Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything - Anne Wilsdorf
Ruby loved the eye test. In fact, she had a copy of it taped to the ceiling above her bed. At night she often fell asleep practicing it through one eye or another, just as a musician might practice a piece of music.
I'm always on the lookout for kids' books that deal with Chinese-Americans, particularly girls, so that when my daughters are a little older they can read about characters who look a little like them. This is the second book in the Ruby Lu series, which was described as "an Asian-American Judy Moody" by the author of the Judy Moody series (which I've never read). It's a chapter book, with cute characters and stories but doesn't really build to anything. Robyn and I read it and thought it was fun, but didn't really feel like the plot was going anywhere. However, for younger kids it's probably just fine and I appreciated the multiracial cast of characters.
In this book Ruby Lu's aunt, uncle, and cousin immigrate to the States and are living with them while they search for jobs. Her cousin, Flying Duck, is in the same grade as Ruby. Flying Duck is (of course) totally fascinating to Ruby and her classmates: not only is she an immigrant (and might as well be an alien from outer space), but she is also deaf and speaks English, Cantonese, and Chinese sign language, and can read lips.
Again, there's not much to describe plot-wise but it follows the girls through the school year and summer break. There's swimming lessons, a stray dog, eye tests, and an on-again, off-again friendship with her next-door neighbor Emma.
We're starting to read it to Ridley now; while Ruby is of course a rambunctious kid, I think she's not quite as obnoxious as Junie B. Jones, and the best part is that the book isn't written as if she wrote it, which means the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary are all much better.
Fed to jonathan's brain | June 28, 2008
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz
Dude wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his light saber or a Lensman her lens. Couldn't have passed for Normal if he'd wanted to.
Most of what I've heard about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was less about the story and more about the writing itself, and now that I've read the book, it's easy to understand why. Díaz peppers his story with Spanish, with references to Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons and plenty of sci-fi that I've never heard of. I'm not sure if some of it isn't Spanish or if it's slang, because half of it I haven't been able to look up anywhere. There are also copious footnotes, mostly detailing bits of Dominican history and culture. I heard an interview with Díaz where he said that he thought of reading as a communal activity; he felt that no single person should be able to catch all the references in the book, that it's the sort of book that should take sitting down with others and discussing. (He also mentioned Wikipedia, but somehow that's not quite the same.)
The story is about Oscar de León, who is an unfortunate combination: a fat Dominican nerd. No matter how he tries, he simply has no luck with the girls. He's like Comic-book Guy on "The Simpsons" except that, being Dominican, he's expected to be more of a Lothario. The book jumps around chronologically, from Oscar in high school to his mother's childhood and back to Oscar post-college. On one level it's an immigrant story, tracing the path of the de Le$oacute;n family from Santo Domingo to Paterson, New Jersey. It's also largely about Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic: "our Sauron, our Arawn, our Darkseid, our Once and Future Dictator, a personaje so outlandish, so perverse, so dreadful that not even a sci-fi writer could have made his a-- up." Trujillo's influence over Oscar's family looms large, but in the mixed-up chronology it takes us a while to discover the direct links.
There is also the concept of fukú, a curse which follows generation after generation, and the narrator explains that this is his primary reason for writing down this story. It's a zafa, a protection against fukú, but also an explanation of the disasters that seem to follow the de León clan wherever they go.
When I first started reading the book I tried to sit next to the computer to look up all the references and translate the Spanish, but eventually I gave up on that. Instead I just let the waves of references and language crash over me, occasionally catching an allusion or two. It's slightly disorienting when, for the second chapter only, Oscar's sister takes over the narration, mostly because the entire rest of the book is told by one person.
The book is ambitious in its scope and content but I think Díaz manages it well. It is, in the words of the narrator, a colorful lesson "for those of you who missed your mandatory two seconds of Dominican history." It's also a sad, sad tale about somebody who, in real life, we probably wouldn't have much compassion for. Díaz's narrator manages to walk a fine line between otaku and cool and becomes for us a believable guide into Oscar's world.
It's a book I recommend reading but I'm not sure it's one that everyone will enjoy, especially now that it's won all sorts of awards (including the Pulitzer). It may be the sort of book that you end up reading with the weight of obligation instead of simply reading it for pleasure.
Fed to jonathan's brain | June 26, 2008
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Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn't have any alternative. But he'd hoped it would be a long way off. Because he rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon./blockquote>I'd first read Good Omens several years ago, and it was the first thing I'd read by either Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett. Now, Gaiman is one of my favorite authors but for whatever reason I still haven't gotten around to reading anything more by Pratchett. (Maybe I will.) At any rate, Robyn had borrowed this book from a friend, and despite the fact that I was deep in the middle of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (watch for a review next!), I couldn't help myself and read this one again. My last review was pitifully brief; a book this good deserves a little more.
So, a little bit more about the premise: the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley have been on earth for thousands of years and, despite being on opposite sides, have developed a relationship mostly because, well, a face that's been around for thousands of years eventually grows on you. So when the Antichrist is born (and swapped out at the hospital for a regular baby), Crowley and Aziraphale meet to discuss the implications. In short, Armageddon is imminent, and neither of them is particularly excited about it.
The cast of characters is quite large. Aside from Crowley and Aziraphale, there's a quartet of British kids ("the Them"), the last living descendant of Agnes Nutter (a witch who made all sorts of very accurate but mostly unhelpful predictions about the end of the world), some witch-hunters, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and a former Hell-hound named Dog. Plotwise, it's hard to describe because there are so many different strands that tie together at the end, but it's basically about the last week on Earth.
It's also difficult for me to explain exactly what it is that makes this such a great read, except to say that if you've read any other Neil Gaiman you'll have an idea. The addition of Terry Pratchett simply makes it funnier and, if possible, even wittier. This particular edition also had some added material, Gaiman on Pratchett and Pratchett on Gaiman, telling a little bit more about the writing process and how the book came to be.
I did notice, this second time around, that there are a few sections that repeat themselves, probably a result of two writers working together and reusing scene-setting passages. Still, it's one of my favorites, and I'm still hoping for a second team-up between the two.
