Zen Sarcasm Reviews

But I'm All Over That Cartwheel

I'm not exactly a book groupie.  I don't wait for new books to be released very often and I don't check the New York Times bestseller list to see how my favorites are doing.  However, ever since I heard of the existence of this book, I had been anxiously waiting for its release.  And when MotherTalk announced that they'd be holding a tour for it, I actually ran up and down the stairs, squealing.

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"The Daring Book From Girls" is, in one word, awesome.

After getting "The Dangerous Book For Boys" for Monsieur Meow this past Father's day, a small part of me lamented that there was no equally cool and dangerous counterpart for us girls.  Still, I stole the book away from my husband and pored over information about different knots, nautical language, pirate flags, and all manner of cool things for boys to do.

"And girls, too," I kept thinking.

Luckily, so did Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, and hence "The Daring Book For Girls" was born.  Thank YOU, daring girls!

Echoes of my childhood and of the childhood I wish I'd had came crashing into my mind as I read and reread how to play double dutch, how to do a back walk-over (eeks!), and how to make all sorts of different crafts--like friendship bracelets!! or the fortune cookie!!-- one of the favorite ways of asking yourself a million times if a boy liked you without getting tired (or feeling like you were, in fact, asking an inanimate object to give you an answer.  I felt nothing but pure, unbridled glee when reading about daring girls from the past and learning about girl pirates --information which I plan to use for a birthday party soon, as a matter of fact.

It's hard to pick which one of the many different things the book teaches you is the coolest.  Although I must say: girl pirates?  Yes.

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But the best part is possibly that the book dares you to be a more daring girl yourself.  Even if you're the mother of all boys, this is a skill and a set of values that you can appreciate:  that being a daring girl --a girl who knows how to use tools, how to tell a good story, how to tie up a dinghy so it doesn't go floating off, and who keeps tally of which fears she's stared right in the face and which she's yet to conquer-- is a skill that needs to be taught, cultivated, explored, and passed down from parents to children.

Being a daring girl, or rather a daring person, should be a goal to cultivate in us all.

Do I recommend this book?  Oh heck yeah. 

I'm passing on the back walk-over, though.

Sometimes, The Right Words Are "Read This"

When "The Right Words At The Right Time Volume 2: Your Turn! " arrived a couple of weeks ago for my review and I took it out of its nice, snug packaging, my husband let out a small whistle if I remember correctly.

The kind of whistle that says, "Ooh... a long book of possibly cheesy non-fiction.  Boy are you in for it." 

I shrugged and immediately opened it up.  I've been a fan of Marlo Thomas for a while --because she was so adorably perky in That Girl and I used to mainline Nick at Night like it was going out of style; because she cares about kids and is an educator; because she seems to genuinely believe in the good of people; and finally, because she just appears to be a famous person who's never lost her head in the abyss and perils of fame.

So while Monsieur Meow lost himself in some sort of sport on tv, I started reading this book and I simply could not put it down.  I was sucked into the spirit of it completely, and what my poor dear had to endure for the next couple of weeks or so was sessions of intense reading silence punctuated by little bitty sobs and blubbering.  Every once in a while, I would be asked if I was okay --all the while getting the "I told you so" look.  Yup... I'm predictably emotional, but this book is far from your average cheesiness.  Or maybe it is exactly your average cheesiness, and yet much more than that.

After getting several more headshakes, I started pushing the book under his nose to read a few of the vignettes.  And I don't know exactly which one got to him --made him grow silent, made him think, made him protest-- but soon thereafter he stopped picking on my blubbering and would squeeze my hand whenever I'd let out a treacly little whine.

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The original Right Words book was a compilation of short memoirs from famous and notorious people, whose lives were changed with simple words-- not always encouraging, these words, but always remembered by the writer. 

As a follow-up book --due to demand and to a contest by Parade magazine-- the soapbox was turned over to regular folks who were given an opportunity to share their stories and their right words.  What is compiled, then, is a patchwork of different voices.  These voices could be anyone you know: there are older folks and younger ones; male and female; convicted and free; mournful and recovered; doubtful and resolved.  Many of the writers have their own story of sorrow and hope brought to them by having lost a loved one during the September 11th tragedies.  The stories are simple but the act of reading them --as the act of writing them must have done for the writer-- have a catalyzing power that is deeply moving.

Because at the core of this experiment --a collective encouragement session-- is the true spirit of realizing that no matter how different we think we are from one another or how unique we perceive our sorrow or our grief or our pickle to be, we can always learn from others or take something meaningful from what could otherwise be perceived as a meaningless exchange.  In other words, some of these actual stories could have had all the meaning and connection of two ships passing each other in the darkest night, were it not for the time and love that the people for whom they've meant something put into passing them on to us.

This book is a sweet relief and a balm and a true gift.  And my husband, though he will never admit it, found some timely words himself within, for his own soothing.  But please don't tell him I told you.

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As usual, thank you to Mother Talk for letting me participate in their blog tours!

When "Nothing" Is Really "Everything"

(Originally posted here)

If I were still Roman Catholic, I'd nominate Naomi Stadlen for sainthood.

Okay,  I just totally lifted that from what Frank McCourt said about Lynne Truss-- she of the awesome Eats, Shoots and Leaves. 

However, Naomi Stadlen --the author of the book What Mothers Do --Especially When It Looks Like Nothing-- gets my awesomeness award.

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Being a mother is like falling down the longest and strangest wormhole ever.  And at least Alice's wormhole dumped her, albeit unceremoniously, someplace magical and wonderful.  Motherhood is a wormhole with no end, and Naomi Stadlen's book -- a collection of snippets from conversations with new and not-as-new mothers interspersed with facts and quotes from research and from many other mothering books-- is here to reinterpret the obvious in a compassionate and erudite way.

From the outset, picking up this book was like having a warm embrace and a gentle hand patting my back and telling me, "There, there, love. It WAS that hard in the early days."  Reading about the frustration and the exhaustion mixed in with the joys of motherhood -- unedited and without as much outward pushing of an agenda as most other books about the subject tend to do-- was comforting and reassuring and, most importantly, it described chapter by chapter the reasons why while my own personal life is wonderful and challenging and exhausting and rewarding and frustrating, to the outward world the only description I can ever muster of what I do is that I am a "stay-at-home mother"; a description said with a shrug of the shoulders and a certain self-conscious grimace, meant to urge the querent to hurry the eff up and ask me another question that I may be able to answer a little bit better, or at least be able to answer with words.

The book is divided into chapters such as "So Tired I Thought I'd Die", "I Get Nothing Done All Day",  and " Snapping at My Partner"-- which may sound horrible to a person who's never had kids, but which will ring so very true to anyone who does.  In each section, we read voices that sound so much like myself or like my friends and acquaintances who've been through this process with me, it was almost eerie.  And when she contrasts these contemporaries of mine with accounts from many many generations ago --including several quotes from Plato's ideas on raising children-- the overall effect is as relieving as it is unsettlingly familiar.

Throughout the book, Ms. Stadlen tries to keep the focus on a vindication and a validation of mothering and motherhood and away from comparing and taking sides in the mothering debate along the all-too-familiar breastmilk-vs-formula and stay-at-home-vs-working-mother warfields.  While I think she does a good job of steering clear of the main battles in these divisive mother lines, it is clear that her stance --and to a certain degree, her advocacy-- is more along the lines of the breastfeeding/stay-at-home/crunchy-motheresque persuasion.  This could be unpalatable reading to mothers whose choices are diametrically different from the ones listed above, but at the same time it is also a validation of how their own choices have made their jobs as mothers challenging in their own unique ways.  In fact, one of the best things about this book is the stressing of the uniqueness of each mother and child bond.

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From my own point of view --validated by this wonderful book-- having a child and rearing it yourself day in and day out amazingly looks like nothing, both from within, as you spend your days tra-la-laing yet another little ditty with an Elmo voice; and from without, as you meet people with jobs and responsibilities and titles that represent money in the kitty while you --it is widely assumed-- sit in your pajamas and go about your day in a leisurely manner, only having to worry perhaps about changing a diaper here or there.

I have never felt as not-alone about my role as a mother as I have reading this book.  Thank you, Mother Talk , for allowing me to read this excellent book and share it with my blog friends.

Smells Like Genetically-Modified Teen Spirit

(Originally posted here)

I recently finished reading Maximum Ride 3: Saving The World And Other Extreme Sports as a part of Mother-Talk's Blog Tour of the book.

I must take an aside right now and say that if at any time during your blogging career you're offered free books, that you should go ahead and take that offer because it is incredibly thrilling to come back from vacation and find your shiny new book waiting for you with a whole bunch of official-looking paraphernalia that insured it arrived in your house.  Very.  Cool.

I must also say that reading a book because you must feels like all the book assignments I avoided until the last possible moment. Confession time:  I did not read, nor did I at any point show any true interest in reading, Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck.  I am really sorry about that, Mrs. Harray, and I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Max P for even managing to get a B on a book report for a book I never read.  I'm sure it's great, however, and I think I'll read it soon-- if only to see what I missed fourteen years ago.

So Max (that's the main character in the Maximum Ride series) and her gang of winged buddies lingered for a little bit on my nightstand, eyeing me scornfully and filled with teenage angst.

(It's a good thing I used to work with teenagers, because while those stares are compelling, they are also reeeeeally easy to ignore.)

But then I was intrigued: some people have been hailing this series (of which there are three books now) "the next Harry Potter" and other grandiose claims.  For the record, this is no Harry Potter: the voice in which the HP books is written is a voice that at once summons and hushes the little ones into listening and also winks and nudges the adults in the audience.  It's not so much a young adult book, but a book with young adult themes but suitable for all crowds.

I would say that this series is neatly contained within the young adult category only-- and that is a good thing too.

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The book, which is the third of the series and which starts by guilt-tripping the first-timer about having to catch us up --in a très teenager way-- switches between Max's sardonic, self-assured and jaded first-person narrative and third-person limited omniscient, which follows Fang's point of view.  Fang is the tall-dark-handsome-brooding counterpart to Max's fiery teen persona, and Fang and Max luuuuuuurve each other.  Fang is also extra cool because he, ahem, blogs.  He keeps a blog --which you can actually see here, sort of-- and it is thanks to his blog, which Max dismisses, that Fang pretty much saves the day.

No, not a spoiler.  Just a matter of fact, because blogs are awesome. (not that I have a bias here or anything)

Max, Fang, Nudge, Angel, Gazzy and Iggy are six children --well, okay... three teenagers and three children, because I know how touchy teens are about being called children-- who have grown up as genetically-enhanced wards of a monstrous and evil research company. They also carry around a little talking dog, whose name is Total, and which Angel --a six-year-old who can not only fly but also control minds-- adopted in an earlier installment of the series.  Their mission is to save the world from the certain destruction that will come about from messing too much with human beings and from polluting the earth-- both crimes of which the evil research company that begat them is guilty.  Sounds lofty and a teensy bit improbable, apart from the flying-kids bit, but it's a sweet and worthwhile premise that forces you to listen to some sermonizing along with your action-adventure.

The book reads very quickly and it's quite a bit of butt-kicking, edge-of-your-seat suspense bit of goodness.  It will have you laughing out loud and shrieking; however, it also -- and I blame this on either the overly-simplistic prose for young adults or on the fact that there is most likely a fourth book in the works-- has some Mack-truck-ready plot holes.

I don't like plot holes, and especially not toward the end of the book.  So this was, at best, a bit of a nuisance.  At worst, it left me wondering about things and feeling unfulfilled and wondering if it was just all a plot to keep me tuned for when book number four comes out. 

Honestly, though,I think I enjoyed this book enough to

a) read books one and two
and
b) read book four and see what the rest of the series brings forth

So, if you have a teenager in your life or are looking for a fun and light series to attempt to fill your Harry Potter void, or you just happen to like stories about genetically enhanced kids with wings, I heartily recommend Saving The World and Other Extreme Sports. You'll have a good time remembering those halcyon days when saying "whatever" and rolling your eyes was your most poignant mode of communication.

You'll be remembering last Thursday, if you're me.

Love, Irony-Free

(originally posted here)

I just saw "Becoming Jane" and I think that you should see it.  Seriously.  You should.

I'm just a big geek, really.  A geek who worships Miss Jane Austen, specifically (I have a couple of seriously highlighted copies of P&P, for instance).  But enough about me, because this is for you, dear reader.

Especially if you're a Jane Austen fan, and if you have two X chromosomes, and if you like a movie that will make you swoon and period costumes and Regency-dress balls all that good stuff, you should DEFINITELY go see this movie.  Gentlemen, you will like it too, as it features boxing.  Also, if you --unprompted-- decide to take your lady love to see this movie, I can almost guarantee you will be very happy by the end of the date. 
No thanks necessary, friend.

Contraindications: You should not see it if you have problems with little details such as the suspension of disbelief or badly-applied aging makeup (that's all I'll say because I'm trying to keep this spoiler-free).

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Let me backtrack: the buzz that is surrounding this movie, while it seems quite positive, is that it's too fictional.  Austen scholars (a.k.a. Geeks For Pay) claim that the plot deviates from Austen's real life in some pivotal places such as whether Jane Austen had read Tom Jones before or after meeting the man who presumably was the love of her life --the consensus here is that she'd read it before they met; and whether he really was, in fact, the love of her life or just someone with whom she had a brief flirtation. 

I feel I should add the following notes:  Yes, children.  Tom Jones isn't just a Welshman with a large panty collection.  Oh, and also that those geeks are always ruining everything: bear in mind that there are very few documents in existence that tell us very much about what kind of person Jane Austen was, or how she thought or what she did or about her daily life.  Certainly, there were no tabloids following her around to document how bad a driver she was.

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Back to the movie: the reason the movie is 95% wonderful (the 5% being that odd bit with the aging makeup that I shall no longer bring up) is that you can pretend that this happened.  You can suspend your disbelief and watch as the lovely Anne Hathaway --who looks milky-white and just-bitten honest-to-goodness lovely-- plays Jane Austen and goes from a girl who is "accomplished at writing" to a true writer with the heavy weight of heartache inside of her.  And it's just wooooooooonderful to swoon along with her and pine away for Tom Lefoy (played by the easy-on-the-eyes and thoroughly purrable James McAvoy).

Close your eyes and think of pining away for Darcy-- c'monnnnn..... Colin Firth!-- and it's kinda like that only that, you know, different.   Don't make me overexplain and reveal possible spoilers here, okay?

Yeah.  You'll have fun.

But seriously, it's a true delight to see snippets and bits of scenes from her books --most notably the awesome Pride and Prejudice--and imagine that they came about as bits of conversations or direct quotes from those who surrounded Jane in her life.  And it's crushing to see how the story unfolds, but at the same time you know it must unfold as it does because this is a verisimilitude of her real life --critics notwithstanding-- and you know that despite what your yearnings, or those of Jane or Tom are she died relatively young and unmarried.

And I guess that's what makes this movie wonderful: the crux of the premise is that we do know more than we think about Jane Austen: she wrote of what she was, what she saw, and the society she kept and that which she imagined from reading others' novels.  Her novels and her heroines are facets of herself and keys to what she might have lived-- though they were stories with the happy ending that eluded her in her own life.

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Thank you for getting this far and thank you to Mother Talk for including this blog in their "Becoming Jane" blog tour.

What are you still doing sitting here?  You have a movie to watch!

Pee Ess: Bring a hanky.