Book Christmas Advent Calendar - Day 6: My daughter loves books

Book Christmas Advent Calendar Day 6:  My daughter loves books

Today my daughter became a reader, a lover of books.  She is almost 12 years old, her birthday is in two weeks' time.  Holly-Anne was slow to learn to read, and for a long time she struggled with how to hold the story in her mind while she did other things.  We kept finding books for her that she was interested in, many featuring dinosaurs or animals, as she loves animals.
                                                                      

Then early last year, she discovered the Dragons of Fire series, and she was hooked. "Dragons!" she said.  She read all the ones that had been published. (She is waiting impatiently for the next book in the series to be published next month.)  In the meantime, while she was waiting, last year all the kids in her Grade 6 class were reading this new series:
                                                        
 Spirit Animals.  Holly-Anne devoured all of them and is waiting impatiently for the next one in this series to come out, in January also.  The cool thing about this series is that popular children's authors are penning different volumes in the series, so it is a great introduction to each author's writing styles. Maggie Stiefvater, Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull (book 1), and Tui T Sutherland so far.  Some very big names.
                                                     
  In desperation this past summer after finishing the last Spirit Animals book so far, she picked up a cat series book I had randomly picked up at a used bookstore for her, Warriors: Midnight by Erin Hunter. She read it, and then discovered that the books actually started in an earlier series, so she went back to read that series first. 
                                                                   

This morning, she finished book 3 (borrowed from the library) to one of the first sets.  She was restless after.  Got up from the sofa.  Tried to watch some tv.  Tried to play her Pokemon on the 3 DS.  Finally she came to me and said, "Mom, are you going out today?"  I asked why, secretly hoping.  "I want to buy the next book.  May I?"  Well I'm never going to say no to that, am I?  Her father was going out in the afternoon, so they went out to the mall where she knew the bookstore carries the cat clan series, and she bought the next two books in the series.  When she got in the door, she promptly opened the next book and started reading it.

My little girl.  Almost a tween, and now a book reader.  She needed to know how the cat clan goes on after the big fire!!  A story lover.  She took her own allowance money to buy the books for herself.  I am so proud and delighted.  My daughter is buying her own books and reading them as soon as she gets home. 

Vintage Reads and Women of Genre: CATSEYE by Andre Norton

                                              

    CATSEYE by Andre Norton is the first book by her that I've read.  It is the first one in the Women of Genre challenge for me, my January read. It is also a vintage science fiction novel my first read for the Vintage Science Fiction reading month.  
 
                                              
Catseye was published in 1961.  Look at this fun cover - I really like it.

It was the cover title, how it was printed, that convinced me to buy it - that 60's illustration is irresistible to me.

Catseye was fun.  It is set in the future, far in the future, on a planet named Korwar, which is a pleasure planet for the rich of the Planetary Council.  The Confederation is the other galactic power.   Earth is part of the known galaxy,  though it is known as Terra and is not important any more. Nor is the world of Norden, that Troy Horan is from.  He is the main character of Catseye, a young man who is from the Dipple, the ghetto place on Korwar where the poor and dispossessed gather, live, and die if they are unable to find work outside of their ghetto. Troy has been looking for work for a long time, until one day as this novel opens, his credentials - being from Norden, and having knowledge of animals, is part of a want ad someone has posted.  It's a pet store, but not any pet store.  All the different animals from different worlds are bought and sold here.  Among the rich of the Planetary Council, having a pet no one else has is a rare and valuable trophy.  Troy goes for a day's work, as the store is expecting a shipment of animals.  When their flyer is attacked bringing home the animals and the other main man in charge of the animals, Zul, is hurt, Troy is hired to cover his work. 

    I wanted to read this book because I wanted to know what cats had to do with it.  And right from the beginning, cats are a big part of this book.  We are not told what kind of cats are brought in, but rare cats from Terra are what Troy and Zul pick up that first day.  And from the moment he is near hte cage, Troy has the odd sense that the minds of one of the cats is touching his.  Later, Troy is sent to help calm a monkey-like creature who is found at the scene of a murder, pawing through the dead man's papers. And then finally two rare foxes are also brought to the pet store.  And Troy is drawn to help them, for they all share the same thing: they are able to touch his mind, he is able to communicate directly with them.  These animals are part of a genetic experiment to breed animals to communicate telepathically with men.  However, this is a secret project, that is now being used by members who want to get the Planetary Council off Kolwar.  However, if this happens, then the planet will not be deemed a pleasure planet, and the sanctity of the forest reserve, which has one of the few wild places left in the galaxy, will be destroyed in a development. 

The mystery and battle for the planet are all secondary in this novel to the real story, which is the developing closeness between Troy and the animals.  When they are forced to flee together, they must learn to rely on each other to survive, although Troy is always aware that at any time, the animals could choose to leave him.  There is a critical moment at the end of the book where Troy is offered the chance to go back to Norden as a Range Master, which his father was before him there, before they were forced to leave for Kolwar.  The deal though, includes Troy giving up the animals to those who want to destroy them to hide any trace of the conspiracy to get rid of the Council. I won't give away what Troy decides to do, though I will admit that my heart was in my mouth.  I had come to care about the animals, and Troy even. 

 I often find futuristic novels full of the science of imagining new things in the future, and not on characters or story so much.  This one had some of that, mostly to describe a world and a culture we have never seen, but rescues the story with Troy and his concern and care for the animals.  It turned into an interesting world, especially where Troy ends up, and I find myself wanting to know what happened to him next.  The animals were very realistic, and their language skills were not complex, they were basic, like the images animals must indeed come to know the world with.  Since I also enjoy reading about telepathy and psychic abilities, I enjoyed this novel for these elements too.  They occur only with Troy and the few animals, though he does have an ability to work with all animals, that he has inherited from his father.  

All in all, this was an enjoyable vintage science fiction read.  A good way to start off the Women in Genre challenge.  It does make me want to read Witchworld,  Andre Norton's most famous novel,  at some point.

This was my second book for Carl's Sci-fi Experience, also. 

Finally feeling myself again

It took some time, but the penicillin eventually kicked in, and by Thursday, I was beginning to feel like myself again. How can I tell? Other than being able to eat lots of lovely food again, I decided that I wanted to read again. I had carried The Bean Trees for almost the entire week I was sick, and all through last weekend, and even through to Tuesday of this week, and I didn't read a page. It didn't matter how I was feeling, I eventually realized that I was not in the mood to read this book! I don't know if it was the unlikeliness of how the main character gets her Native Indian child - a woman hands it to her outside a cafe in the middle of nowhere! - or if it was just me being so sick, but I couldn't concentrate on reading. So I watched The Lord of the Rings all over again through three nights, and by Tuesday night, I gave up on The Bean Trees. It's totally unbelievable, but I'm also resistant to extremely negative portrayals of Native Americans because my brother is aboriginal, and my family adopted him because of the Canadian government's policy in the decades before the 1980's, of taking babies and young children away from young single aboriginal parents and giving them to white families to adopt and raise - part of the government's policy of assimilation begun last century. I know, it sounds very political, and it is. It also doesn't change that when he came into our family, he became - is - our brother, son, uncle, our family. He lives in two worlds, with two cultures, and having seen him struggle to find who he is and what he can be with this heritage, I've tried to learn some of his culture so I can better understand what he comes from. Every time I think about how the unknown woman hands the baby over, I cringe, and then I can't suspend my disbelief enough to keep reading. So as much as I love Barbara Kingsolver's other books, this is one I just can't read. See how reluctant I am to stop reading a book?!

Once I decided that, I then spent an evening going from book to book. Picking it up, reading a page or two, putting it down. Finally, I kept looking at Middlemarch, and took the plunge. This is a book I have long wanted to read, and yet it is a chunkster and written in mid-19th century style, both of which I have to be in a mood to read, so I've dreaded reading it also. I'm making slow headway, mostly because my lunchtimes have been taken up at work this week with other things, but I am discovering I am really enjoying Dorothea and her sister Celia. The story is about Dorothea's desire to do good, some good, in her life, which leads her to make a dreadful marriage to a dry, pendantic, horrible man - Mr Causabon. Now I have a confession to make, I saw a few years ago a BBC production of Middlemarch so I know the story. And yet, as always, I find that the book itself is far richer than the tv or movie production was. It didn't come through in the tv production that Celia is actually smart in her way also - she is able to see through people and we see her horror at Dorothea's acceptance of Mr Causabon, and I for one am reading the impending marriage with a sense of a train wreck coming. George Eliot also has the men discussing upcoming political changes, that will affect Dorothea's world, although she is not paying attention to it as she should. Where does passion fit in the life of wanting to do good? Where does love fit? Thankfully it was about 10 years ago that I saw Middlemarch, so most of the book is new to me; all I can really remember is that I hated Causabon in the tv production and I already hate him in the book - that everlasting life's work on the categorizing of world's mythologies, that should be interesting (and Frazier was doing in real life in The Golden Bough!), he never intends to complete, and we know this because Causabon is in his late 40's and still hasn't finished gathering his notes! He has published nothing so far! Not even a prelude! This is a book about real people and their desires, their ambitions, and their failures, especially their failures to make good matches. I am very curious how this will play out in the book, and at the heart is the struggle of the very opinionated, willful, passionate, pious Dorothea to do something good in the world for others.

I know that Virginia Woolf loved this novel, and as some of you may remember, I can barely tolerate Virginia, so we'll see as I make my way through this 688 page novel how I fare. I expect this will be the only book I read in the run-up to our trip to England, which is 22 days away now. Which leads me to my announcement that -

I will not be finishing any more challenges for this year. I have mixed feelings about this, since my aim was to try to read 10 more books before Dec 31. However, being so ill and not being able to read during it, has given me some time for reflection. I love the challenges I joined, and I'm so happy I did complete some, especially Carl's. This was my first year in blogging, and so I joined everything! I know that some people have decided to not join many challenges next year. I have signed up for three a while ago, the ongoing Canadian 2 Eh challenge, and for 2009, the science fiction '42' being hosted by Becky, and the Women in 19th cent literature, also hosted by Becky. Darn but she makes interesting challenges! And I know I will be joining anything Carl does!! I want to say that I want a year of whimsy, and gosh but that has a lovely ring to it! then I think of the 999 challenge, which I could possibly try.....since I loved the 888 challenge (even if uncompleted).... and my whole aim is to read more books. So I can't even say I won't join more challenges! I know I will. And work on finishing the ones ongoing - there's also the 1% challenge, and the Awards Challenge, which continue through into the new year, that I am keeping. I know myself, I love a challenge! I have to remind myself that my whole goal is keep encouraging myself to read more often each day. That is my greatest success this year, that joining all these challenges gave me: I found time to read more books. I also found ways to challenge myself to read in genres I don't always read books in, as well as to keep reading my beloved mystery and fantasy books.

I suppose this is my year-end review early, because we won't be back until early January, and I don't know how often I can get online while in England, as my in-laws computer is possibly on its last legs now. Our trip is from Dec 15 until Jan 5, so while all of you will be posting happily your year-end reviews, I will be seeing as much of London as we can fit in with the kids. This little break in blogging and reading has let me sift through reading and what I accomplished this year, do not be afraid, gentle reader, that I am going away! I don't know yet how often I will be able to blog while in England over the holidays, as my in-laws' computer is about to crash (we can hardly talk on msn at the moment), but at the very least I will find my way to internet cafes and send updates and hopefully plenty of gorgeous photos.

Things to do: I still haven't created my challenge for reading all the books on the Mythopoeic or World Fantasy lists. This will be an ongoing challenge for myself. Missing are buttons (if any readers can create buttons for challenges, and I think Becky sent me some, but when my blog crashed in August I lost them, so please send any ideas!) - my other goal is to work on becoming more technologically advanced in creating my blog, so I can figure out how to do extra pages. The fantasy challenges would be linked to these. Nymeth (thank you, dear Nymeth) kindly sent me the link to the blog page template, but I still can't get the set-ups to work on my blog, so that is one of my new year's goals already set.

In the meantime, is the countdown to our trip - 22 days to go! and an upcoming birthday party for our daughter who is turning 6 at Christmas while we are in England, and seeing friends and family before we go. So if I actually finish Middlemarch, not only will this be a long-sought-after achievement (which will be surpassed only by my finally reading War and Peace, whenever that will be!), it will be an accomplishment to complete in the run-up to Christmas and our big holiday!!

Well, that was a good catch-up post! I hope you read plenty of good books while I was away! Here is a rare treat, an actual picture of myself with our cat, Bandit, taken a few weeks ago:


She has been known to plop herself down on my book when she wants a cuddle.

Happy reading, everyone!