Kate
This is a cute book about a little raccoon who is scared to go to school. I'm sure it's especially cute if you're a parent but I am not so it's just normal cute for me. I couldn't help but love the baby raccoon though:
Also I couldn't help thinking about this PSA so this book had an air of nostalgia that it didn't quite earn.
I should have listened to the warning at the beginning - this book is not suitable for adults. I did laugh out loud at many of the butt puns (univarse...haha) but they started to blend together after a few pages. Plus I didn't care for the story. I'm sure 12-year-old me would have been into it more, and I will definitely recommend this one to children who like to giggle uncontrollably. It could be good for playing the [b:The Eye of Argon 2129518 The Eye of Argon Jim Theis https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347758875s/2129518.jpg 2134961] game for kids (try to read it out loud for as long as possible without laughing).
This was a really cute book about the dangers of listening to rumour! Our poor protagonist thinks that her best friend said something mean about her because she heard from the sister of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend who supposedly heard it from James. She ignores him for a whole day until she finds out that broken telephone isn't entirely trustworthy and they're friends again at the end.
When I first marked this book as “currently reading” I found that I'd already marked it read and given in 5 stars. So either there was a glitch or I lied to GR because I have never read this book, which is weird because it's Gaiman and it's definitely I book I know I'd like, but never got around to it until I started see cast photos of the upcoming American Gods series and decided I should read the book so I know what to be excited about. But then everyone had the same idea I guess so I waited quite a while for this book to come in on hold, but I finally got it! Success!
And my lying self from the past was correct in thinking that I'd rate this book 5 stars so here's to her. This book was great. It was exactly what I thought it would be, and I was expecting it to be lovely and weird and beautiful and gross and scary and kind and cruel. I'm very happy that I've read this book now, and I'm extra excited about the series!
I love Mary Roach, I love her style and the way she goes into every situation totally naive but armed with many many questions.
This book was not about fighting or war, but the science behind keeping (American) soldiers alive. There was a lot about dicks, because up until recently there weren't a lot of women involved in the fighting, but I did learn that female soldiers are allowed to wear their own underwear. Which is great, I can't imagine bras provided by the military would be comfortable for anyone let alone everyone. Also, this: “Vaginal myiasis (maggot infestation) is a concern of increased importance because of the larger numbers of women serving in deployed units...Egg laying may be stimulated by discharges from diseased genitals.” So if I were a soldier I'd not only have to deal with the same shit that the men do, but also worry that if my vagina got diseased, flies would lay eggs in it. On the other hand, I could be pretty sure that there'd be no necrotic tissue in my vagina after the maggots were done munching on it.
There was a lot about genital reconstruction/transplants and the interesting question of whether soldiers should be required to donate sperm for safekeeping, just in case you're not able to afterwards (the idea of women donating eggs for the same reason wasn't raised for very long because if your ovaries get blown up you're probably dead).
I learned that it's possible I'm heat-acclimated and would do well in a hot environment because I “sweat early and copiously”, but I'd also very likely succumb often to military (traveler's) diarrhea which would dehydrate me anyway and probably counteract the sweating thing. On the other hand, I have no qualms about taking medication to stop diarrhea, apparently unlike a lot of soldiers who believe that letting diarrhea run its course is healthier than taking imodium.
I'd also probably be really shit in the Navy because sleep deprivation makes me useless. Not that it doesn't affect other people, it does, but they haven't found a way to lessen the amount of drills and tests that prevent Navy officers from getting more than a few hours of sleep a night, so they just have to pretend they're fine. And continue to be in charge of war machines. That's terrifying.
I read this book in a day because it was easy to read and weirdly compelling. Jason learns some about himself after inventing a fake religion and triggering his friend's mental illness. As an atheist, there were some lines I liked, for example when Jason questions why believing that a water tower is God is more silly than believing in the Catholic God. But then I also kind of like where Shin asks how you can understand something you don't believe in? I guess some stuff you just gotta “get” and I really don't get religion. I also really liked the mythos of the ocean gods that Shin wrote that began each chapter. Someone should make that into a movie.
Jacob has supportive parents, friends and teachers, but also shitty friends and also the shitty world to deal with. His classmate Christopher obviously feels his masculinity is being threatened by having a boy wear a dress in his class, and I'm willing to bet his dad feels the same since he told Christopher that boys don't wear dresses. Christopher is just bent all the way out of shape here. On every page he's either scowling at Jacob or laughing at him. Relax, kid! Just live your life! No one is stopping you from being a boy!
This picture broke my heart a bit:
I hope Christopher gets over himself and Jacob has a happy life.
I only saw one comment from someone saying that it's immoral and confusing for boys to wear girl clothes (but presumably not for girls to wear boy clothes because I guess we should all aspire to be boys) so that's nice!
I tagged with my “depressing” tag but I don't think it's depressing so much as melancholy. I loved the illustrations, obviously, because I love Jon Klassen to bits and his illustrations really capture melancholy quite well. The story didn't quite do it for me - a house's people all move away and then house gets pushed up to the sky by the trees all growing around it. It paints a beautiful picture, but it personally didn't touch my heart so much. Maybe it was because, in this library copy I read, some monster underlined a bunch of words in PEN.
I picked this up before I realized it was by the same author as Animorphs! I really love the writing style in this book. Ivan has a great voice - spare but still emotional. I do like stories in the alternate universe where animals have human thoughts and feelings, and this story did a good job of encouraging readers to empathize with animals and look out for their well-being.
I did unfortunately happen to be reading this book at the same time as a major news story about a kid who fell into a gorilla enclosure, which did colour my perception of the book a little bit. I think I kept myself a little further from the narrative because I kept thinking that while it's fun and easy to anthropomorphize animals, and think that we know what they're thinking, in real life it can be dangerous.
But other than that, which is completely separate from the book anyway, I really enjoyed this story. The illustrations were also really cute.
For some reason this book didn't really grab me like I was hoping it would. At the beginning I didn't care for the author's voice, and I wasn't feeling the choice to have the author narrate as her adult self. In the end I understood why that choice was made, but the narrative voice sounded like a child's voice and not an adult's. I think that's also why I didn't really get the story from the beginning, because I was assuming the narrator was reliable, since she was telling it from her adult perspective. She knew, as an adult, that these kids were just messing with everyone, that their coats and photos weren't really from Mongolia and that everyone treating them like they didn't know American culture were probably just being strung along. But the narration really sounded like a child's voice, who believed all of the things that Chingis was telling her and not an adult who had an adult skepticism about the whole thing. So it all kind of felt really forced, and not as magical as I feel they were probably going for. The afterword was cute, though, because it was a real story. I wish this book had been a non-fiction account of that truth instead of the fictional version of it.
I really really enjoyed looking through this book. The illustrations are so simple but somehow manage to get across really adorable depictions of animals using basic shapes and letters. I especially like the cursive turkey and sparrow. I'm sure kids would love to look at it too, but not right now, I'm still reading it.
I'm going to be comparing this book to [b:How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming 7963278 How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming Mike Brown https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320532443s/7963278.jpg 11871989] by Mike Brown because I read these two books almost back to back and they're about the same thing. I found it interesting how both authors felt they were at the center of the Pluto controversy, but only mentions the other in passing. Thinking back, I don't remember either of them figuring prominently in my perception of the controversy, I just remember waiting to hear the vote from the IAU and then reading some responses to it afterwards, which may well have been written by one of these guys but I don't remember.So this book is kind of just a compilation of some stuff that Tyson thought was cool or funny or interesting about Pluto and its planet-ness. There's some song lyrics, some letters written to him from children and adults about their views, some legislation written about the decision, some quotes from other scientists (and non-scientists...apparently some astrologers were mad that the IAU didn't invite an astrologer to be part of the committee to decide what constitutes a planet), news articles, editorial cartoons, etc. It was pretty amusing, I like all the things that Tyson likes, basically. It was also interesting to hear the process of creating museum displays, of deciding what information will probably be true years from now, what might be revised in a few years, and what might need to be changed very soon. As a person who can't muster much outrage about Pluto being reclassified, I thought the way that the Hayden planetarium laid out their controversial display of planets made sense. If you're focusing on certain characteristics instead of nomenclature, Pluto doesn't always fit with any of the other planets. Pluto is round, but it's made of different stuff, its orbit is quite different, and it actually has more in common with other Kuiper belt objects than it does with the planets. I liked reading the reasons that people, including other astronomers, didn't think that Pluto should be reclassified. A lot of people just fell back on tradition...Pluto has always been a planet, so it should stay a planet forever! Part of the trouble was that there wasn't even a real definition of the word “planet” for people to point to. But then there was a vote, and an overwhelming majority of voting members chose to “demote” Pluto (I put demote in quotes because, as a couple of the astronomers quoted in this book say, Pluto doesn't care what it's called - it will continue on being Pluto no matter what we do. Plus “demote” makes it seem like being a Kuiper belt object is less interesting or cool which seems unfair to the other Kuiper belt objects!). And, as all the media coverage from New Horizons showed, we don't care any less about Pluto now that we happen to call it something different!
I'm not surprised that I found this book fascinating, because I find language fascinating. And I like Deutscher's writing style.
The idea that language influences thought is apparently kind of taboo nowadays in linguistic circles (or at least it was when this book was published), largely because of some dudes named Sapir and Whorf who took it to quite an extreme but didn't really have any good evidence to support their ideas (for example, that someone whose language doesn't contain a future tense wouldn't be able to understand the concept of “the future”). But it's not entirely wrong - Deutscher gives examples of three areas where language has been shown to influence thinking to a measurable extent.
If your language uses cardinal directions only, (north-south-east-west instead of left or right, in front of, or behind), you will always know where north is, and you will perform differently on certain tasks than someone who speaks an egocentric language. Say for example you were standing in front of a table with some objects on it. You're then asked to turn around and place the objects in the same order on a table behind you, on the opposite wall of the room. People who speak these two different types of languages would put the objects in the opposite order! If you speak an egocentric language, you'll place the objects that were to the left of you at table 1 to the left of you on table 2. If you speak a cardinal direction language, you'll put the objects on the north side of table 1 on the north side of table 2. Neither answer is wrong, but if you grew up speaking English which uses egocentric directions (not exclusively, obviously, but mainly for small-scale situations), you'd probably be baffled by someone who placed the objects in the opposite order from you. It wouldn't even occur to me how they were doing this task because when I'm inside a building I almost never know which direction is north.
Language can also have an effect on colour perception - for example, of two pairs of colours that are an equal number of shades apart, we view as further apart the ones that cross a linguistic colour barrier. For example, if you're an English speaker, you'd perceive a shade of green and blue as further apart than two shades of blue, even if the blues were actually further apart on the colour spectrum. If you did the same experiment with a Russian speaker, you'd get a different result because Russian has two separate words for dark blue and light blue.
Lastly, if the language you speak has gendered words in it, that will affect your assumptions and associations with the words. In English, which doesn't have any gendered words, the only gendered assumptions we have are cultural (for example, associating “nurse” with “female” and “doctor” with “male” - these have nothing to do with the actual words but with how we've been socialized). If you speak a language like French or Spanish with gendered nouns, it can have an effect on your memory. For example, it was easier for Spanish speakers to remember a female name associated with an apple than a male one, because the word for apple in Spanish is feminine.
Basically the take-away of this book is that it's less interesting what a language allows you to say than what a language requires you to say. In English, we're forced to tell our listeners when something happens because tense is built in to our verbs. I am, I was, I will be. I can't express the concept of me being without indicating when I am being! There are languages in which these aren't linked though, where I could say that I am and listeners wouldn't automatically know when I was or will be or even if I currently am! Of course you could express that if you wanted, but it's not required.
You should definitely read this book if you finished reading my review. It goes into the history of linguistic relativism, which I found really interesting, and a bunch about colour perception (the less relevant parts to language are relegated to an appendix) which I also think is interesting. Plus different experiments that were designed to help tease language from culture which is really hard to do!
I really like the cover of this book, and I was pretty sure I'd be reading something kind of self-centered with the first-person title, and I wasn't wrong. I'm not necessarily complaining about it, but Mike Brown wrote a book about his life during the period that he was finding objects and when Pluto was reclassified, instead of just writing about those things. So when he did a couple tangents about how great his baby is and how he kept a blog about her, I was expecting it. I even agree with him that it's strange that apparently no one has data on the how far away from the official due date women give birth? That's weird. But it's not really what I was reading for, and I don't really care about Mike Brown. I'm sure he's a great person...though he did do a lot of “I” statements about things that his team did, while still giving them credit. Maybe when he said “I” in certain contexts he actually meant “we”. Anyway, it's an interesting look at the lead up to the reclassification of Pluto, and I learned some about the controversy surrounding the discovery of Eris that I didn't know before.
What really bugs me about this though is how often Brown says that he “killed Pluto”. It's in the title, presumably for effect which it does have, and apparently he also said that “Pluto is dead” when the vote happened, and he consistently uses that wording through the book. Maybe he thinks we're all smart enough to know that he's just using this wording for effect, but I got tired of it really fast. For someone who wanted the public to accept the reclassification of Pluto, he's using the most damning language possible. Pluto is not dead, except in the sense that it has no life on it (as far as we know...), and it's really annoying to keep hearing it from someone who definitely knows better. I agree with him that “dwarf planet” is kind of a dumb name, and I found it interesting to know that it was only used to try and keep Pluto in the planet club. I also liked his explanation of astronomy terms being used to describe concepts instead of strictly defined things. But seriously, tone it down with the “killing Pluto” thing. It's like he was so let down at not being known as a guy who discovered the 10th planet that he took up the mantle of “planet-killer” just to have some good-sounding notoriety. It would have been note-worthy still to be one of the guys who helped change Pluto's classification. It's not as snazzy, but it's more accurate. I wonder if the other guys on Brown's team refer to themselves as guys who killed Pluto. So after this book, which while I'm sure is factual is also biased, I'm going to seek out some other Pluto books to balance myself out.
I didn't like this one as much as the first. I was reading it on my phone so I didn't know how far through the book I was, and it just - ended. There wasn't really a conclusion or lead-up that made me feel like the book would end soon. But I guess since it's a series, the next book will pick up where this one left off!
I still love Calpurnia and I really hope she continues to fuck the patriarchy. I also love Travis, and the juxtaposition of his and Callie's loves for the natural world. They manifest in such different ways and I love them both.
I like this book as an introduction to death for kids. It's respectful and not scary. I like that death is a kind and patient personification.
I really don't like the argument that one can't truly feel one end of an emotional spectrum without feeling the other end. I've never liked that argument about anything because it implies that people who haven't suffered are unable to experience the true joys of life, and excuses the pain of those who have suffered. Instead of working to alleviate suffering, we can wave it off as a necessary part of life. When it comes to inevitable things like death, and books for children, I'm more ok with it because sometimes people need to believe that stuff happens for a reason, and maybe it's harder for children to understand that life just isn't fair sometimes...but personally I would really hate it if I was trying to mourn and someone told me, well at least you'll be able to truly appreciate your future happiness now!
So while I would recommend this book to others who want to talk to their children about death, I don't think I would want to actually use it myself if I had children I needed to talk to about death.
Love the illustrations, and the style. A fun how-to book so you can learn how to do cool stuff like animals! I learned that capuchin monkeys rub millipedes all over themselves because the millipede toxin repels biting insects. Also, sometimes crows will drop nuts on the road so that cars will break them open.
I just couldn't get into this one. The premise is fascinating, and I had a lot of questions about the universe it's set in that I wanted to get answered, but something about the style didn't interest me. I think I was hoping it would be something different, but also right now I'm not willing to force myself through the beginning to see if it'll get better later. So I'm not rating it because I didn't stop reading because I thought it was bad...I just really needed to put it down.
This book didn't really speak to me. I just have too many questions about this strange universe in which all the animals have just one counterpart. Why can't they hang out with other species and be happy? Why are all the animals the same size, except for some birds and some fish? How come the groups of small birds and fish act as one creature when it comes to finding their counterpart? How come the dragon didn't know that there was another dragon? All the other animals seem to be aware that they're searching for someone. How come everyone is such a jerk once they meet their counterpart? They all just abandon the rabbit after saying they were going to help him! Oh sure, I'll help you find your counterpart, just oh wait no there's another dog here now so we're going to do dog things forever don't ever bother us again and we don't care if you find the other rabbit go away now.
It's not even close to christmas right now but I happened to get my hands on this book and it's delightful. I expected just a straight adaptation of the 12 Days, but actually it's an epistolary tour of Canada! Juliette goes to visit her cousin Theo in Canada over the holidays, and she mails letters back home for every day they're there. They managed to go from coast to coast and hit every province (not the territories) in 12 days! Juliette learns some cool stuff and so did I. Saskatoon (the city) was named after saskatoon (the berry)! Toronto has 6 Chinatowns (I should have known that)! There's a city in Newfoundland called Come By Chance! The illustrations were beautiful. I especially liked this little tidbit: “National Horse: the Canadian horse”. Who knew!
This book was really uncomfortable. It was very good, but it was very hard to read, as well. Elizabeth is at the same time unlikable and totally relatable, which is a really uncomfortable place to be as a reader. I really liked the prose, and I flew through it, and I would recommend it to some people but not to others - the rawness of a struggle with body image and weight and dieting and exercise and self-hatred can be triggering to some people. In the end, I just want Elizabeth to be happy, but I don't have hope that she'll get there.