Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney (Part 1)

If you want to read an astounding work of historical fiction with a feminist bent, read Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney.

What attracted me to this book, at first, was the story of a daughter accompanying her father on a polar expedition.

Somewhere I had heard that story before. Pictures of Robert Peary's daughter wrapped in furs came to mind.

Flora Mackie's story isn't based on Marie Peary's but some of the details match. The press made much of Marie Peary's allure. She became known world wide as the Snow Baby, as the Greenlanders called her.

In Stef Penney's novel Flora's story is sensationalized, too, except she is called the Snow Queen. Flora capitalizes on this to launch her return to the Arctic, a move her father does not support. 

(continued)

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The Royal Institute's Christmas Lectures

Initiated by Michael Faraday in 1826, the Royal Institute's Christmas Lectures on science continue to be produced in the present day. Many of the past episodes can be viewed on the web.

http://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch

Learn many fascinating facts like we laugh. The 2017 lecture features "The Science of Laughter" with Sophie Scott. 

Scientific American has a wonderful article about Michael Faraday:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/christmas-with-faraday-the-chemical-history-of-a-candle/

Kingdom of Ash and Briars by Hannah West

This magical YA novel will have readers rooting for Bristal, an orphan raised by a cook. Bristal has a feisty, take-no-prisoners spirit that will resonate well with teens.

Even though she is kidnapped and forced into the Water, which has killed many, she refuses to lose hope.

Bristal chooses to work as an elicromancer after she is tested at the Water. Her mentor, Brack, gives her the choice which she accepts, even if there are many drawbacks. 

After training, she becomes a  a clandestine who can disguise herself as other people or animals. 

Her first assignment is to protect a princess but she soon finds herself taking the form of a boy and fighting with the Alliance against a group of rebel elicromancers.

Though being an elicromancer means forsaking love, she is taken with Anthony, the renegade Prince. 

Since she must save the lost duchess, create harmony among the warring kingdoms, and defeat Tamarice, Bristal knows she cannot allow herself to fall in love. 

Will love win out? 

Strange forces are at work throughout this novel. Bristal's past, her childhood in Poppleton, may be the key to helping her quell the evil uprising that threatens the kingdoms of Nissera, Calgoran, and Volarre.

Magic is strong but never underestimate the power of love.

Smart Clothes

Recently, Levis and Google have developed a Smart jacket that can connect to the Internet. The jacket is called a Commuter Trucker Jacket by Jaquard (https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/beazley-designs-of-the-year/fashion/levis-commuter-trucker-jacket-with-jacquard-by-google).

Those who wear the jacket can tap or swipe the jacket sleeve to access mobile services. The jacket can be washed (once the snap tag is removed).

Energy Action Month

October is Energy Action Month. 

What safe, renewable energy sources will be available to you in the future? Some researchers think that one day clothes--your T-shirt and jeans--may be able generate electricity. This electricity could be used to power devices e.g. cellphones. 

That sounds far-fetched but scientists at University of California at Berkeley have been working on this idea since 2010.
 
At the University of Georgia, Zhong Lin Wang and his team are trying to create a fabric that can harvest energy from the sun as well as motion.

Fabric that generates energy based on movement will use triboelectric nanogenerators. Fabric that generates solar energy would require photo anodes. 

Are we headed to a brave new world where our clothes will power our devices? 

More information about Energy Action Month for students and teachers can be found here,
 http://www.need.org/content.asp?contentid=175

http://www.energy.gov 

The Gracekeepers by Kristy Logan

The Gracekeepers by Kristy Logan is  a magical realistic novel that addresses rising sea levels--an event that will happen if the climate continues to change. 

After the sea levels have risen, colonies of people called "Damplings," permanently reside on ships. They are ostracized by "Landlockers" who trade with them but do not want to socialize with them.

A third more mysterious group of people, the
"Mer" people are forced to hide their existence. Landlockers kill "Mer" babies, who have gills or webbing between their fingers, out of fear. 

Logan pits one of these Mer people, Callanish, against the Landlocker culture that wishes to obliterate her kind. Logan also juxtaposes North, the "bear girl" from a dampling circus troupe, with Callanish.

This is a novel that expertly explores how prejudice, fear, and superstition can harm society.

Logan reserves her most biting criticism for her criticism of each group's religious affiliations. The Landlockers worship the World Tree, a kind of pagan worship, that involves processions. The damplings worship gods of the sea. 

Logan paints Christian "revivalist" ships, in a particularly gloomy light. She also decries the revivalist's image of a Virgin in blue robes.

Though there are few missteps, her overt distaste of religion, this is a captivating, powerful novel with intriguing characters that should not be missed. 

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan Macguire

There was still something unfinished around her eyes; she wasn't done yet. She was a story, not an epilogue.

Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire.

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

Sy Montgomery a naturalist who writes for children and adults alike explores the minds of invertebrates in The Soul of an Octopus. 

Montgomery writes that Octopuses are highly intelligent and curious creatures, even if their minds are wired differently.

Montgomery discovers that octopuses, like dogs and other mammals, often have the desire to play.

Octopus display emotion by changing colors and can taste with their tentacles. They can solve problems--undo locks, create shelters, fool predators, and recognize human caretakers.

Their minds are so similar to ours that they even succumb to a similar decline in old age. 

While they live relatively a short period of time--three or more years as compared to a human's life span of seventy or more years--they undergo similar changes during the aging process. 

Before she dies, an octopus Montgomery has gotten to know well lays eggs. Though this is a bittersweet moment--all female octopuses die after laying eggs--the author feels proud of her "friend."

Though she frequently cites philosophers and scientists, Montgomery adds her own heartfelt observations. 

Montgomery has a great deal of empathy for the animals she studies. She also has a great deal of admiration for the interns, volunteers, and scientists that work with marine life.  

The Soul of an Octopus is one of several recent books highlighting animal intelligence:


Boysen, Sally. The Smartest Animals in the World.
Hauser, Marc D. Wild Minds. 
Virga, Vint. The Soul of All Living Creatures.
Waal, Frans. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? 

Marlena

In Marlena by Julie Buntin, Cat becomes captivated by her magnetic, yet tragically vulnerable next door neighbor, Marlena. After her Dad leaves them, Cat and the rest of the family move to Silver Lake, a small Northern Michigan community, where they hope to start over. 

Cat is soon spending every minute with her new neighbor and friend, Marlena. Older and more sophisticated, Marlena takes Cat down a typical wormhole of drugs and alcohol. 

An older wiser Cat narrates the story while flashbacks tell the story of her fifteenth summer. This dual perspective novel shows how complicated friendships can have lasting repercussions.

www.juliebuntin.com

The Zookeeper's Wife: a DVD

The Zookeeper's Wife is beautifully shot and acted. Director, Niki Caro, used real animals and real cages rather than CGI. The rapport between Antonina (Jessica Chastain) and the animals is genuine. This in itself must have been incredibly hard to film.

The story arc is beautiful; In the beginning, Antonina wishes to save only one Jewish friend, Magda. The risks are incredible to take in even one. Nazi troops patrols the zoo in the mornings and afternoons.

Antonina and her husband rescue 300 Jews from certain death in tunnels under her zoo. She maintains a friendship with one of Hitler's most trusted men, Lutz Heck, and devises an ingenious plan. 

Chastain portrays the character's duality-- her intensity and equanimity--in such a unique way.  

Awesome beginnings

"The snow had been falling for three days above six thousand feet, but it has been gentle and hte lines stayed up. At this point in the season, after a long Montana winter that showed no sings of breaking, Sabrina Baldwin considered this a gift...Then, on the fourth day, the wind rose. And the lights blinked."  

Rise the Dark, Michael Koyta.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

When this novel came out a few years ago I remember it was a juggernaut. Every book review in every professional library journal was effusive. 

Some compared it to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, where an ordinary person happens to see a crime. In this case, Rachel is a bit of voyeur who witnesses an act of infidelity.

On her commuter train, she sees a couple whose perfect life she romanticizes. She has recently divorced from her own "perfect" husband. The couple whom she names Jess and Jason becomes her ideal until she witnesses something disturbing. 

She comes forward to the police to report what she knows. Sgt. Riley thinks she is a bit of kook. No one takes Rachel  seriously because she is an unreliable witness. Rachel has had an alcohol problem even before Tom left her for another woman. Since then, its only gotten worst. 

Hawkins gives us the situation and then alternates between many characters' point of view--a difficult juggling act. What is amazing is that none of the tension is lost as she moves from character to character. She withholds just enough to keep the pacing taut and suspenseful.

Psychological fiction and unreliable narrators are hot right now; there are many read-alikes to choose from. This one happens to be one of the best. 

The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman

World War II-era fiction is popular right now but what makes this debut different is that it  portrays an ordinary German family. The incidents were inspired by the author's own family. Wiseman's mother's family lived in Germany during the war. 

The story is centered around Christine and her desire to protect her family and her boyfriend who is Jewish.

The Plum Tree is about longing, loyalty, and incredible bravery of the people who fought injustice. 

For a time, resistance was simply leaving hard-boiled eggs in places where the Jewish prisoners could find them. 

Eventually, Christine hides Isaac in the family attic. Once he is discovered, though, both are sent to Dachau.

She receives one of the better jobs and works for one of the better captors. Even so, her stay in Dachau nearly kills her. 

Wiseman explains in an afterward which historical details were altered to fit the story.

A Review of Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola

Reading memoirs is cathartic. They offer tiny glimpses into someone else's life. Sometimes they make a reader breathe a sign of relief.

Hepola, who was a writer before and after becoming sober, also found stories cathartic. She would often read about addicts with relief that she "wasn't that bad."

Eventually, however, it did become "that bad." One particularly bad episode in Paris, when Hepola was starting out as a journalist, left her mortified for years. She woke up in a stranger's room with no idea how she had gotten there.


Hepola, who had her first blackout at twelve, continued to drink in high school. Attending University of Texas at Austin, Hepola was caught in a downward spiral.

She describes the unnerving feeling of whole chunks of her life disappearing as if they were "scooped...by a melon baller." 

Hepola drank to ease her anxieties about her weight and her social status in school:

I needed alcohol to drink away the things that plagued me. Not just my doubts about sex – my self-consciousness, my loneliness, my insecurities, my fears.

Later, she drank because she thought it helped her writing. After college she wrote for the entertainment section of an Austin, Texas newspaper. 

After re-evaluating her life, Sarah embarks upon a painful journey of sobriety.

We've heard this story told many times, in many different forms, but never told so well.


Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget was a New York Times bestseller.  



Similar stories about addiction:
  
Jacobsen, Lea. Bar Flower. 
Laing, Olivia. The Trip to Echo Spring.
Vargas, Elizabeth. Between Breaths: a Memoir of Panic and Addiction. 

More memoirs:
Parravani, Christa. Her: A Memoir.
Cahalan, Susan. My Brain on Fire.  
Mcbride, Regina. Ghost Songs: A Memoir.

Hugo: A Look Back

Hugo was released six years ago. Since then its lost none of its charm. 

Hugo is a well-shot and well-acted movie that also happens to have a beautiful message.

I first became aware of the book which I always meant to read. The book is a marvelously illustrated and written by Brian Selznick.

Wonderful moments abound in this film, like Hugo hanging on to the arms of enormous clock. The scene looks like something out of the silent film Safety Last. The film honors silent films and silent film makers so this scene is so fitting.

One of the best aspects of the movie, however, is the theme.

Standing near the clear dial of the clock, which is an enormous window, Hugo realizes that the world is like an enormous machine.

If someone has lost their purpose, they are broken, just like the automaton Hugo's father found. Yet, that doesn't mean they can't be "fixed" or redeemed. 

"Are you a fixer?" Isabelle asks Hugo. Humbly, he says, "I think so."

The villain of the story and the movie has a prosthetic leg, which he needs because of a war injury.

The war has left him embittered; plus, he has had a terrible childhood. Consequently, he delights in locking up and terrorizing orphaned children.

Even this character though is "fixed," in the end, as he returns with a working leg, presumably fixed by Hugo and Papa Georges.

The Darkest Part of the Forest

In a town called Fairfolk, which lies close to the woods,  mysterious things always happened.

Things get even stranger after someone breaks into a glass coffin that holds a strange, horned boy. For years, townspeople have told stories about this local legend.

Local teens,  Hazel and Ben, have repeated those stories and even created some of their own. Other Fairfolk townspeople may have doubted that he was real--stating he was a statue.

Hazel not only knows the Prince is real but she also wants to be the one that saves him from the curse.

One night Hazel does break the spell that binds him. She can't remember that night, though, because of a bargain she had made with the Folk. 

Wanting music lessons for her brother, she gave the Folk seven years of her life. As a result, Hazel is "losing time." Disappearing in the middle of the night to do errands for them, Hazel has no memories of the events later.

Mysterious, intriguing, and fast-paced, this a wonderful YA read. Even if there are some mature themes, Hazel is a hero most girls can look up to. She save a city, her brother, a prince, and most importantly herself. 

If you like this novel, you may like Holly Black's A Modern Faeries Tale series, which includes Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside.

Humor

"Sometimes it takes time and distance to discover what is funny about ourselves...Humiliation plus time equals humor."

Lisa Yee, author of Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Horn Book Magazine, May/June 2017.