Go Vote!

I was in a public service announcement for the Women's Fund of Rhode Island earlier this year, one of a group of girls exclaiming "YOUR VOTE COUNTS!", as a little reminder. PLEASE GO VOTE! It counts! Really and honestly and truly it does! Can you imagine if we all got into the midset of "My vote won't make a difference"?

Of course you can.

~Emily

Library! Joy!

Well, I'm back at the library! Ah, peace. I did miss this place. I can hardly climb a flight of stairs and the skin under my eyes is the color of a midday moon, but I am home.

Being held tomorrow is a community Halloween party in which I was planning to participate, but life messes things up. I feel all the commotion of freaking the heck out of people will be a bit much for me, so I'll just sit back maybe with some soup or something. It might not be so bad.

Thanks very much to everyone on the Fabulous Lorraine's blog (http://lorraineamalena.blogspot.com/) for their good wishes. All you Fiends rock!

~Emily

Sorry ...

I have a really good excuse for staying away from the blog for so long: I've been in the hospital for the past week and will probably remain here for the next week, or longer. Sigh. It does feel good to finally have Internet access.

Anyway, keep a check on the blog -- I'll be around when I can.

~Emily

Books and a Broken Toe

Having not had a book to review for VOYA since sometime in late spring, I am proud to announce that I finished reading one this morning and will soon be writing my review .... the book was quite horrible, but still, I was happy to have a book.



While I'm here, a list of (good) books I've read/been reading in my absence from the blog seems to be in order ...



Artichoke's Heart by Suzanne Supplee. It just might be that the best word to describe this book is "likeable". It's very emotional but so much fun at the same time ...



Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger. I'm a bit more than halfway through this one and really love it ....



The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Too good to be finished, but I finished it anyway.

Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends by David Wilton. I've always wondered where the word okay began, and now I know!

Spam-ku: Tranquil Reflections on Luncheon Loaf by John Cho. Each verse in this compilation of haiku is all about SPAM, the luncheon meat, and actually really lovely. Some of them are also absolutely hilarious, but each feels like genuine haiku (some have more of a traditional flavor than others -- which feel more like Western haiku).

On another note ...

I am a walker -- one harboring a great passion for journeying through an unknown neighborhood on foot. As a result of this passion, my neighborhood is no longer unknown to me -- I've been down every single street many a time; however, in the not-so-distant past, I wandered down unfamiliar streets and got myself lost, and was always nervous about that (more worried about my mother's being worried than anything else, actually), but relished the satisfaction of having found my way out. And walking become a routine but no less of a great love.

Anyway.

My toe is broken just in time for the flare of color and crisp air that marks the early Octobers of New England. Sigh. We only get so much of this weather. The cast won't come off until December, and I can only hope for a mild winter.

(If you're wondering how it happened, about a month ago I slipped on the stairs and landed on my toe, which buckled underneath me. I didn't think it was broken and so waited a while to have it examined. Of course, if it wasn't broken to begin with, it fractured when I reinjured it by tripping once more, only this time -- fortunately -- not on the stairs.)

I love walking. And I do miss it.

~Emily

The Graveyard Book At Last and Padma Venkatraman

Neil Gaiman's new novel comes out today! I am so excited to read The Graveyard Book and almost as excited to see a real, actual copy sitting on the shelf of a bookstore!

Also, I would love for people to know that Padma Venkatraman, author of the very wonderful novel Climbing the Stairs, will be making appearances on the East Coast later this month; I strongly advise going to see her if she's going to be in your area -- she is a truly lovely person and brilliant writer.

Thursday, October 16th -- 10:30 a.m. at Politics and Prose. Washington, DC -- 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW; phone: (202) 364-1919

Friday, October 17th -- 2:00 p.m. at VIMS, Gloucester Point, VA 23062 -- 1208 Greate Road; phone: (804) 684-7000

Also on Friday, October 17th -- 5:30 p.m. at The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA -- Washington 201 (old campus); for more information contact Ann Repeta at (757) 221-2457

Saturday, October 18th -- 5:00 p.m. at Big Blue Marble Books, Philadelphia, PA -- 551 Carpenter Lane; phone: (215) 844-1870

Finally, on Sunday, October 19th -- 2:00 p.m. at Books of Wonder, New York City! -- 18 West 18th Street; phone: (212) 989-3270

I especially recommend going to see Padma (who is a friend of mine) if you feel passionate about multiculturalism! For more information about Padma, visit http://cliofindia.com/padma, or http://climbingthestairsbook.com (which is a beautiful site all about her novel).

And now I am going to go play with The Baby Name Genie (http://babynamegenie.com/), because I tend to have too much fun with names ....

~Emily

A Conversation With William Brewster

It was a year ago today that I visited Plimoth Plantation in Massachussetts for the first time in several years, and for the first time since I had really taken an interest in the Pilgrims -- particularly in the Allerton family. I was quite hoping to meet Isaac Allerton, but he was back in England on business. I could hardly be disappointed, though; I got to meet all sorts of wonderfully cool Pilgrims, one of whom was William Brewster, and he sure had a lot to say. He talked to me (and my grandparents, who had brought me to the Plantation as a birthday gift) about how he had been put on trial. This conversation really is such a wonderful memory for me. Being so in love with the study of foreign languages, particularly Dutch, I asked him whether he had learnt to speak it during his time in Holland. On the contrary, he had not been amongst those who had lived in Holland; I was mistaken. But, he told me, the little Allerton children had learnt to speak Dutch.

"Isaac Allerton is a cousin of mine," I said, utterly delighted.

He looked amazed.

"No!" he exclaimed. "Really?" Then, looking at me carefully, he added, "I cannot see the resemblance."

After chatting for a while longer, his expression became thoughtful and he asked me, "Are you a schoolgirl? It is hard to judge your age."

"I'll turn fifteen in about a week," I told him.

"Ah! Well! I think I can see it now! You do look like him; your smile, you have the same smile!"

That was such an amazingly wonderful day. I am aching to go back there, and maybe my cousin Isaac Allerton will have returned from England when I finally do.

~Emily

About Reviewing

I am going into reviewer withdrawal, which is this crazy thing having to do with my going the whole summer without being assigned a book and actually missing reviewing so much that I just write reviews of novels to pass the time. Well, it can't hurt, I suppose. Having a file of reviews may come in handy sometime (I have been in the position of writing a review on demand).

The most rewarding part of reviewing is being assigned wonderful books that I would probably never have discovered (or bothered to finish reading) otherwise. This has been the case with most of the books that I reviewed (particularly Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen, The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt, The Game of My Life by Jason McElwain, and The Shadow Companion by Laura Anne Gilman), but of course there is sometimes a bad book. I use the word bad for its generous pool of meanings: I have read novels that were violent, vulgar, utterly traumatizing, gruesomely inappropriate for the targeted age group. When that happens I just have to keep in mind that it is actually work ... and must be done. Horrific content tends to slide off my shoulders more easily with that thought in mind.

The magazine (Voice of Youth Advocates or VOYA) has a rating system -- Q for Quality and P for Popularity, two factors judged on a numerical basis of one to five -- five being the highest. There was one book I disliked so much that I gave it a big fat one for Quality. My review was basically a dainty articulation of "This book should not be read -- no matter what, where, and who the reader may be." One day I was chatting with a writer (who is now a great friend of mine) and mentioned my reviewing said book, and how horrible I had found it. When I named the book and its author, this author said, "Oh, yes, I know her!"

"What? Well, don't tell her what I said!" I squeaked. She assured me that she wouldn't, and I think she will stick to her word.

All in all, the bottom line is that reviewing (at least in my case) makes for a lot of fun.

~Emily