i've thoughtfully grouped the books into comfort reading, research and personal projects, with the images+words texts behind.
comfort reading is that book that everyone knows, plus tamora pierce's new novel bloodhound, which i bought yesterday and finished today. it was very good comfort reading. one knows that the goodies will win, magic has its price and women can take anyone out in a physical fight if they train hard enough.
the right hand stack includes a book about the haida gwaii (islands in north BC, on the way to alaska), the good ol' lonely planet guide to canada, a book about cycling around the maritime provinces (far east canada, PEI and nova scotia and so forth), anne mustoe's rather annoying books about cycling around the world (picked it up at a garage sale for a dollar) and cycling around british columbia. i leave you to draw your own conclusions.
my research stack is 50/50 foucault and children's literature criticism. i'm doing a directed reading with my new supervisor this semester, rather than taking a course. i get to read stacks and stacks of kidlitcrit! the foucault is a personal summer project. i've decided that i've spent enough time name-dropping the man and not enough time reading his actual texts. postmodern me up one time!
mattland is an unusual picturebook in that it is drawn in the first person: we see what matt does from his perspective, and never see his face, only his hands and feet from above, and one time a muddled reflection in a puddle. it's an interesting counterpoint to perry nodelman's discussion about how in picturebooks one often reads the words in the first person ("i jumped so high!) and looks at the pictures in third person (illustration of a girl jumping) and how weird that is.
islands in the salish sea: a community atlas is a beautiful book i picked up on our weekend trip to the island. it's a collection of the most lovely hand drawn community maps of different little islands between the mainland of BC and vancouver island. the maps have an emphasis on indigenous heritage and ecological issues, and make me both want to explore all of the islands and never visit any of them again because of my environmental footprint. those urges are also about 50/50.
what are you reading?
2 comments:
Oooh, that's exciting - a new Tamora Pierce. In my first year of teaching I read everything she had published, while lying in the bath unwinding and soothing my sore back. I don't think she's published anything since - if she has, I think i have read it - so exciting to have a new one along. And yay for beating anyone in a fight. Glad you're having fun with the other books too. It mostly sounds great to me, except maybe the Foucault.
xox
she published another one of the elemental magic (?) books, about a girl who has stone magic. it was okay.
i liked this one better. you should find it!
well, the foucault has recently fallen by the wayside, but it'll come back, i swear! actually, winifred and i are supposed to be reading "the order of things" together, and discussing via email and skype. so she will push me. i love winifred.
love
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