Some Kind of Wonder(ful)

There’s an old adage that for a person to really internalize a message, they need to hear about it from three different sources.  That’s what it took for me to pick up Wonder When You'll Miss Me by Amanda Davis and read it.  I’m so glad I did.

I first came across this title on a list of books with a circus setting – I love to read books about the circus life.  Then I saw it mentioned in the list of Alex Award winners – a prize given to adult books that will appeal to teen readers as well.  Finally, and tragically, I heard about Amanda Davis from her obituary – she died in a plane crash in the North Carolina mountains, along with her parents, who were flying her around the country on her book tour.

Amanda Davis was young and had published only one other work – a collection of short stories called Circling the Drain – but was highly regarded as both a writer and a human being, evidenced in her online memorial at McSweeney's.  It is truly a tragedy that Ms. Davis died so young – if her first novel is evidence of what was to come, we were in for some wonderful storytelling and fine writing.

Wonder When You’ll Miss Me is the story of Faith Duckle, who is fifteen and overweight when the novel opens.  Teenage cruelty and a brutal sexual assault lead her to an attempted suicide and rehab.  She returns to school 50 pounds lighter and ready to start over, but finds that nothing much has changed, including other’s perceptions of her.  Faith’s struggles to reconcile her desire to just “fit in” with her growing urge for retribution and revenge lead to more violence and ultimately her running off, renaming herself, and joining up with a traveling circus.  In the circus she finds work, family and the strength to face her former self and to reach new heights – both within herself and on the high-flying trapeze she learns to master.  Davis’s story is at once brutal and funny, dark and heartwarming – she was such a capable writer that you will find yourself both laughing and crying at Faith’s coming of age story.  Few novels can start with a horrific gang rape and end with a young woman’s hopeful transformation - and ring true with authenticity and honesty on every page in between. 

Hopefully, hearing about this book just once will be enough for you to pick it up and read it.  You’ll be glad you did.

Susan, LPL Marketing

Fresh Fruit

Lawrence Public Library now subscribes to Mango Languages, a fun and interactive language learning program. This database teaches pronunciation, conversation, grammar, vocabulary and cultural awareness. Many languages are available, including: Chinese, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese. Mango is so effective it’s used by many government agencies and the military.

Mango allows you to learn at your own pace and take a quiz to see how well you’re doing. Record your individual progress and continue where you stopped last time by creating your own profile. You may also choose to learn anonymously instead of creating a login. If you have a microphone and headphones you may use the voice comparison tool to match your accent to a native speaker. The translation tool allows you to enter any text and convert it into many different popular languages. Now learning another language is much easier than ever!

Access this new resource from Lawrence Public Library’s website by using the Research Databases link under Library Services on the left sidebar and scroll down to the Special Interest databases. If you are outside of the library, you will need to enter your library card number (without the spaces). If you are using a public computer at the library you do not need to enter this number. Your computer must have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed; this is free from Adobe’s website. A free Mango app is available for your iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad from iTunes.

Shirley - Reference

Canine Mind

Inside of a Dog: What dogs see, smell, and know by Alexandra Horowitz

As a dog owner, I enjoy reading books about dog training and behavior. Inside of a Dog is different from other books about dogs that I have read. It focuses on dog behavior from the dog's point of view. For example, a dog can hear things and smell things that people can't. This is going to affect how a dog perceives everything around it. The book also talks about dog ancestry, and how it is another factor in dog behavior. Something I found interesting, is that the author mentions that people tend to give dogs human characteristics, and the author feels that this is a mistake, because dogs don't have human feelings, they have dog feelings.

I enjoyed that Horowitz included anecdotes and examples of the psychology that she was talking about, because there are points when the book gets a little technical, and without the stories, I would have been lost at times as to what she was trying to say. I also liked that Horowitz explained why dogs display various behaviors (like why my dog loves to roll in things that smell unpleasant).

I would recommend this book to anyone who has read dog training and behavior books, and is looking for a different perspective.

Jenny R. - Reference

Hip Hop Hooray

Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang 
I've spent a long time craving the perfect history of hip-hop. Watched a few documentaries here, read a few books there... but never quite satisfied that desire to put it all in context as the sociopolitical movement it's always felt like to me. Until now, that is!

Can't Stop Won't Stop is a dense little volume, telling the story of hip-hop alongside the stories of polarizing housing and economic reforms, police brutality, drug trafficking, and the fight inner-city communities have put up to survive and create meaning via popular cultural movements: music, dance, the visual arts. It's not a quick or easy read, with Chang packing in as much history and context as each page can possibly hold. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the cultural and political events that birthed hip-hop, and in Can't Stop Won't Stop he gifts that knowledge to us, taking us from 1960s Jamaica to 1990s L.A., with a twenty-year stop in New York on the way.

Chang does skip major artists in his history, which might disappoint some hip-hop fans, but I thought it was a great move in the context of this book. LL Cool J, Biggie, Wu-Tang --they're not really represented here, Chang having opted instead to showcase key artists in depth to emphasize sociopolitical conditions in inner-city communities: Afrika Bambaataa, Public Enemy, Ice Cube. And rather than deifying these hip-hop icons, which could be awfully tempting, Chang offers up a much more complex view of their work, putting it in dialogue with feminists and other activists who've often clashed with their views along the way.

One of my favorite chapters is about Ice Cube's Death Certificate, the uber-macho gangster rap album that Chang first made me appreciate by showing how it evolved out of the race politics that defined L.A. during the Rodney King era of police brutality. But then, turn the page, and there's a transcript of Ice Cube in conversation with a prominent black feminist who questions his portrayal of women on the album. This is why I loved reading Chang! -- he puts it all in context, but without oversimplifying. He both celebrates the art form and dissects the politics, giving us layers upon layers to unravel.

Rachel - Programs

Life's Ups and Downs

Each day I read the financial news as if my portfolio consisted of something more than the $14 in change I have parked in a jar on top of my dresser.  I just get swept up in the drama surrounding the volatility of the stock market.    When it’s up, I have a hop in my step and I’m eager to embrace my and America’s bright new futures. When it’s down, I spend the day in a funk, fretting about whether I will have to pack my whole family into a jalopy and go West to handpick crops.

Obviously, this isn’t how the stock market works.  Daily fluctuations rarely indicate lasting trends.  But knowing that to be true doesn’t exactly quell the queasiness one feels from being on this financial rollercoaster (or in my case, observing the rollercoaster from one of those coin-operated, grocery store merry-go-rounds).  I’m not the only one having these issues, check out this enlightening NPR story about the psychological impact of financial news.  

If you are more the rational sort, and all this financial bipolarity has only piqued your interest in practical money management, let me recommend - All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi (her daughter).  You may have heard of Elizabeth Warren – she is the Harvard Law professor who President Obama appointed to oversee the bailout of the banking industry and has since become a political lightening rod for her outspoken support of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (and is now rumored to be a Senate candidate in Massachusetts).  And while all of that would make for a fascinating read, none of it is in this particular book (written years prior).   Instead, the authors present a straight-forward, easy-to-understand approach to your personal finances.  The basic premise is to split your income into three broad categories: 50% must-haves (rent, car payment, electricity), 30% wants (new shoes, haircuts, vacations), 20% savings.  Their assertion is that if you can achieve this balance, you can proceed through life never worrying about money - and if you find that you miss worrying about money, you can always roll those savings into some stocks.

Ransom - Reference