Two Death Sentences? Really? I Mean, You Look Very Well, Considering.

Two death sentences? Really? I mean, you look very well, considering.

I cannot help that readers will always insist on adventures, and though you can have grief without adventures, you cannot have adventures without grief.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente (via the-poetic-mathematician)

LdyEnki reads Anger is a Gift Chapters 5 and 6

The continuing adventures of LdyEnki being unprepared for Mark Oshiro’s “Anger is a Gift”. 

Chapter 5:

Being a librarian influences my priorities so I’m not sure anyone else had the “Wait. What?!” reaction I did about the library inventory being sold off.  So please excuse me a moment as I say, “They did what!?  Why!?” 

Now weeding out books and other material from a library is important for keeping a library current, relevant and helps prevent books from being lost and overwhelmed by no longer active materials.  I’m not going to go into my defense of weeding diatribe here, though if anyone wants to talk about it I’m happy to.  But if a book (or several copies of a book) in the library is still being used in a classroom, you don’t weed out that book.  You weed out the book that the teacher who left for a different job 5 years ago used in their classroom.  I want to know who sold off “most of the library inventory” and why.

Moving on to the much more plot relevant scene with the girl having her locker searched.  To quote Mark, “Fuck.”  I can see the shape forming of the coming conflict, Officer Hull, an abusive bully, targeting these kids.  Moss won't be able to avoid him forever.  I’m glad there are some good teachers who care in all of this. 

Chapter 6:

Alternate Title: “Or why I love Moss, his Mama and their whole found family.”

Chapters 1 and 2 are here.

Chapters 3 and 4 are here.

Reblog.  I will be posting my comments on the first few chapters very soon.

Ldyenki reads Anger is a Gift (Intro)

For those of you who don’t know, Mark Oshiro of Mark Reads wrote a YA contemporary fiction book called Anger is a Gift.  It came out in May.  I have been following Mark Reads since he was announced as a gust of honor at the first Crossingscon, and I very quickly went from puzzled ‘what is this, he does what?’ to ‘this is the most amazing idea ever.’  So I was very excited for the release of his first book and have been recommending it to everyone I know.

I decided that I would try to follow Mark’s style and read one chapter at a time, pausing after each to write down my thoughts without being influenced by knowing what happens next.  I will be posting what I wrote here, a few chapters at a time and if anyone wants to discuss this book with me I would love to talk about it.

There will be Spoilers.  If you do not want to be spoiled I will tag everything with ‘Ldyenki reads Anger is a Gift’.  I hope you will come along this journey with me.

Beautiful art, I love these.  The detail you put in you art is amazing and you really capture the characters.

Illustrations for The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Trying to loosen up…