Owly

Owly is a kind-hearted little owl in a graphic novel series by Andy Runton. In his first story we see Owly fill his bird feeder only to feel sad when the birds fly away from him, as do the bugs he finds in a jar and frees. Owly is about to return home when he hears the sound of a little worm in distress. He rescues the worm, nurses it back to health and then helps the little worm find his way home.

Owly has almost no words, making it enjoyable reading material for kids of all ages. The first book in the Owly graphic novel series is The Way Home & The Bittersweet Summer. You can read a few of Owly's comics online here at Andy Runton's website and preview The Way Home at Top Shelf.

Best Books I've Recently Read

I haven't been posting what I've been reading, as all of my reading can now be viewed over at Good Reads, but I've recently read a few novels that deserve further attention and recommendation. Here are the best books I've recently read- all are highly recommended.

Flight by Sherman Alexie




From Sherman Alexie's site:

Sherman Alexie’s first novel in ten years is the hilarious and tragic portrait of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a violent search for his true identity.

Sherman Alexie is one of our most gifted and accomplished storytellers and a treasured writer of huge national stature. His first novel since Indian Killer is a powerful, fast, and timely story of a troubled foster teenager—a boy who is not a “legal” Indian because he was never claimed by his father—who learns the true meaning of terror.

The journey for this young hero begins as he’s about to commit a massive act of violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time and resurfaced in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era. Here he will be forced to see just why “Hell is Red River, Idaho, in the 1970s.” Red River is only the first stop in a shocking sojourn through moments of violence in American history. He will continue traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn and then ride with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these frantic trips through time, his refrain grows: “Who’s to judge?” and “I don’t understand humans.” When finally, blessedly, our young warrior comes to rest again in his own contemporary body, he is mightily transformed by all he’s seen.

This is Sherman Alexie at his most brilliant—making us laugh while he’s breaking our hearts. Time Out has said that “Alexie, like his characters, is on a modern-day vision quest,” and this has never been clearer than in Flight, where he seeks nothing less than an understanding of why human beings hate. Simultaneously wrenching and deeply humorous, wholly contemporary yet steeped in American history, Flight is irrepressible, fearless, and groundbreaking Alexie.

Kindred by Octavia E Butler



summary from enotes:

On her twenty-sixth birthday, Dana, the protagonist of Kindred, is overcome by nausea and finds herself on the bank of a river. When she sees a young boy drowning in the river, she jumps in and saves him. She is shocked when the boy's father points a gun at her head; it is clear that he is suspicious of Dana, a young black woman. Suddenly, she finds herself back in her living room. Although she was by the river for minutes, she has been away from home for only a few seconds.

Traumatized by the event, she calms down and begins to recover her wits. Suddenly she finds herself next to the same boy, named Rufus, in a burning bedroom. As she saves him again, Dana realizes that Rufus is calling her when his life is in danger. She discovers that the year is 1815, and although he is a white, Southern slave-owner, he is the future father of the first woman listed in her family records—Hagar Weylin. The woman listed as Hagar's mother, Alice Greenwood, is a free black child and Rufus' friend. Dana realizes that she has just saved the life of her ancestor.


The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

from an amazon review:

At the beginning of the novel Meena is in London, an old woman who has lived a tumultuous life. At the urging of her abolitionist sponsors, she is asked to pen her story which would be used as evidence depicting the cruelty and inhumanity of the slave trade. Meena, an intelligent, educated woman, authors her autobiography via vivid flashbacks through time. She writes, "Let me begin with a caveat to any and all who find these pages. Do not trust large bodies of water, and do not cross them. If you, dear reader, have an African hue and find yourself led toward water with vanishing shores, seize your freedom by any means necessary." She continues and details her life as a young child in an African village, her capture and Middle Passage crossing, enslavement while in America, relocation to Nova Scotia, return to Africa (Freetown, Sierra Leone), and partnering with abolitionists in England.

You can read the first 50 pages of The Book of Negroes below:

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

Best Children's Books



Oh, how we love Melanie Watt! Her Scaredy Squirrel series is clever and humourous, with wonderful illustrations. Scaredy worries about everything and makes several escape/emergency plans and never forgets that if all else fails, he can play dead. In each book Scaredy ends up having more fun than he ever imagined and even relaxing a little.


Jr loved them so much he requested a Scaredy picture for his latest t-shirt and searched through all of his Scaredy books until he selected just what image he wanted- Scaredy being frightened by a "killer" (albeit very friendly looking) bee.



The other book by Melanie Watt we have read was Augustine. Sweet Augustine is moving from the South Pole to the North Pole and is scared. She finds refuge in and makes friends through her artwork. Augustine's artwork also introduces children to a number of famous artworks. Her story is much quieter than Scaredy but Jr also became very attached to this little penguin.



Scaredy and Augustine spreads from kids can press.

Bookworm

I haven't been posting as many crafts on here lately, partly because I forget to take pictures of them before I give them away and partly because I have had my nose in a book for a lot of the past few weeks. I did a blog on books I read in September and here is my list since then. I was lucky enough to read some very, very good books in the last little while and wanted to share.

October 2008

The Future of Your Only Child

I didn't get a chance to finish this one before it was due back at the library but I think I may buy a copy for future reference, it was good.

The Secret Scripture- Sebastian Barry

This was a good book, it alternated from the point of view of an old woman who has spent most of her life in a mental hospital to the doctor who is trying to sort through her file and figure out why she was initially committed. The writing was very pretty and the story was set in Ireland, which sets a lot of the tone.

What Was Lost- Catherine O'Flynn. I really liked this book. From Publishers Weekly, via Amazon:

Stirring and beautifully crafted, this debut novel recounts how the repercussions of a girl's disappearance can last for decades. In 1984, Kate Meaney is a 10-year-old loner who solves imaginary mysteries and guesses the dark secrets of the shoppers she observes at the Green Oaks mall. Kate's unlikely circle includes her always-present stuffed monkey; 22-year-old Adrian, who works at the candy shop next door; and Kate's classmate, Teresa Stanton, who hides her intelligence behind disruptive behavior. Kate's grandmother has plans for Kate: send her to boarding school. But Kate doesn't want to go. Fast forward to 2003, where it's revealed through Lisa, Adrian's sister, that Kate disappeared nearly 20 years ago, and Adrian, blamed in her disappearance, also vanished. Lisa works at a record store in Green Oaks and is drawn to Kurt, a security guard whose surveillance-camera sightings of a little girl clutching a stuffed monkey hint that he might have ties to Kate's disappearance. Teresa, meanwhile, now a detective, has her own reasons for being haunted by Kate's disappearance. Gripping to the end, the book is both a chilling mystery and a poignant examination of the effects of loss and loneliness. (July)

Once Upon a Tomb: Stories from canadian graveyards- Nancy Millar.

A historical look at interesting tombstones and Canadian history through graveyards.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist- by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I read this book after seeing the movie and reading about the book on this post at feministing. I liked the book a lot and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys YA literature. B, you'd probably like it.

The Host- Stephenie Meyer (audiobook)

Interesting premise, some good characters but again the book was flawed, as I've complained about Meyer's work before. WTF is up with guys hurting women to show how much they love them?

Interview with the Vampire- Ann Rice (audiobook).

I still love this story. I thought I might get into the rest of the series (I read them years ago around the time the Interview movie came out) but found listening to Lestat way too boring!

Catcher in the Rye- (unfinished, due back at library)

I've always heard references to Catcher but hadn't ever read it. Why the hell did I think it was a story about a young boy growing up in the Prairies?? I plan on finishing this book sometime, maybe as an audiobook.

November 2008

Vinegar Hill- A Manette Ansay

I didn't have a hard time reading this book, but it never really grabbed me either.

Dead Until Dawn- Charlaine Harris

Total vampire cheese. Good for a bathtub or beach read. I really want to see the True Blood series when it comes to DVD.

Gods Behaving Badly- Marie Phillips

I found this book a lot of fun.

Second Glance- Jodi Picoult

I usually find Jodi Picoult's work interesting but not always satisfying.. sort of like watching a movie of the week vs a really good theatre movie. This book however, immediately caught my attention and kept it. I really liked it and would recommend it to anyone who found the premise interesting.

The Flying Troutmans- Miriam Lowes

Loved this book! I'm so glad I bought it so I can reread it. Not a lot happens and the characters are a bit over-the-top, but it was a lot of fun to read and I really enjoyed the characters, especially the kids.

December 2008- so far

Three Day Road- Joseph Boyden

2 young cree men raised in the bush after escaping residential school enlist in WWI. The story is told by the lone survivor of the two and his aunt who is paddling him home, a three day travel along the river. Cree people refer to dying as traveling "the three day road". The young passenger remembers the war and the events that lead to his friends' death and his aunt tells him stories of her own life as she was been raised to be a windigo killer.

I fell in love with this book. I don't mean in a way that it was a lot of fun, or I really liked it but in that it really touched me and I want to pretend the characters are real because I care about them so much. I requested this book as I was interested in Through Black Spruce, which won the Giller prize in Canada recently. When I picked up the hold at the library I was not very thrilled to see it was a war novel as I didn't think I would find it very interesting. I was so, so wrong. Some of the content is ghastly, but the writing was so beautiful. I could weep just thinking about Niska, Xavier and Elijah. Highly recommended.

Boy's Life- Robert R McCammon
The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman
Due South- Robert R McCammon
Vanishing Acts- Jodi Picoult
The Way the Crow Flies- Ann-marie MacDonald
Me Talk Pretty One Day- David Sedaris
Through Black Spruce- Joseph Boyden
Living with the Dead- Kelley Armstrong
Tales of Beetle the Bard- JK Rowling

Books I Read in September

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling



I still get really happy when Neville saves the day.


Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer




***SPOILERS***

What can I say? Stupid but fun. I laughed outloud when Edward remarks that the reason he is so gifted musically and so well read is that he hasn't been knocking boots for hours every night the last 100 years, unlike the rest of his family. Don't vampires have super sensitive hearing? Who'd want to live in a house with your partnered siblings, listening to them get it on all the time? And now that the vampire world knows you can make these strange, powerful, beautiful little beings by having sex with humans wouldn't there be a flood of vampire on human rape- vampires trying to create more of them? Oh, I need to just stop. The series is fun but has some serious problems and I'll leave it at that.

Shadow of the Wind- Carlos Ruiz Zafon



This book was pretty cool. Old secrets, enemies, ghosts, literature and a love story.

Sugar Queen



I enjoyed Garden Spells so wanted to give this one a try. It was too fluffy for my taste but I still enjoyed the bits of magic in it.


The Historian



I have been reading this one since August, it's a vampire novel based heavily on historical discoveries as the characters research the origins of vampires to help save a friend. It had it's good moments but some parts were lengthy and dull. I liked the characters but found the ending anti-climactic.


Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a public librarian



I wanted this one to be better than it was. I kept reading, hoping it would get better. Reading about someone else's annoying co-workers just isn't that interesting unless they are really weird. It was too bad, as I really wanted to like this book.


Keeping Faith- Jodi Picoult



Jodi Picoult writes books that are a little fluffy, fast reads and they often deal with controversial topics. This story was about a little girl in a non-religious family who starts exhibiting spiritual phenomena (seeing God, stigmata) during her parents' messy divorce.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris (audiobook by David Sedaris)



I laughed out loud several times listening to this audiobook. A must-read or listen for any Sedaris fan.

Jurassic Park- audiobook



Most people have seen the movie, but Jurassic Park is also a very good book. The story goes into more detail of course and there are lots exciting dinosaur scenes. This was fun to listen to on my mp3 player while walking as I would get lost in the story and even walk faster from the excitement, lol.

I've Not Been Posting Because

I know this will shock everyone, but I broke my digital camera. It was on a high shelf and I bumped it taking something else down and kaboom, it's broken. Plus the only craft I've really been doing is my christmas stocking cross-stitch and updates on that aren't very frequent (or interesting).

I'm currently reading Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, which I picked up at Goodwill (goodwill on 51st ave is my current my favourite thrift store).

In 19th-century Chile, a baby girl is left at the doorstep of Jeremy Sommers, director of the British Import and Export Company, Ltd., and his spinster sister, Rose. Rose raises Eliza to marry well and is understandably nonplussed when as a teenager she falls passionately in love with a poor clerk in the company. Eliza possesses all the feistiness and passion that Rose herself has suppressed, and when her somewhat indifferent lover heads north to San Francisco in search of gold, she follows, pregnant, disguised as a boy, and assisted by Tao Ch'ien, a Chinese doctor forced to work as a cook on a ship captained by John Sommers, brother to Jeremy and Rose. Not surprisingly, Eliza has some trouble locating her lover, but through a host of richly detailed adventures, she does find something more precious: freedom.

You can read an excerpt here. So far I've enjoyed reading it.

I am currently listening to Barbara Kingsolver's (author of The Poisonwood Bible) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life on CD. At first I thought it was a bit exaggerated and I was rolling my eyes a bit when she was talking about how disconnected we are from our food and that people don't know where or how it grows (literally, how food grows) and she gives examples of a chef friend of hers not knowing that potatos have green plants that grow above the ground or kids thinking spaghetti grows in the ground. But as it went on I realized that what I would think most people would know is knowledge I've likely taken for granted having grown up in houses with gardens and having farmers in the family. The book is along the lines of current reinterest in people growing their own food and buying food produced locally. I'm not ready to give up bananas and fruit that isn't canned in the winter, but it's an interesting read. She and her family move from Arizona (where she notes all their food and water is pretty much imported) to the Appalachian mountains to try and feed themselves off their land and with local food.

What I'm Reading

Left Hand of Darkness- I've been reading a bit more fantasy stuff of the werewolf and vampire genre and I thought I would maybe give Sci Fi a chance. In the lovely book and movie The Jane Austen Book Club, the lone male member of the book club is a huge Sci Fi fan and gives someone he is interested in a copy of The Left Hand of Darkness to introduce her to Science Fiction. I really liked the Jane Austen Book Club so I thought I would trust the author's taste and give Left Hand of Darkness a shot. So far though, I can only say "mildly interesting". I don't mind reading it, but when I'm not reading it, I'd almost rather find something else to do than return to it.

Sister Noon- I've just started this one, and it's by the author of the Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler. I'm really liking it so far, it's got interesting female lead characters (like JABC).

Excerpt from amazon:

Subtle undercurrents of race and class propel this intriguing novel laden with historic fact and fancy, mystery, voodoo, frontier rough-and-tumble and turn-of-the-century social conventions. The characters rooted in this rich, exotic loam are an unforgettable crop. In 1890s San Francisco, Lizzie Hayes is a 40-year-old spinster, the well-born volunteer treasurer of the Ladies' Relief and Protection Society Home, familiarly called the Brown Ark because of its "shipwrecked, random air, like something the tides had left. In this respect, it matched the fortunes of most of its residents." One day, the notorious, fascinating and possibly dangerous Mrs. Mary Ellen Pleasant arrives at the door of the Brown Ark with a girl, Jenny Ijub, a disturbing and winsome child, perhaps four years old, rumored to be the daughter of a mother buried at sea and an unknown father, though Lizzie suspects he could be rich and thus a valuable resource for the Home. Every character's tale is complicated, unpredictable and often engrossing. Mrs. Pleasant, for instance, is a former slave (or is she?), wealthy as a railroad baron, charitable, a witch and a legendary cook. Still beautiful at 70, she is a purported dealer in underground markets where sex, opium and even murder are for sale. Fowler (Sarah Canary; The Sweetheart Season) moves her principals through time and space seamlessly and gracefully, and exquisitely renders San Francisco as it grows from outpost to city. The temporal shifts and the unreliability of some characters' histories may be temporarily disorienting, but readers who bear with Fowler will be handsomely rewarded.

I am also looking through Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is really interesting and I'd recommend to anyone who is interested in knowing more about their cycle. For anyone looking for information on birth control or pregnancy it would be really useful as it helps you determine exactly when you are ovulating and when you can expect your menses.

I started reading the Camping with Kids book I described below and had to laugh outloud when I read an excerpt about how the author was asked to write a book about camping with children when she was pregnant. After camping in a tent for 5 day with her 8 month old she said the book would be one word: DON'T. I tented with Blackbird Jr when he was 3 months old in a 2 man tent we had to crawl in and out of (while holding the baby) and he was too little for mosquito spray or suntan lotion. Other cherished memories are sitting in a mosquito tent double pumping breastmilk (part of my daily routine made more special through camping) and fantasizing setting the campsite on fire. So yeah. Don't. Wait until they are older or at minimum, a big enough tent.

Back to the campsite book though, it has some nice reviews of campsites but the ones for Alberta are mostly all larger campsites that are for RV'ers, as the author ended up purchasing an RV to camp with her kids. That made it less relevant for me as a tenter as we prefer the smaller, walk-in tenting sites.

When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race

What I'm reading now: When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race

When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race



Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:

During the worst years of official racism in South Africa, the story of one young girl gripped the nation and came to symbolize the injustice, corruption, and arbitrary nature of apartheid. Born in 1955 to a pro-apartheid Afrikaner couple, Sandra Laing was officially registered and raised as a white child. But when she was sent to a boarding school for whites, she was mercilessly persecuted because of her dark skin and frizzy hair. Her parents attributed Sandra’s appearance to an interracial union far back in history; they swore Sandra was their child. Their neighbors, however, thought Mrs. Laing had committed adultery with a black man. The family was shunned. And when Sandra was ten, she was removed from school by the police and reclassified as “coloured.”

As a teenager, Sandra eloped with a black man, and her parents disowned her. The young woman, who had only known the privileged world of the whites, chose to begin again in a poor, rural, all-black township, where life was a desperate, day-to-day struggle against poverty, illness, and a legal system designed to enslave.

I also just finished rereading the Twilight series in pre-movie anticipation and I have to say, as much as I loved reading the series, if you are a human who finds herself in a relationship like Edward and Bellas, SEEK HELP. All romance aside, your boyfriend should not be treating you like an adorable moron and holding you hostage, okay? Some other, more thoughtful, critiques here in an amazon review and here in Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Read Stephenie Meyer.

Spring Fever Continues

It's -19 C out, but I just sewed this sweet jumper:



I love that it could be worn over a long sleeved onesie and jeans on a day like today or as a sundress with the diaper cover in the summer. Thanks for the idea for the diaper cover, m :)

I also made another chocolate swirl apron for the etsy store, this one is reversible.



It's way cuter in person, you'll just have to trust me on that one.

I read lots of books in February, hiding from the NEVER ENDING winter in literature. What I read:

The Glass Castle- Jeanette Walls
Fragile Things- Neil Gaiman (audiobook)
The Girls: A Novel- Lori Lansens
Brown Girl in the Ring- Nalo Hopkinson
Icy Sparks- Gwyn Hyman Rubio
Plain Janes- by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg (graphic novel)
American Born Chinese- Gene Luen Yang (graphic novel)
Book Thief- Markus Zusak
Anansi Boys- Neil Gaiman (audiobook)
Bitten- Kelley Armstrong
Stolen- Kelley Armstrong
A Year Without Made in China- Sarah Bongiorni

Of all those books, the best ones were The Glass Castle (a re-read for me), Fragile Things (could Gaiman be any more talented and brilliant?) and the graphic novel American Born Chinese. The Girls was interesting as well as it was written from the point of view of twins cojoined at their heads.

Right now I am reading Coyote Road: Trickster Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It's a collection of tales (some stories, some poems) about trickster characters in all sorts of settings. Trickster is an archetype that is found all over the world in many different cultures. Trickster can be male or female, wise and foolish, good and bad, but always loving to create chaos and play tricks on people, spirits and animals.

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited

Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn't until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins.



Just finished reading this. Anyone interested in families, twins, research or adoption would find it an interesting read.

You can also read more about the book on the book's website here.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

I highly recommend this novel for anyone who enjoys young adult literature. It's touching and funny.. I laughed and cried reading it.



from amazon, where you can read an excerpt from the book as well:

In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by acclaimed artist Ellen Forney, that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

Read this. I just went and read the entire graphic novel in one sitting. It's the story of part of a young girl's childhood in Iran during the revolution.



You can read an excerpt here.

There is a movie coming out based on the novels and animated in a way similar to the original illustrations, I will definitely be seeing it.

Reading

I just finished The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing this weekend. It is a series of short stories that revolve around the same character. It was well written and laugh out loud funny at times, but not trite. You can read the first 10 pages on amazon.



What I'm reading now is The Girls Who Went Away. If you are interested in adoption, I'd recommend this read. Based on interviews with women who were largely forced to put up their babies for adoption, it's really enlightening about adoption in the 50s and 60s.

Wist and What I'm Reading

I was locked out of my wist for a while (forgot the password) but I've since updated it with some cool stuff. You can click on an item to see the site where it came from for browsing fun.

Blackbird Pie's Wist

I started a good book Wednesday night. I read every day and will share any books that especially capture my interest.



The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic and often dazzling thriller. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. His research and a tip from a necrophilic paramedic lead him to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells "distressed" (demonized) homes, assured of their instant turnover. Boyle and Streator have both lost children to "crib death," and she confirms Streator's suspicions: the poem is an ancient lullaby or "culling song" that is lethal if spoken--or even thought--in a victim's direction. The misanthropic Streator, now armed with a deadly and uncontrollably catchy tune, goes on a minor killing spree until he recognizes his crimes and the song's devastating potential. Lullaby then turns into something of a road trip narrative, with Streator, Boyle, her empty-headed Wiccan secretary Mona, and Mona's vigilante boyfriend Oyster setting out across the U.S. to track down and destroy all copies of the poem.