The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Ha! The title of this book is, in effect, a super-simplified plot overview: our heroes wind up at what is indeed a small, angry planet in the end, and they definitely go a long, long way to get there.

Something Old, Something New

It's a fun journey for readers because Becky Chambers does such a nice job of creating an innovative future world with just enough familiarity to let us absorb it all without too much confusion. The tone of the book is playful, the plot and characters are entertaining, and the language is simple enough that it's a pretty quick read. That said, there are still many confusing and complex aspects to consider.

Wormholes, for instance, present a scientific challenge not only for Rosemary to understand, but for readers as well. And then, of course, there are the numerous and varied alien species included in the book: Sianat pairs, Harmagians, Grum, Aandrisks, and the like, each with their own political backstory and cultural norms.

A Complex and Intriguing Universe

One thing is for certain: when Chambers created this universe, she was thinking big. Big enough that she wrote a stand-alone sequel, A Closed and Common Orbit, so that she could continue to explore new characters and locations in this sci-fi world. (So if you enjoyed this read, you may want to delve into that book next.)

But back to Long Way...

People often consider genres such as sci-fi and horror somewhat lowbrow—as in, not terribly literary. We think of them as pulpy: quick reads, good fun, but not the stuff of serious scholarship. In creating the intricate world of the Wayfarer series, however, Chambers has packed her novel full of distinct characters, innovative technology, and complex social issues all ripe for investigation. Which brings us to...

Your Potential Assignments

Option #1: Becky's Future
In an interview with The Mary Sue, Becky Chambers said, "Anytime anyone’s writing science fiction, they’re writing the future they want to see." So... what does the future Chambers created say about the future she would like to see? Muse on that in a paragraph or two, a poem, a collage—anything that helps to illustrate the kind of future you think Becky Chambers was intent on creating when she wrote this novel.

Option #2: We Are Family
Family is a big theme in this book. So... what do all the various mentions of family add up to? Track down at least three instances in which the idea of family is discussed or alluded to. (Be sure to note page numbers so you can find them quickly during the discussion.) Examine these references and try to decide what, exactly, the novel says about family.

Option #3: Humans vs. Aliens
One interesting aspect of the novel is the vision we get of humans through the eyes of other species. Dr. Chef and Sissix in particular seem to frequently muse about the strange ways in which humans approach various issues and events. Find a couple of examples of this—instances in which we see humans through the eyes of an another species. For each example, identify both what is being directly said about humans (the actual dialogue) and what is being implied (the ultimate lesson about—or the new perspective of— humanity we are being encouraged to consider).

Option #4: Humans vs. Humans
There are at least three different subsets of humans mentioned in this novel, and they all have different backstories, beliefs, and political leanings. First, figure out what these subsets are (HINT: one of the subsets is the Exodans). Then briefly explain their origins. They all started on Earth, of course, so how did they become three separate factions? Finally, ponder Chambers' reasons for presenting humans in this way instead of just as one, unified species, like say, the Aandrisks. What was she thinking? What effect does it have on the story?

Option #5: Alien-palooza
Make a list of all of the different alien species that are mentioned in the book. From that list, choose a few to draw or describe in detail. You can create illustrations, give their political backstory, explain some of their social norms, highlight their main characteristics—whatever helps to best create a full portrait of them.

Option #6: Reader's Choice
As always, you are welcome to create and complete your own assignment. Have at it!

That's it for now. Happy reading!

The Good Braider

The Good Braider by Terry Farish is the story of a young girl from Sudan, but the bulk of the story takes place right here in Portland, Maine.

That's because Viola, the protagonist, is forced to flee Sudan amidst the violence of a civil war. After traveling many miles and spending time in a refugee camp in Cairo, Egypt, Viola and her mother finally get the papers they need to resettle as refugees in the United States—in Portland.

The Good Braider gets to the heart of what it was like for Viola to leave her home and adjust to life in a brand new place with a different culture, different people, different smells, tastes, and sounds. It's a journey that takes great courage and requires great resilience, and Farish's fictional character, Viola, tells it well.

As we discuss The Good Braider, we'll talk about what it means to be a refugee and how refugees come to be resettled in places like Maine. We'll also talk about the structure of the book, its themes, symbols, and motifs, the characters, and any questions or comments that arise. And, since Kennedy Park figures so prominently in the story, we may even step outside and take a look around the neighborhood to see what's what.

To prepare for our discussion, please complete one of the assignments below and come ready to share your thoughts with the group.

Potential Assignments

Option #1: Theme-o-rama
A theme is a central idea in a book, poem, short story, film, song, painting—essentially any creative work. The following themes are all prominent in The Good Braider:

• Cultural traditions and acculturation
• Family relationships, particularly between mothers and daughters
• Personal resilience
• The power of education
• Immigration and refugee resettlement
• Friendship
• Loyalty
• The importance of community

Choose one of these themes (or one of your own—there are others). Explain how your theme shows up in the book and what the book seems to say about it.

Option #2: What's up with the title?
Why "The Good Braider"? What do braids have to do with anything? Who is the good braider? What does it mean to be a good braider? Where do braids show up in the novel? Focus in on the title and dig deep to uncover its meaning and how it is woven into the story. (You see what I did there?)

Options #3: Life is an Obstacle Course
Viola and her mother flee violence, war, and poverty in Sudan. They overcome many obstacles to get to America, but in America they find new obstacles. Think about the obstacles Viola and her mother (and other characters from Sudan) face in their new home. Then write an essay, a poem, a couple of paragraphs; draw a picture; make a collage; create a poster; do something to explain, illustrate, or highlight the obstacles they face in establishing themselves in Portland, Maine.

Option #4: Inter(al)lude
Sorry. I couldn't come up with a better name for this one. In any case, there are many allusions to other books, songs, and poems in The Good Braider. (Psst! A lot of them, in my book at least, are on page 85.) Choose one of more of these allusions and find the book, poem, hymn, or author in question. Learn about your chosen allusion and try to determine why Farish chose to include a reference to it in her book.

Option #5: Reader's Choice
As always, if this book inspires you to write, create, craft, or ponder anything in particular, do that! And come to the discussion ready to share your musings with the group.

That's it for now. Happy reading!

Mummies, Winged Men, and Carnival Drama...

... all in one book!

Ray Bradbury's book of short stories, The October Country, is packed full of... interesting content. Indeed, most of the stories in this compilation were originally published in the horror and fantasy magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s. And many of them are just that: weird.

Bradbury is perhaps best known for his 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and his sci-fi short story collection The Martian Chronicles, but weird or no, his books and stories have enjoyed worldwide popularity. His work, which spans the genres of sci-fi, horror, fantasy, mystery, and realistic fiction, has been translated into 36 languages, and more than 8 million copies of his books have been sold.

Bradbury's work is commonly studied in schools and at universities, and in 2007 Bradbury received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board for "his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."

So, yeah. Ray Bradbury is a pretty big deal. If you need more convincing, you can check out his 2012 obituary in the New York Times, which gives an extensive overview of his writing career.

Potential Assignments

Please complete one of the following for our group on Friday.

Option #1: Discussion Leader
Create discussion questions for at least one story in the book and lead a discussion of that story for the group. Don't freak out. When I say "lead a discussion," I just mean walk us through your questions. Ask the questions, ask follow-up questions if you like—just give us a few things to think about as we talk about the story you've chosen.

Tip for creating good discussion questions: Read your question. If it can be answered with a "yes" or a "no," reword it. The goal is to make the questions open-ended so that they require more than one word answers. Check out the examples of open-ended questions at Your Dictionary to get a feel for how to ask them.

Option #2: Common Themes
Think about the stories that are included in this compilation. Do any of them share common themes? Try to identify a few themes that run through more than one story and be prepared to explain how the theme shows up in each story that you highlight.

Option #3: The Parts Make the Whole
Take the theme exercise one step further. What is it that holds all of these stories together in one compilation (aside from the binding of the book, of course)? Bradbury was a prolific writer. By the time this set of short stories was published in 1955, he would have had many stories to choose from to create the collection. So why these? Wow us with your theory.

Option #4: Top Ten
Bradbury lived to the age of 91 and he did a great many things during his nine decades on this earth. Put together a Top Ten List including some of your favorite facts about Bradbury. Try to surprise us and tell us a few things we don't know.

Option #5: Something Clever of Your Own Design
Inspired to write a song or poem? Draw, paint, or sculpt? Make a costume, create a diorama, write an essay, do a dramatic interpretation of a particular scene? Bring it. You can always reflect on the novel in your own way and share it with the group.

That's it for now. Happy reading and responding.

 

To Understand this Book...

...You're Going to Need to Understand Iran

Actually, that's a bit of an overstatement.

You can get a lot out of this book without knowing much about Iran at all. But to read this book well—and really: why wouldn't you want to read it well?—some understanding of Iran's history is necessary.

Thankfully, this is the age of the Internet, and such information isn't difficult to find. In fact, I found a great summary of the last 100 years in Iran written by Tara Ann Carter, a teacher at John Bartram High School in Philadelphia. So, for your edification, before you read the book, please take 15-20 minutes to read Carter's "An Abbreviated History of Modern Iran," which I've placed on our links page.

If you finish Carter's piece and you're thirsty for more, I've also included a timeline that I constructed from various sources and a link to a timeline that places events from the book in historical context. So... there's a lot of info that will be useful as you read this graphic novel. Peruse some of that information first, and then...

Enjoy the Pictures!

That's right. This one is a graphic, which—for many people—will make it a faster and "funner" (not a word—or is it?) read. So go ahead. Enjoy it. But don't go so fast that you don't appreciate the art.

In fact, one of your assignments below is all about the art, so be sure to stop and smell the pages every once in a while. No, not really. You don't have to smell them. Just make sure you slow yourself down enough to contemplate the images and what they communicate.

Assignments

As promised, here are a few potential assignments to choose from. Please come prepared to offer your ruminations on at least one.

Option #1: From Pictures to Words
Obviously, the manner in which Satrapi tells her tale—as a graphic novel—affects the way the story is perceived. That begs the question: how would Persepolis be different if it were written as a traditional novel? Let's find out. Choose a scene from Persepolis and rewrite it in prose. Bring your rewrite to group and bookmark the scene you rewrote so we can compare the two versions.

Option #2: From Words to Pictures
Choose a scene in another coming of age novel—one that is written in traditional a chapter format—and represent it in pictures, a la Persepolis. Bring your drawings and the book you took your scene from (with the scene bookmarked, please) to group so we can compare and contrast.

Option #3: The Symbolism in the Symbols
There are several items that act as symbols in Persepolis: the plastic key painted gold, the veil, cigarettes, the bread swan. Choose two of these symbols and analyze them. At what point in the story do we see these symbols? What is going on when they appear in the story? What do these symbols seem to represent?

Option #4: It's an Illusion
Actually, it's an allusion. Allusions are references that appear in a literary work, usually to call to mind an event or image that helps to illuminate some aspect of the text. Persepolis contains A LOT of allusions. Head on over to Shmoop.com and take a look at the list of allusions they provide. Choose at least five of these allusions and explain when they are used in the book... and why. What is accomplished by making the allusion? What purpose does it serve?

Option #5: Persepolis and You
(I stole this question from Knopf Doubleday Readers' Guide)

In an Associated Press interview, Satrapi said, “The only thing I hope is that people will read my book and see that this abstract thing, this Axis of Evil, is made up of individuals with lives and hopes.” And in her introduction to Persepolis, she explains that she wrote this book to show that Iran is not only a country of “fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism.” How does Satrapi go about challenging this myth? How doesPersepolis dispel or confirm your views on Iran? In what ways does reading this book deepen your understanding and knowledge of Iran, and the current situation in Iraq?

Option #6: Cool During Wartime
In the midst of a war and bombings and crazy edicts, the teens in Iran still just want to look cool. This is most evident in the chapter "The Cigarette," but you can find it elsewhere, too. Find some examples of teens being teens in this book, regardless of the fact that their country is in a volatile time... and then explain it. Why are kids willing to risk arrest to be "hip"? How do you think you would behave in this situation. 

Bonus: Can you think of a time when you maybe-probably shouldn't have done something particularly teenager-ish because of the circumstances, but did it anyway? Tell us that story and explain your thinking. 

Option #7: Your Choice
Seriously. If you find yourself inspired to write a poem, paint a picture, craft an essay, put together a collage, create a playlist, or respond to the book in any way at all, go for it. And bring in your work to share with the group. 

That's it. Happy reading! See you on the 21st.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

I know. You're all too young for that reference. Here's a little help. And here's a little reality check: this book has nothing to do with the Brady Bunch. (Or Steve Buscemi.)

This book is about The Martian, a.k.a., Mark Watney and his struggle for survival on the red planet—which, incidentally, you can see in the night sky this week. How serendipitous!

Martian, Martian, Martian!

Originally self-published, The Martian became a bestseller when author Andy Weir offered a Kindle version at the lowest possible price and people began downloading it like crazy.  A week later he was offered a movie deal, and we all know how that turned out.

But what did you think of the book? It's a classic survival tale, but instead of taking place on a desert island a la Robinson Crusoe or Castaway, our hero is stranded on another planet. We'll talk about how that twist changes things up when we meet for our last discussion of the year. We'll also talk about the potential assignments below, so come prepared to offer your ruminations on one or more of them.

Assignments

Option #1: The Hab
Mark Watney spends a lot of the book (and over a year of his life) in this structure. So... what does it look like? Use your mad research skills and your mad reading comprehension skills and create your best representation—2D, 3D (4D?)—of Watney's home away from home away from home. No pictures from the movie! We only want pictures (or models) that come from your mind.

Option #2: POV
The Point of View (POV) shifts multiple times throughout the narration. Identify the various points of view that are used to tell this story and discuss why the author may have chosen to tell the story in this way. How does each POV affect the overall story? What about the individual storylines? Could they be told from different POVs? Why or why not?

Option #3: Space Oddities
A couple of times in the narration, Mark refers to something scientific sounding (medium flexible sample container) and then provides a simpler title for the object ("Ziploc bag"). Look around your house and find some everyday, ordinary items that most people would be familiar with. Come up with scientific sounding names for each of these items, and bring your list of items to our discussion. You'll give us the scientific name, and we'll try to guess what the everyday item is.

Option #4: Survivors
What is is about Mark Watney that makes him a survivor? What particular qualities help to get him through his 549 Sols? Think about the rest of the Ares 3 crew: Lewis, Vogel, Johannsen, Beck, Martinez. Do you think any of them would have made it? Why or why not?

Option #5: Lights! Camera! Action!
We know this book has been made into a movie. From having read the novel, what do you think the major challenges would be in translating it to the big screen? What adaptations might need to be made? What, in particular, might a director, actor, or screenwriter need to think about in the process of turning this book into a movie?

All right. That's enough to start. Happy reading and I'll see you on Wednesday.

The Count of Monte Cristo...

... is a really long book. So what I have to say to you is: Read, Forrest, read!

Seriously. If you haven't yet finished, do your best to get there. But even if you haven't finished, come to group tomorrow ready to chat. There are a lot of topics we can cover regardless of whether or not everyone (or anyone?) has finished. (And I, myself, am struggling to get there, just so you know.)

I'm going to post assignments, as usual, but the main priority is to read. If you haven't finished reading, let the assignments wait. We'll have plenty of time to think about them and discuss them tomorrow.

Potential Assignments

Let it Go?
Vengeance. Forgiveness. Vengeance. Forgiveness. Like a game of “she loves me, she loves me not,” Dumas alternates between these two themes throughout the book. In your opinion, where does he ultimately land? Support your claim with evidence from the book.

Tick Tock Goes the Clock
There are stories within stories within stories in this book, which makes the linear timeline somewhat difficult to follow. Choose a character other than Dantes and reconstruct his or her timeline from 1815 forward. 

Symbols, Motifs, and Themes
See a symbol? Notice a motif? Have an idea about a theme the author seems to be riffing on? Name it and explain it to the rest of us.

Isn't it Byronic?

There are so many references to Byron, particularly with the idea that Dantes—as Monte Cristo— possesses the traits of a Byronic hero. But what does that mean? Spell it out for us. With or without references to Alanis Morrisette. 

All right. That's it, folks. Happy reading, and I look forward to seeing you all in about 30 hours. 

Crispin: The Cross of Lead

Mmmm... Crispin

Okay. That's inappropriate. But the title of this book (minus its subtitle, of course) kind of makes me think of potato chips.

Like I said: inappropriate. Still, we should take a minute (or two, or three) to think about the name of our title character—especially since he begins the book without a name.

"Asta's son." That's the only identity our protagonist has until he's nearly 14 years old.

What's in a Name?

It's hard to imagine what it would be like to be known only in relation to someone else. Clearly, there's a great deal of symbolism in the transformation of our title character from "Asta's son" to "Crispin."

And that transformation is appropriate (unlike my first subheading, above), because Crispin: The Cross of Lead is a classic coming-of-age story, or a bildungsroman, which is a much cooler term that means essentially the same thing.

We'll be talking about Crispin's transformation over the course of the book when we meet on Wednesday, so be sure to give it some thought. And, as usual, please peruse the potential assignments below and choose one to complete and be ready to discuss with the group.

Potential Assignments

#1: History Will Teach us... Something
Avi has set his tale in medieval England, and he's been very conscientious about giving us specific dates as well as making references to real historical events. Identify as many of these specific dates and events as you can and give us a primer. What is the Feast of St. Giles? What was going on in England in 1377 A.D.? Who is John Ball? There's a lot more where those came from. See what you can find.


#2: Bear's Words of Wisdom
It's hard not to like a singing, juggling, red-bearded giant with a heart of gold, but it's Bear's words that really win us over. He's full of philosophical gems like, "Living by answers is a form of death. It's only questions that keep you living" (Ch. 24, par. 23). Locate a few of Bear's gems and be ready to share  and discuss them. Be sure to note the chapter and paragraph where they appear so we can all find them in our editions.

#3: Symbolism
As I mentioned above, there's some definite symbolism in the protagonist's transformation from being known as "Asta's son" to fully embracing his given name, "Crispin." Be ready to offer your thoughts on that instance of symbolism in the book, or choose another example of symbolism that you've found and walk us through that one. What's the symbol? What happens with/to the symbol? What does it all mean?

#4: Motifs
Motifs are different from symbols. Symbols are specific. Think "Piggy's glasses" or "the conch" in Lord of the Flies. Motifs, on the other hand, are recurring images, objects, words, phrases, actions, or ideas that pop-up throughout a book. Again, from Lord of the Flies, think "shadows," "masks," or "Christian imagery." Motifs help to unify a story and are often used to suggest greater meaning. So.... do you see any motifs in Crispin: The Cross of Lead? See if you can come up with one and figure out what it's all about.

#5: Imagery & Road Trips
Um... those two things don't necessarily go together perfectly, but I wanted to make sure I gave you an assignment tailored toward creating some kind of picture. So, for this assignment, you can do one of the following.

• 5A: One thing you may not have known about this book (unless you read the author interview), is that Avi originally wrote it in verse format, like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Some of that structure is still evident in the ample imagery that is included in Avi's language. Find an example of this imagery (in Avi's poetic descriptions of characters or places) and use his words to help you create a sketch (painting, drawing, collage).
  
  OR

• 5B: Make us a map that illustrates Crispin's travels through England. Be sure to highlight places where significant events take place. 

All right. That's it. Happy reading and I'll see you on Wednesday.