City of Weird

I had a phenomenal weekend at Bitopia, the Bi+ Retreat, so my normally scheduled book review will not be up. Did you know it was possible for me to go an entire weekend without reading a book? This was news to me.

Instead I'd like to spotlight something a friend has been working on: City of Weird: 30 Otherworldly Portland Tales, edited by Gigi Little (and copy edited by my friend). Signing is at Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland, Oct 12th, 7:30pm. I can't be there because I'm hosting a different event, but you should show them some love on my behalf!

Book Review #5: Collecting the Dead

This book is so angsty.

"She had small feet.
"I say she had small feet because to say she has small feet would imply that she's still alive. She isn't. I know. I always know. It's my special ability, my burden, my curse."

"Steps" is a tracker for the FBI. He has a special gift, acquired when he was a small boy, that he must keep secret from everyone he works with. He can see people's shine, the glow unique to each person that they leave behind when they touch something. He can sense someone's life force through the shine, and has saved the lives of many people, but he is haunted by the ones he can't save.

Image credit Goodreads

If you like Elizabeth George, but with fewer female characters, you'll probably like this one. If you wish Psych got a dark gritty reboot, read this book. It's very well written compared to your normal thriller, so even though I'm rolling my eyes at its Sin City vibes, it's a totally decent read. And yeah, I'll be reading the sequel when it comes out.

Collecting the Dead, a novel by Spencer Kope. Published 2016 by Minotaur Books.

Book Review #4: Dory Fantasmagory

There are some great books out there to read to an eight (almost nine!) year old. Harry Potter, for sure. Lumberjanes.

There are lots of wonderful books to read to a five year old. He Came with the Couch is a current favorite, and I'm pretty sure I still have The Great Fuzz Frenzy memorized.

Readalouds for both of them are hard to find. Harry Potter doesn't have enough pictures, and Lumberjanes is too scary for the younger one. The eight-almost-nine year old is going to murder someone if she has to listen to Princess in Black again.

That's why Dory Fantasmagory by Abby Hanlon was such a great find. I started reading it to Beats while their dad worked on dinner, but before long Ellie had snuggled in next to me, the DH was listening in, and their dad was in the kitchen saying "wait wait, what just happened? Read it louder so I can hear!"

Dory is the youngest, with an older brother and sister who have had it up to here with her. They call her Rascal and would really like her to stop being such a baby. Her siblings come up with the frightening Mrs Grabble Gracker, an old witch who steals babies. Of course everything backfires wonderfully.

There are some imperfect things here. For one, I think the kids are broken because they didn't laugh out loud very much - though they definitely liked it. But I've read some books to them that had them rolling, and this one just didn't.

I also have some thoughts on one of the characters. Dory conjures up Mr. Nuggy, her fairy godmother. He's a great guy - terrible at granting wishes and making potions, but he tries his best, happily getting into a dress to look more like a fairy godmother, and always keeping an eye on the time so he can get back home to his wife. I liked that it sparked a conversation with Ellie, whose first reaction was "No, he's obviously a boy so he can't be a fairy godmother." (we're going through some gender conversations in general as she's wrestling with me being nonbinary, so this is not an uncommon conversation for us). However, I'm sensitive to the fact that trans* folks are very often the butt of jokes, and "this boy is wearing a dress!" is a joke that is in this book. It's not presented negatively, but it's a tired joke you see in a lot of kids books, and I wish it wasn't here too.

Despite that piece, I think this book is really good for the girls. Beats gets a character to love who is a lot like her, the annoying little sister. Ellie gets to see the good side of her kid sister. It's funny, it's got great pictures, and a wonderful story. Recommended.

The USS Terror

If you could see my recent reading list, you would know I've been on a disaster kick for the last 9 months or so. I can't get enough. It's science on the fringes - searching for the Northwest Passage, climbing peaks around the world, freediving hundreds of feet in the ocean. It's intense, heartbreaking, and it reminds me to try to stay fit in case I'm ever stranded on K2 during a blizzard.

A sub-obsession from all this is the lost Franklin expedition. Two ships - the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus - departed to explore the Northwest Passage in 1845, with Sir John Franklin in command. Despite a massive search effort championed by Lady Jane Franklin, they were never seen alive again. It is one of the largest maritime disasters in history. One hundred twenty-nine men disappeared.

Credit: National Archives of Canada,

After more than 150 years of searching, we've discovered more of the story. A search party found three burial sites. A few years later, another group discovered a cached note that stated the ships had been trapped in the ice. In the early 1980s the graves were exhumed, lending credence to the idea that the crew died of lead poisoning from their own food supply, thanks to poorly soldered cans. Most dramatically, the Erebus was discovered in 2014.

Today the Arctic Research Foundation released photos and videos of what they believe to be the wreck of the HMS Terror. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt

The news has only been released for a few hours, but it brings up all sorts of questions. Is it possible some of the men tried to sail the Terror home? How did the Terror make it this far?

I've got to shut up now about this, but first here are my recommended books:

Frozen in time: Unlocking the secrets of the Franklin expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. A first-person look at the exhumation of the bodies on Beechey Island and King William Island, complete with photos.

(fiction) The Terror by Dan Simmons. Ultimately a frustrating book, but great if you read it in parallel with Frozen in time.

In the kingdom of ice: the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides. The story of another lost expedition, that of the USS Jeannette. Beautifully written. It humanizes their fight for life, and although a few survived this expedition, it's an easy parallel to the Franklin expedition.

Book Review #3: He Came with the Couch

He Came with the Couch by David Slonim is the unexpected hit of read aloud time. Beats chose this book instead of a book about candy princess fairies. Even Ellie doesn't mind reading it several times in one night.

Image credit books.google.com, until I can get to the library and take my own photo

It's funny. It's quirky. The images look simple but have lots of details for the girls to explore. Beats noticed before any of us that the end paper at the beginning matches the couch, but it changes to the chair on the last page. Nothing makes a kid happier than figuring something out before the adults, so explaining this to us is a ritual that happens every night as well.

The best part? We read it enough that Beats was able to "read" it to us. And she nailed it. It was pretty magical.

I highly recommend this one.

Book Review #2: Honor Girl

This is the first book I have ever read that has made me want a homophobe to read it.

No seriously.

Image credit Goodreads

This graphic memoir is so perfectly natural, so sweet, so heartbreaking, so realistic, I really truly want to see how someone who believes homosexuality is "wrong" would handle it. Maggie Thrash - church kid at a church camp - is shocked when she starts having feelings for another girl. Is this a sign? Is she broken or evil or is this normal? It's everything scary about growing up with a dose of Maybe You're Not Straight, Honey.

I think what I liked most about this memoir is her blossoming feelings aren't the whole story. Yeah, she's worried she's gay, but she is also worried she has hurt another girl's feelings on the rifle range. She's obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. Nothing fits into the traditional "I always knew I was different, I was born this way" narrative and I am so pleased. She doesn't label herself at the end, there's no clear resolution. It's beautifully human and I want to get a beer with her sometime to learn more about where she is now.

Now that I'm a little farther in and some of you have dropped off, here's my camp experience - somehow getting to snuggle in with a gorgeous girl (oh my gosh!), her confessing to me that she likes the ladies (is this happening?), and just as my shirt is about to come off (metaphorically, I'm shy as hell) she follows up with "but it's ok, Jesus has cured me!"

Oh and the art! It's not bad. It's not stunning Art, but it's clear who's who and it doesn't distract from the story. I think it's exactly the right tone.

Overall, I highly recommend it. I read this book two months ago and it's only grown on me in retrospect. And really, it's a graphic novel, it will take you about 30 seconds to read, you can't go wrong.

Also, Thrash has a book coming out next month: We Know It Was You. I'm working on tracking down a copy....