Of Road Trips, Kick Offs, and Thoughts on the Trail

Greetings, Lit-wirians! Mark London Williams here, joining the fray at Guys Lit Wire. I'll be here every third Tuesday over the next so many moons, and beyond.

I'm using my full moniker as my posting name, too, just to eliminate any confusion Lit-wise, or Wired-wise, since it's the same me who wrote the Danger Boy books (a series that straddled mid-grade and YA, as the characters grew older), and currently writes other columns and fulminations on and offline, concerning books, comics, politics, movie-making, and more.

So no sense pretending it's not also the same me in my own little corner (why am I suddenly referencing the musical version of "Cinderella!?") here on GLW, where I join a crew that is sharp, smart, far more caught up on their reading than I am (writing, it seems, slows that whole process down), and can doubtless teach me Many Things.

I'll be writing about books old and new here, including some of the ones that prompted my own journey to "authorship." Some of the "discussees" will be graphic novels, since I've been lucky enough to write the sporadic comic, and am currently a fairly regular reviewer of same, too.

So, let's have the fun begin, shall we?

We start, though, not with a straight out review but a dispatch from the road. (Not that we want to fill our GLW perch with such things -- this should be different from a regular "author's blog," yes?) Nonetheless, there I was, at the recent YAllapalooza gathering, a kind of in-store gathering/hoedown/happening pitting L.A.-based writers against their Arizona counterparts, all overseen by the wonderful Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix (well, yes, Tempe, on the outskirts of Phoenix, but in the West, cities tend to sprawl all over the place).

Four of us drove down from L.A. together -- me, keeping an eye out for available date shakes along the desert stretches of the I-10, with Carol Snow (YA tomes Switch and Snap), Cecil Castellucci (Beige, Boy Proof, and the terrific graphic novel The Plain Janes), and Blake Nelson, whose own Destroy All Cars received well-earned praise on this very blog.

We got there a day ahead of the event, and divvied up into a girls room and a boys room at our motel-- Cecil and Carol in one, Blake and me down the hall.

Would the "boy book" room be different than the "girl book" room, I wondered? I mean, in obvious ways? (Would it, in fact, be messier?) After all, we were all just writers-on-a-field-trip. But is there a sensibility that makes a guy-friendly story different from a gal-friendly one?

I mean, Hunger Games (mentioned in the post below) has a female lead, and that's a terrific read for anyone, so that's not the answer.

But I kept mulling the question as Blake and I wound up --stereotypically? -- discussing whether we'd be able to watch any of the NFL playoffs on room TV (our schedule didn't really allow it). I don't actually watch a ton of sports (I listen to baseball often, though, while writing), because it's so relentlessly commercialized, but often interesting "stories" develop as seasons wind down and post-seasons unfold, and the Jets/Bengals game, in particular, looked interesting.

But why was it interesting? Well, I thought, it's because at this point in the season, you don't really know what's going to happen next. The ending is unwritten (see the recent Jets/Chargers game) and somewhat unpredictable, and maybe, for boys, for men -- whose lives often do become predictable (in school, at jobs) -- these encounters with unscripted sporting events provided a tiny bit -- just a smidgen-- of adventure.

We all need adventures, of course -- the exhilaration (and sometimes fear)of the unknown, along with the comforts of the familiar.

So maybe the appeal of sports is that you can't say, with certainty, what's going to happen next.

Of course, we're living in a world like that, but maybe that's too overwhelming. But: do guys seem to respond to types of "uncertainty" -- manifested in thrillers and fast-paced stories , on the book side-- any more than gals do? If so, are they conditioned to, or wired to?

And why does it seem harder to get guys to stop whatever they're doing and sit down and read a book? (Hence the good works here).

There are no "set" answers to these questions, of course. Which is good -- that becomes another thing to explore.

And on the road, away from my own usual routines, I had a little more time to bask in them.

As for the explorations, I look forward to doing much more of that here, with you, in the months ahead.

Salt by Maurice Gee

"You are chosen to serve Company in its glorious enterprise.
Daily we grow in comfort and prosperity.
In this you share.
Who serves Company serves mankind.
Raise your voices now and give thanks."

Hari and Pearl's lives are ruled by Company, but in completely different ways. In Salt by Maurice Gee, Hari and Pearl might as well live in different worlds.

For Hari and his father, Tarl, every day is a struggle for survival. They live hungry among deadly rats and packs of desperate dogs. When the Company comes the people of Blood Burrow are dragged away and forced to work as slaves. The lucky ones end up at sea, in farms or in factories. The others, however, are sent to Salt or to Deep Salt where no one returns. When Tarl is seized and sent to Deep Salt, Hari vows to break him out.

Pearl lives under Company control, but she is not Company. Among the daily routine of gowns, makeup and royal parties she has been taught about real life from her lifelong maid, Tealeaf. When Pearl flees her arranged marriage, she enters the dangerous life of being relentlessly pursued by Company.

The violence of Company brings Pearl and Hari together as they discover they both share powers they need to learn to control. This fantasy strikes me as a grittier version of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and I enjoyed it greatly. Gee has created a really interesting fantasy world where dictators and rebels struggle for control. Fans of Hunger Games and Jonathan Stroud's Heroes of the Valley will enjoy this novel.

Borderline

You can't get away from the truth. That can be scary. Sometimes, you have no idea what the truth is. That is even scarier. In Borderline, Printz-Honor winning author Allan Stratton spotlights a story that reads like it might have sprung straight from today's news. It's scary, but not in the ways you might expect - and that's what makes it worth reading.

Sami Sabiri is pretty much used to being the only Muslim kid at his school. It hasn't ever been easy, and there are still kids who bully and abuse him for his different faith, but he copes with it, trying to fly low on the radar. Attention is exactly what Sami gets when out of the blue, the FBI raids his home, taking his father into custody under suspicion of involvement in an international terror plot. To make things even worse, Sami has been feeling suspicious about his dad's behaviour for a while. Suddenly all that Sami once believed in is shaken. Truth seems completely unreachable.
Borderline is a thought-provoking book that will make you consider the human story behind those headlines we've all read about terrorism and terror plots and wrongful accusation. It will make you wonder to what degree your thinking and your perspectives have been skewed or influenced by stories in the news, even if you try to stay open and not stereotype or jump to conclusions. I thought it was a clever angle for Stratton to have Sami questioning his knowledge of his father, just as the larger community in the story (and readers) wonder about his guilt or innocence and form ideas right from the moment he is accused. The public has doubts. We aren't sure. Sami is uncertain. It's not just the people on the outside who are suspicious. I like how Stratton introduces readers to complex and current issues, in a subtle and accessible way, without making it seem didactic or like he's just trying to grab onto something of the moment. Borderline is a tightly written, suspenseful family drama, about identity, prejudice, and the media's influence on the way we perceive and judge others. Perfect for news junkies, and social justice activists in training.

Borderline is published by Harper Trophy Canada. It is set to be released in early 2010. (February / March-ish... looks like!)

How NOT to Learn to Sail

I've reviewed some nonfiction by Gary Paulsen here in the past, and thought I'd try one of his novels this month. But I ran out of time. I meant to read Harris and Me. It got wonderful reviews, and I know I'm going to like it when I do get to it. In the meantime I'll review his nonfiction, Caught by the Sea: My Life on Boats.

It's a short book - 103 small pages, and the subtitle is somewhat misleading. Paulsen doesn't really give us the full story of his life on boats. He tells how he bought his first sailboat and taught himself to sail, and a little about other boats he's had, trips he's taken.

"...learn to sail.
No problem...
How hard could it be?...

... by the end of the first day I had still not left the harbor and was tied up to the courtesy dock... True, the trip had been a series of calamities punctuated by terror, and I had only come a total of about three hundred yards from my home dock.

But still, I had traveled, and I was in a different place and had gotten there by sailing..."

That's from the chapter, "First Boat." In "Lost at Sea" Paulsen writes, "But it was never really dangerous. I was never at risk except from my own idiocy. It's true you can drown in a cup of water, but you really have to work at it, and the same thing was true of my experience. Looking at it one way, I was working at destroying myself, and the boat worked equally hard at saving me. Had I done nothing but crawled down inside the boat and sucked my thumb -- which had occurred to me -- I would probably have survived just fine."

Actually it was dangerous sometimes: "The wind hit the boat with a demonic shriek, screaming, roaring, driving spray into my eyes and blinding me. I felt the boat go over on her beam and slide sideways. I was thrown off the boat, hanging in my lifeline and harness on the down side, dangling across the deck and in the water, disoriented, upside down, then right side up, the wind a wild howling filling my ears, my mind, my soul, and with the sudden onslaught of wind came the waves.

They were true monsters, steepsided, galloping, twenty, thirty feet high, almost vertical walls with breaking tops that caught the boat and held her down on her side with me in the water, clawing to get back on, ripping my nails, cutting my hands, now fighting to live, not obey the call of the sea, nothing noble or high-flown now but just to live, get on the boat and live. Even while I fought I remembered the tales of boats found sailing on their own with their owners...hanging off the stern dead in their harnesses because they couldn't get back on the boat before hyperthermia stopped their ability to function and they drowned."

The book is too short. I liked it, but I wanted more. Paulsen kind of leaves you hanging at the end - "That night I decided: Someday I would try the one great passage of the sailor's world. Someday I would try to sail around Cape Horn."

Fine. I'd read it that story too.

So, you've got a camera...

Perhaps you received a camera recently as a gift and its a fun toy but you're wondering what you can really do with it besides taking the obvious snapshots of friends, family, and your pets for posting online. Or maybe you've had your camera for a while and have sort of run out of ideas for what to do with those pictures. While there are plenty of books and websites that will tell you how to manipulate your digital photos with various software programs, or how to improve your picture taking with new angles and special gear, all you really need is a fresh, playful approach to rethinking what you can do with what you already have.

What you want is photojojo!: insanely great proto projects and DIY ideas by Amit Gupta and Kelly Jensen.

This is exactly the kind of book I wish I had back in the day, and one that should be considered as part of a package when giving a camera to a teen. The book has dozens of quick, cheap, and easy ideas for how to take unique pictures with any kind of camera, including film cameras, and unique ways to display them. Most of the craftier project require simple tools and materials – a cutting blade, tape, markers, paint, materials generally recycled – while a good deal of the tools and projects for taking pictures can be assembled on the fly or made with things lying around the house.

For less that a couple bucks worth of materials from a hardware store you can make a string monopod to help keep your camera steady and a portable tripod that screws onto the top of a soda or water bottle, both of which will fit in your pocket and easily replace a bag full of expensive equipment. And if you can gather a couple dozen clear empty CD cases you can make a photo mural display that actually makes for a pretty cool way to show off your photos.

There are some way-out-there projects as well that require additional skills and materials – like making a photo messenger bag with photo-printed cloth and a bit of sewing, or the photo lamp project that requires some simple wiring – but it's totally accessible and the final projects look awesome.

The book is divided in to two parts, the first half is projects for displaying photos and the second half focuses on taking pictures. One of my favorites is the idea of taking pictures of strangers in exchange for lollipops. The idea is to create a series of portraits (which you can later arrange in an awesome CD mosaic frame, of course) that forces the photographer to try and capture something more than a simple "say cheese" moment.

I think with teens a lot of time they would take more interesting pictures if they had some guidance, but most books on photography tend to either be dry and technical, or don't manage to convey the idea that photography can be fun. This isn't a technical manual, not by a long shot, but it does have enough to give a budding (or bored) photographer something to jump-start their creative juices.

If you know (or are) a teen with a camera who doesn't really know what to do with it, photojojo might just be the next book to read.

photojojo!: insanely great proto projects and DIY ideas
by Amit Gupta and Kelly Jensen
Potter Craft / Random House 2009

They also have a website with cool tips and idea and a store that sells nifty photo-related stuff as well (including the book):
http://photojojo.com/

The Young Inferno by John Agard

The Young Inferno by British poet John Agard, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, is a modern retelling of the story written centuries ago by Dante Aligheri. This up-to-date retelling is written in rhyme and illustrated in graphic-novel-like style. While some of the details of the original Inferno have been altered, this version will give you a clear idea of what the story is actually about.

Rather than being escorted by Virgil, the main character – a teenage boy in a hoodie – is escorted through the various levels of hell by Aesop, author of fables. The rhyme is readily understandable, with an occasional Britishism (e.g., "trainers" instead of "sneakers") to make things interesting. Here's a sample from the start, so you can see if it might be your cup of tea brimstone:

In the middle of my childhood wonder
I woke to find myself in a forest
that was – how shall I put it – wild and sombre.

No sign of light. Not a star twinkling.
The whole thing was kind of creepy and crawly.
I still shudder in my trainers, just thinking

of those scary monsters lurking in the leaves,
and death itself putting on a grinning mask
and rehearsing its whispers for the breeze.

Full of humor and wit, this interpretation of Inferno may not stand in as a substitute for reading Dante's classic, but it will certainly convey the sense and feeling of the original classic in modern terms.

Amazon Adventure

As kids, many of us fantasized about exploration of undiscovered territories, whether that meant Antarctica or Mars, mountains or jungles. Many folks grow up to realize that there aren't that many untouched places left on planet Earth, and that the risks in getting to and exploring the ones that are still unexplored are great. One way to feed that need for exploration is to read about others who have set out to see what they could find. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann is one such story that will transport you to another time and place, one of countless dangers and endless possibilities.

Grann's book is mostly about Percy Fawcett, an explorer who favored small expeditions to unmapped territories. He made several expdetions into the Amazon before disappearing there, along with his son Jack and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell, in 1925. The story also follow's Grann's own quest to follow in Fawcett's footsteps as much as possible and try to discover whether Fawcett's obsession and goal, a great civilization in the middle of the jungle that he called "Z" ever actually existed.

The Lost City of Z is full of adventure, from the rivalries that existed in the world of exploration in the early 1900s, the history of the Royal Geographical Society, to the dangers that explorers faced in the Amazon, everything from hostile tribes to deadly insects, fish, and snakes. We learn of Fawcett's history and eccentricism, how he was seemingly indestrictible, and how he inspired others to follow him into the unknown. Fawcett's life and story were the basis for quite a number of novels and movies, including a book where Indiana Jones comes across Fawcett on one of his quests. The difficulty of exploration in this time period, when modern conveniences such as GPS and lightweight equipment were not available, is truly felt in the descriptions of the daily drudgery that was endured by any member of a Fawcett expedtion.


When Fawcett and his party disappeared in 1925, it was big news. Many other explorers mounted their own expeditions to find him, or at least find out what happened to him (most theories had him being captured and killed by one of the area tribes). While there were clues and conflicting stories, no one was able to bring back definitive word of Fawcett's fate, and some of the parties didn't return at all.

In this book, Grann puts together Fawcett's story, the stories of explorers who tried to find him, and his own search for the truth about Fawcett, taking him from interviewing Fawcett's relatives and into the Amazon itself to look for clues. The Lost City of Z is as suspenseful as any fictional adventure story and really allows you to get a feel for what Amazonian exploration was like. It doesn't matter that Grann doesn't find out the truth about what happened to Fawcett, you don't really expect him to. This book is all about the journey, and what a journey to go along on.

Note: I listened to the audio version of this book, but also took the book out of the library so that I could check out the pictures. The audio was good, but a few of the Brazilian place names were mispronounced, which I only knew because my wife speaks Portuguese. The audio would be a great way to pass the time on a road trip, even one that's not quite as eventful as the journey described in this book.

Cross posted at Dwelling in Possibility.

The Future Is Now

So it's 2010. Now that we're all living in the future, we should probably do some brush up reading about it. Ender's Game: Battle School (by Yost and Ferry) is the adaptation of the first part of Orson Scott Card's neo-classic Ender's Game about young Ender Wiggin, who is drafted into the rigorous Battle School by somewhat insidious military masters in hopes that Ender is the prodigy who can save earth from an imminent invasion by a horde of incoming aliens. Focusing on the first part of the novel allows a deep exploration into Ender's battle not only with his peers in the school (in some particularly thrilling zero-gravity tactical exercises) but also his struggle to heal the scars of psychological torture left by his monstrous older brother.

The companion piece to that little beauty is Ender's Shadow: Battle School (by Carey and Fiumara), also based on the opening chapters of Card's original, which in this case follows Bean, a supporting character in the narrative of the main novel. Bean grows up on the hard streets, where he shows his innate intelligence by simply surviving, until he's noticed by those some military schemers and taken into battle school, where his destiny parallels Ender's own, in a slow build towards an inevitable meeting. Much of the suspense in Bean's story comes from the mystery of his origins and the realization on the military's part that Bean might be too smart for the battle school.

Each books tells a grand story on its own, but taken together, they reflect common themes more powerfully and create a sense of a huge universe and a sweeping adventure in the making. The art in each also works beautifully to counterpoint the differing tones. Ferry's art on Ender's Game is clean and slick, but with expressive faces and incredibly polished action. Fiumara gives Ender's Shadow a dirty grit that captures the sense and danger of the streets.

Welcome to the future and happy New Year.

If you live in the Tempe, AZ area then check this out

Changing Hands Bookstore and Hoodlums Music and Movies present YAllapalooza 2010, a literary musical extravaganza featuring live bands, pizza, games, prizes, and a chance to mix and mingle with your favorite YA authors and get books signed! We’ll have a live game show that tests contestants’ knowledge of young adult and middle grade literature with games GUARANTEED to amaze and amuse. Los Angeles authors include Cecil Castellucci, Carol Snow, Blake Nelson, Andrew Smith, Mark London Williams, and Amy Goldman Koss. Arizona authors include Janette Rallison, James A. Owen, Angela Morrison, Janni Lee Simner, Tom Leveen, Tony Carrillo, Aprilynne Pike, and Jon Lewis. Bands to be announced.

It's scheduled for this weekend!

Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick

Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick
"When Private Matt Duffy wakes up in an army hospital in Iraq, he's honored with a Purple Heart. But he doesn't feel like a hero.

There's a memory that haunts him: an image of a young Iraqi boy as a bullet hits his chest. Matt can't shake the feeling that he was somehow involved in his death. But because of a head injury he sustained just moments after the boy was shot, Matt can't quite put all the pieces together.

Eventually Matt is sent back into combat with his squad—Justin, Wolf, and Charlene—the soldiers who have become his family during his time in Iraq. He just wants to go back to being the soldier he once was. But he sees potential threats everywhere and lives in fear of not being able to pull the trigger when the time comes. In combat there is no black-and-white, and Matt soon discovers that the notion of who is guilty is very complicated indeed."- summary from Amazon

I picked this up from my shelves to read recently mainly because I'd been reading a LOT of more light-hearted novels and so felt I needed something more serious to kind of balance it all out. I've also read a tiny bit of McCormick before ("Cut" and her story in "Up All Night") and was excited to read this new book of hers. This is a great book and is written so well. It's told in third person but mainly focuses on Matt and his story is so compelling. There's a bit of a mystery to it as Matt is trying to put the pieces back together of just what exactly happened to give him the head injury. The first half of the book details his recovery and the second half deals with him getting back out into the war. I don't think I've read a story about a soldier in a war, especially one still going on, and it hits you emotionally, reading about what these soldiers go through. This book opened my eyes and gave me a new-found appreciation for soldiers going into war. The relationships between everyone are clearly defined and the interactions are written realistically. This is definitely a book that needs to be read by everyone, no matter what age.