Recap A NORTHERN LIGHT by Jennifer Donnelly

Elysium is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom.

What fortitude the soul contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming foot,
The opening of a door!

~ Emily Dickinson (1830-86)

The way the book structure is a bit confusing at times, but the word-of-the-day helps keep track of where the thoughts change. Some of the flashbacks become muddled as the flashbacks and current activities converge. However, the story moves well and keeps an intensity that would otherwise, make the story a bit long winded and less exciting. Donnelly's writing however is well crafted.

We discussed the juxtaposition of the beginning paragraph being so serenely pastoral in detail and then sharply changed by the last line of the page. It really is the entire tone of the story. While Mattie is trying to find the beauty of life she is constantly reminded of the struggle and despair that surrounds her life. While the tone of the book is somewhat mysterious it is more about the journey of Mattie than the mystery of the murdered young woman.

One of the themes we really saw in this book was the price of knowledge. At first Mattie sees knowledge as freedom in her mind through reading and writing, but knowledge comes in many forms and can be harnessed to a burden. As the lose of innocence starts to envelop Mattie, she realizes that knowledge certainly has power, but in very unexpected ways.

Along with knowledge came the idea of the Power of Words. Weaver's strength and weakness was in his reaction to words. It was both what cause of problems for him and what brings him back to his senses. Words in Grace's letters had the power, in real life, to convict Chester and, in the story, helped Mattie set her life in a new direction. Words as weapons are shown through the word "fights" between Mattie & Weaver, but also in the way words can bring people down or lift them up such as Weaver's temper towards the trappers and Royal's careless words towards Mattie.

Power of Words also connects with the idea of Promises. In the end, Mattie chooses to break both her promises to the now dead women in her life in order to survive herself. She needs to leave in order to make a better life for herself and realizes that she is not responsible and cannot control her sisters lives, but only live her own. Furthermore, it is her breaking of the promise to burn the letters, that will resolve the murder of Grace Brown. Justice couldn't prevail had the letters not been saved. In breaking these promises, Mattie realizes that she can save herself and give something, perhaps, to others that she could not if she kept the promises requested of desperate women who were in some stage of dying.

Character notes: Mattie was a good leading character, although a bit too naive at times for some of our sensibilities. Weaver was a strong character and it was nice, if not a little questionable because of the era, to see such a strong minority character. We all enjoyed the relationship between Mattie and Weaver. We all were very disturbed, but again acknowledge that the era certainly supported, the relationship between Royal and Mattie. Royal in modern times is just plain creepy. He is after Mattie for a specific objective which doesn't actually include loving her. He treats her more like an object than a person. When Mattie wonders if a woman can be unmanned or even unbrained, the consensus was that "yes" she was unbrained by Royal. She let herself be the "dumb" girl when he gave her attention. Other interesting characters included Mattie's father, sister Lou and Emmie. These were all very complex characters dealing with things that made them less of a person for most of the book.

Mattie's dad just couldn't function after the loss of their mother. He was inept and in such deep despair that he couldn't see what his family really needed. Yet, there were moments where he was genuinely concerned. Mattie learned to understand him, but could not abide or agree with him in the end.

Lou had been dad's favorite and was obviously the Tomboy of the family, but was there other underlying currents. She was wild and uncontrollable. Our discussion questioned if this was just because of the loss of basically both her parents' affection or if perhaps she was having serious sexual identification issues and how, during that era, would that have been handled?

Emmie was a woman who was taken advantage of. had no self-respect. Was the realtionship between Emmie & Royal's father ever a loving one or simply a trade-in-kind for his support. She was considered the "problem" in the community, but she was given the chance to pull herself together and get some dignity back when Weaver's mother needed help.

These characters were neither all good or all bad. They were complex and more human than many characters in YA and adult lit.

This book referenced the early literary women Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson. This book left us deliberating over the question of "words vs love". This was often a struggle and/or underlying theme of these earlier authors. Can you have both? Can this still be a challenge today for young women?

Members of the club... please add your input and thoughts on this book. Next book: Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers.

A GREAT & TERRIBLE BEAUTY by Libba Bray RECAP

JB lead an excellent discussion on this book and I apologize if my recap doesn't capture it all quite as intensely. One of the main themes of the book was "Women and Power". What is it about women and power that seem to make people want to contain or control women? How do you think it has changed or not changed in today's society? We discussed that women historically have been kept away from positions of power with the exceptions of some leaders such as Queen Victoria who seemed to be the exception to the rule but were in thier place by "divine right". But why? Do women actually hold the ability to be stronger leaders? Will they lose their beauty by becoming a leader? We discussed how changes, especially during the Victorian era, were happening rapidly in general and many of these changes were breaking conceptions of established societal rules. Among these changes, near the end of the era, were beginning to affect women and their established roles. Today there are more opportunities for women, but is there still a limit to were and what a woman can be? Do women still suffer the consequences of losing their "feminine" status by taking on non-traditional roles and leaderships?

What about Miss Moore? Will she be back again? Is she part of the order? After all, she unblinkingly read the passage about Sarah Rees Toome and Mary Dowd. She is an appealingly strong character that people liked in this book. It was mentioned that she does return in the series, but we will not discuss how or to what extent here.

How do the flaws of the girls real lives affect the way they see and interact in the real? We discussed the strong desires of each girl and whether or not the realms really fulfill their desires. Felicity wants strength because there is something about her situation that has left her desiring power, but does she get the strength she really wants and how could it affect her real life? Pippa wants true love? The realm offers her that, but will it be what she really wants after all and what would happen if she stayed in the real world and married according to her family. Ann wants to be beautiful. She is plain. Would beauty be enough to jump her into a new and accepted position? Her singing is what brings out her beauty. Could she improve her station based on her voice? Gemma wants to know herself. This will affect her in both realms as she tries to make choices that will effect everyone around her.

Is this story original? There are similar elements that can be found in other stories of this similar genre, however the way Bray has put the elements together create a new and exciting story. One of the more interesting and unique things about the book is that the focus is on the female rite-of-passage that is often overlooked. Perhaps this book is designed to bring the gothic novel to a whole new generation.

Lady of shallot poem at the beginning seems to weave throughout the story, both directly and indirectly. Several passages reference the lines of the poem and discussions about the poem are very direct within the story. However, we felt the poem was nearly an outline of the story. The Lady of shallot cannot leave her tower and yet she does. Her fate is wrapped in her choices. Much like the girls themselves. Water plays a large part within the story. Things happen by or in the water several times that move the story in significant ways. There are changes because of the boat and water: The power switch between Felicity and Gemma happens after Gemma discovers Felicity with the gypsy boy at the boat dock. Boat and water are also indicative of changes in the realm.

Audio book is a good way to take in this book as well as reading it. Josephine Bailey, who reads the book, has a strong voice and good characterizaton. She does a nice job reciting Tennyson's poem Lady of shallot without out falling into the sing-song pattern that could so easily happen. Another wonderful rendition of Lady of shallot is the song sung by Loreena McKennet on her album The Visit.

IF YOU LIKE this book: We felt you might like Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King because it has strong female character, Late Victorian era, feminism, outsider character, burdens of guilt.

Bookclub members - Did I miss something? Want to add a little more to what I've mentioned? Please comment to this post or make your own post!

Our next book is A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.

Bookclub Survey...

I'll be doing a full write up about our last meeting soon.

In the meantime... if you haven't been contacted through one of your membership groups, blogs or newsletters....

There is a Bookclub survey that is happening and if you have perhaps 10 minutes and are willing to share your thoughts with the RUSA CODES Readers’ Advisory Committee of the American Library Association (sponsor of the survey), please feel free to do so.

You can get to the survey by clicking here.

You can read more about it at Book Group Buzz's blog entry called "Talk about yourselves" (Book Group Buzz is a blog sponsored by Booklist).

Upcoming events in the area

Thought I'd throw these up... I think it would be great to share local events via our blog. You can either e-mail me or post your events yourself if you are a member of our bookclub.

February 20th - William Durbin - author of Broken Blade, El
Lector, Darkest Evening and Sampo Lake (and others - some
in the My America serics) will be at the Heritage library
in Lakeville on Wednesday, February 20 at 7:00 pm.

February 23rd - Hubbs Children’s Literature Conference (as
announced in the recent Kerlan Friends Newsletter):
The 16th Annual Hubbs Children’s Literature Conference will
take place Saturday, February 23, 2008, from 8:30am-3:00pm
at the University of St. Thomas O’Shaughnessy Educational
Center on the St. Paul Campus. The 2008 event features Jane
Yolen appearing with Adam Stemple, and Lisa Westberg Peters,
as well as breakout sessions focusing on children’s literacy
topics. To register & for complete program information, visit
http://www.stthomas.edu/education/events/hubbs/default.html.
or call (651)962-4983 for more information.

April 3 - Barbara Joosse (author of Mama, Do You Love Me?)
will discuss her newest book "Grandma Calls Me Beautiful"
at 4:45 at U of MN Libraries' Andersen Library on the West
Bank Campus. This event is open to the public.

May 2 - Extreme Censorship - Banned, Battered, and Burned
Books - Noon to 1:00 pm in Andersen Library. This is part
of the libraries First Friday series, but may be of
specific interest to our group. Speakers will include
Marie Harvat from Children's Literature Research
Collections (CLRC) on the banning of children's and young
adult literature of the 19th & 20th Centuries in the US
and special guest Dr. Heino Beckmann, the German Honorary
Consul, who will speak on Nazi censorship in the context
of modern Germany (sponsored by the Tretter Collection for
GLBT Studies). Event is open to the public.

May 10 is the Kerlan Award Ceremony & Kerlan Professional Day
with speaker Walter Dean Myers. The Kerlan Award is
"presented annually in recognition of singular attainments
in the creation of children's literature and in appreciation
for generous donation of unique resources to the Kerlan
Collection for the study of children's literature". Contact
The CLRC for more information at: clrc@umn.edu

June 24 - Chase Lecture - speaker poet Paul B. Janeczko will
give the lecture at 4:30 pm. More information to come on
CLRC's website:http://special.lib.umn.edu/clrc/

CUBA15 and AMERICAN BORN CHINESE

Our inadvertent theme this month seemed to be cultural identity struggles. Both of these books deal with main characters trying to find themselves among a split cultural identity.

While most everyone enjoyed CUBA 15 by Nancy Osa, there was a feeling that overall it lacked enough poignant moments that would lend itself for good discussion points regarding multiculturalism with younger readers. There were some feelings of frustration with the book, but we discussed whether this was intentional on the author's part wanting the reader to feel as frustrated as the main character, Violet Paz. We also discussed whether or not the author may have purposefully chosen to not focus on the real angst of the multi-cultural situations in the book and more on the actual coming of age of Violet. Was the author's intent to gloss over some of the racial and cultural situations or was she choosing to be "color blind" and not dwell on the possible tensions and issues? Again, final word on the book from the bookclub: Sweet, enjoyable, but not as poignant as expected.

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE by Gene Luen Yang seemed to capture and force people to think more about the struggle which many multicultural youth face whether American-born within a multicultural family or a new immigrant trying to understand a new culture. The three stories are intricately told through graphic novel. We felt this was an excellent way to tell these stories which are all inter-connected and deal with finding and accepting ones true self. This is a book that anyone can learn a lesson from and resonate with even if they are not specifically Chinese-American. We discussed this book's merit in receiving the 2007 Printz Award and felt that it has a broader resonance for readers than several of the others. Our thoughts: this is an intense, sometimes uncomfortable, but powerful and thought provoking book worthy of its award and honors.

ALA announces literary award winners...

The news is out!

"Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village" by Laura Amy Schiltz is 2008's Newbery Award winner.

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick is 2008's Caldecott Medal winner.

See all the honors and other award winners at American Library Associations website:
http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2008/january2008/announce08.htm

We'll have to consider some of these for our 2008 reads!

Recap CLAY and ERAGON...

In a nut shell we thought CLAY by David Almond "creepy". Some of us thought it was "creepy" good while others of us thought it was "creepy" bad. For those of us who didn't care for the book the main issue was the "bad child". In the end, we discussed who/what Clay really was - was he real? magic? or simply an alter ego to express what happen? Was the book using magic realism or playing on hypnotic games?

If you are expecting another SKELLIG this may be a bit disappointing. There's not really the warm sense that the magic of SKELLIG created in this tale. It's more along the lines of a Stephen King type book. As a matter of fact, if you enjoy Stephen King you will probably enjoy this book.

ERAGON by Christopher Paolini, on the other hand, was more widely well-liked by those who had read it. A typical hero journey, but with many twists and turns to keep the adventure exciting for any reader. Characters are well developed and well-used. For example, Brom's character tends to slow the learning of Eragon and keeps the story from moving too quickly. What more could you want, legends, dragons and a young adult who is key in saving his world!