowling is amazing at bringing things that were little details back to mean big things.

*Loved the scene where Harry meets the Minister of Magic.

*Continuing, despite the whole Snape thing (though Alan Rickman will be DELICIOUS playing evil Snape-- He can Avada Kadavera me any day, rrrrrow!), to enjoy the fact that J.K. Rowling continues to give us unsavory characters who are still "good", and well-meaning people who are still "bad". Rufus Scrimgeour may not be as openly antagonistic to Harry as Fudge, but he's not exactly looking out for Harry's best interests, either. And ol' Sluggy is odious and obnoxious, but nominally on the side of the light. Even if he's there out of self-interest, he's still there. It's good for the soul to realize that good and evil are almost never black and white.

*Major turning points for Harry: not rising to Snape's bait as they walk up to the school, coming to an understanding of how and why Voldemort is bound by the prophecy but he himself is not, Dumbledore telling Harry that he knows he's safe because he's with Harry (which made me cry, by the way).

So, I'm going to re-read the book and maybe I'll post about predictions for the final book. My only complaint about this one? I wish it had been longer. But then, I would say that if it were 652,000 pages, so...

I Should Be So Lucky

I wouldn't have had a problem returning the book. But then, by the time the court caught up with me, I probably would have read the whole thing. I did, after all, read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in less than eight hours.

Getting Caught Up on the Nightstand

Over my long and leisurely vacation, I read a great deal. Mostly my mother's magazines, which I would never buy, but are great fluff reading. However, in between issues of Reader's Digest and Ladies' Home Journal, I also plowed through several books.

I read Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun, which I was lucky enough to find at Half Price Books. I love Get Fuzzy, especially the little "inside jokes" Darby Conley slips into the picture, like the fact that Bucky's closet has a Slytherin poster, while Satchel's room has a Hufflepuff poster.

Then, I read The Encyclopedia of Knitting front to back. I am going to teach myself a new way of casting on and casting off for the new sweater I am about to start. I'm finished with the knitting part of my Ravenclaw scarf, but I still have to block it and put the fringe on the end. I have a kicking acrylic/mohair blend chunky yarn that is just BEGGING to be made into a soft, fuzzy sweater that I can slip on and feel like I went to law school in my PJs. I'm still mucking around with the guage, since the yarn is not the exact texture of the yarn recommended by the pattern book, but since I have no intention of paying $11.95 a skein for the yarn recommended by the pattern book (the kicking yarn was on clearance for $2.00 per skein AND I had a 40% off coupon), I'm going to adjust the pattern and needles to fit the yarn.

Then, I read the first few chapters of Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children. It was a fascinating premise, but the book is so poorly written that I quit after the first two chapters and a skim of parts of the rest of the book.

In the car on the way back to Our Fair City, I read Are You Really Going to Eat That?, a collection of columns and essays written by the man Liane Hanson calls "The Indiana Jones of Culinary Writing". It was like porn for this budding foodie. I totally want this guy's job. He even makes oysters sound almost appetizing to me. Almost.

In the park on Sunday, I started reading The Grand Tour. One of Tim Moore's other books graced my nightstand back in April or so, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I heartily recommend it, especially if you are a fan of Mil Milington (whose first novel I read right before starting law school and loved-- though it has nothing in common with the website save the name and excellent dryly funny writing). The Grand Tour is not disappointing at all.

This morning, I started reading Memoiren eines mittelmässigen Schülers. This book must be commonly assigned on German reading lists, as I constantly find copies of it at Half Price Books. I picked this one up partially because the title catches my eye, partially because I see it so often, yet was never asked to read it in any of my German classes ever, and partially because the little hedgehog on the dtl edition of it is so cute. It's been on my bookshelf for several years. Now that I've started it, I can't imagine why I've never read it before. It's hysterical! The humor is dry yet ludicrous, very Monty Python-esque. However, I doubt very much that it would translate well, as it's very culturally dependent. The book is slim and small, so it's my subway reading.

Currently Gracing My Nightstand

I finished The View From Saturday. What a great book! I loved the droll tone and the realistic, not sappy, yet still inspiring ending.

Luckily, I didn't have time to cast around for something new to read. When I showed up at Felix's house last night (I'm housesitting for him), he had left a copy of Eats Shoots and Leaves, a book which I have long wished to read, but not having found a cheap copy at Half Price (which should tell you a little about how good this book must be), I haven't had the opportunity to read it yet. It also cracks me up that, after only a few weeks, Felix already knows what a grammar pedant I can be.

Less than a chapter in, I can already see that Lynn Truss is a fellow soul. I love the fact that she actually protested in front of a theater when they put up the posters for Two Weeks Notice, carrying a large apostrophe on a stick. I would totally do something like that.

Currently Gracing My Nightstand

I finished reading The Poisonwood Bible, which I enjoyed immensely. (Thanks for the recommendation, Huilo!) It was amazing how many people would come up to me in the Metro or on the street to tell me that they had read the book and loved it. The alternating viewpoints were well-done; often, such techniques are campy or hokey in the hands of a less talented writer. It also has a satisfying conclusion. My one quibble with the book, however, is that it doesn't stop at the conclusion, but dribbles on for two or three more chapters that get progressively more nonsensical and unnecessary.

On a side note, I was reading this at the height of the horrible heat wave here in D.C. Sometimes, I would be engrossed in the book, walk up the stairs out of the Metro and into the humid air and for a split second, I would feel disoriented, as through the book had crept into real life.

On another, completely unrelated side note, a number of the aforementioned strangers who came up to comment on the book mentioned how "shocking" it was. It was, indeed, deeply tragic and at times cringe-inducingly tense, as you fought the urge to yell at the characters "Don't do that! It can only lead to something bad!". However, to anyone with even a moderate grasp of post-colonial African history-- or a passing knowledge of the lyrics to We Didn't Start the Fire-- there is nothing particularly shocking about the book-- except maybe the fact that all these years later, we still haven't learned our lesson.

Anyway, now I'm reading The View From Saturday. E.L. Konigsburg has always been one of my favorite authors, ever since my fourth grade teacher gave me a beat up paperback copy of From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, telling me that I reminded her a bit of Claudia. I take that as a high compliment. E.L. Konigsburg's kids are wise and complex, but not perfect or infalliable. They don't blindly follow the adults in their lives, but neither are they precocious wunderkinder who run the lives of the adults. I am immensely enjoying "The View From Saturday". I've only got maybe 40 pages or so left, and the best thing about E.L. Konigsburg is that I truly cannot guess what the outcome is going to be.

New Book On the Nightstand

I am currently reading That's Not What I Meant! by Deborah Tannen. I'd read some of her writings in college, first in an anthropology course and later in a linguistics course. And, as you know, I am very interested in language and non-verbal communication, especially in the context of cross-cultural communication.

So far, it's been a quick read and fairly interesting. I'm hoping that later in the book, she'll talk about how to avoid or resolve these sorts of miscommunications. I liked Tannen's writing style when I read her in my college classes, but in a work as long as the book, I'm finding it a little on the superficial side. Or maybe the problem is that I've just read too many law texts to be able to appreciate a simple, clear-cut text.

The Nature of Friendship

I finished Between Friends today. It was...okay. Some of the essays were deeply personal, while others felt like the author was trying so very hard to convince us that she's unconventional, dammit!, that I just couldn't get through to the underlying message.

However, the last essay in the book stopped me dead in my tracks. It's called "Ringing the Net" by Susan Kenney. In it, she tells of the friends who surrounded her as her husband fought and eventually died of cancer. I sat on the plaza in front of the office building I'm working in and cried. Would that we were all blessed enough to have friends such as the ones she describes!

Of course, I think I am so blessed. I would walk across hot coals for a certain handful of people, and I'm sure they would do the same for me. I'm a big believer in quality of friendships, not quantity.

Which is what made it all the more hurtful and puzzling for me when one of the people who I honestly believed was becoming one of those friends simply up and pulled away. Almost literally overnight, she stopped talking to me, stopped returning my phone calls, stopped answering my emails. I've searched and searched for the way in which I might have offended her, but I honestly don't know what I could have done to make her take her love and friendship and go away. At first, I wished fervently that she would break the silence and tell me what I had done to offend her so that I could make amends. Then I was angry and wanted her to hurt as much as I did. Luckily for my karma, I was too busy to do anything but steam in private. And now I'm just sad. Sad for what was, sad for what might have been, sad for what never will be.

New Book(s) On the Nightstand

I started re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix this weekend, in anticipation of the upcoming release of Book 6. I'm actually planning to take my Swedish versions to D.C. with me for a little practice over the summer, hence the early start on re-reading OOTP in English. Plus, it's pure enjoyment: no need to think about deep, hidden meanings, already familiar with the storyline, so no need to feel compelled to read past your bedtime...

For my more "serious" leisure reading, I'm starting a collection of essays and short stories on the nature of friendships between women (and girls), called "Between Women". All I've read so far is the introduction and part of the first story. I usually enjoy this type of compilation and it's a great topic. There definitely is a different quality to woman-to-women friendships than women-to-men or men-to-men. Friendship and rivalry sometimes seem to be two sides of the same coin, especially with young girls and teenagers. Women seem to be more intense in their friendships, but equally intense in the ability to betray and hurt each other. I'll be interested to see what the authors in the book have to say, to see if it opens some new insight for me.

New Book on the Nightstand

I am currently reading "Das Phantom" by Susan May. It's a "prequel" to "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux, and attempts to give an account of the life that Erik led before becoming the Phantom of the Opera, to show why and how he became the tragic figure of the classic Leroux novel.

So far, I am really enjoying it. It's written from multiple perspectives: Erik's mother, Erik, an italian stonemason who encounters Erik, and (I'm sure) more to come. The writing is also quite good, or at least the translation is-- I'm reading it in German, although the original language is English. I found this copy in a used bookstore clearance bin, and I'm always thrilled to have some leisure reading in German or Swedish. Death tells me that she read it in English and really liked it, so that's a positive sign. I am breaking one of my cardinal rules of in-semester reading (no fiction longer than a short story, otherwise I am prone to not being able to stop reading, driven by the need to know what comes next); time will tell whether I will regret this, since my Family Law and Copyright exams are due in just over 48 hours. However, I am BURNED OUT and need some sort of outlet besides channel surfing and internet, both of which tend to make me less relaxed and more prone to inertia.

I Changed My Mind About Bill Bryson-- Now With Exact Quote!

So, I'm in the home stretch of "Neither Here Nor There" and I came across this little gem of "wisdom" from Mr. Bryson (and I use the term "Mr." loosely here).

Speaking of his waiter: "Well, if you're so hot, how come I'm sitting down and you're not? Let's be honest, if you career consists of nothing more demanding than conveying trays of food back and forth between a kitchen and dining room all day, there's not really much of anyone you are superior to, is there, except perhaps disk jockeys and lawyers." This from a man who just ordered in English from a waiter working in a German-speaking country and (I presume) whose native language is German.


Bryson is officially on the "Hate" list. And I'm selling his books.