The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Definition of monstrumology:
1: the study of life forms generally malevolent to humans and not recognized by science as actual organisms, specifically those considered products of myth and folklore.

2: the hunting of such creatures.

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey is the tale of Dr. Pellinore Warthrop and his assistant Will Henry. Will is an orphan under the care of Dr. Warthrop, a peculiar man who studies dangerous creatures and monsters. In the middle of the night in 1888, a nightmarish specimen is carted to the monstrumologist's home. Will can barely stand the sight of a half-eaten girl and an anthropuphagi, which is a vicious man-eating creature without a head. Will is forced to assist the intense doctor and is eventually led on a quest to find more of the creatures. Encased in this book are the three folios compiled by Will during their adventures.

Yancey, author of the memoir Confessions of a Tax Collector, has created quite a story here. It is as much about fear, perseverance and what we don't understand about our world, as it is about monsters with sharp teeth. Dr. Warthrop identifies fear as "the enemy" and relentlessly ignores the emotion, while Will is developing a healthy respect for fear. I'm glad to see this on some "best of" lists from 2009 because it is quite worthy of that distinction. This is a well-written, creepy read
in the vein of David Almond's Clay .

Be a Super-hero . . . Until You Grow Up.

Graphic novels and comic books aren't the only place to find super-heroes these days. Just have a look in Noble's Green, a town where kids can fly, have super-strength, can turn invisible. But in the novel Powerless (by Cody), the super-kids know there are four laws which guide their lives: 1. Use your powers to help. Never hurt. 2. The North Face and the Old Quarry are off-limits. Danger waits there. 3. It ends at thirteen. 4. Never, ever let grown ups know. From this great high concept, Cody tells the story of the new kid, the one who doesn't have the powers, but nevertheless finds himself in charge of unraveling the mystery behind these rules. And new kid Daniel can imagine, like any reader, what a remarkable gift it would be to have such extraordinary powers, just as he can imagine how horrible it must be to see your thirteenth birthday closing in and know it's all about to end. Worse yet, when your powers go, so does your memory of them, your memory of your friends; an entire part of your life simply disappears. Powerless is not only an exciting adventure that remembers the magic of old comic books, but a great mystery with surprises that keep coming. Most importantly, it's also a powerful statement on being a kid and being a hero (even without the powers).

And speaking of kids and super-heroes, what about the Marvel Adventures titles? All the big guys (and gals) in fast, fresh stories without the burden of continuity slowing them down. Just because they're labeled "All Ages" shouldn't give you pause either. Of all the comics out there, these comics most passionately and cleverly reflect the sense of fun and character-driven action that Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko pioneered back in the day -- and believe me, I do not say that lightly. There's a lot of collections out there already, but if you're interested in investigating, check out Marvel Adventures Thor Featuring Captain America, Dr. Strange & Ant-Man Digest (by Tobin, Van Lente and Simonson), which includes a hilarious re-telling of Ant-Man's origin and also stars Spider-Man (even though they don't tell you). Marvel Adventures Spider-Man Volume 14: Thwip! Digest (by Tobin and Lolli) is also an excellent jumping-on point, filled with great fights, but also the human drama that Spidey is famous for.

Super-heroes aren't just for kids any . . . wait a second, maybe they are.

For Lincoln's Birthday

Tomorrow is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Self-educated, with "a passion to right wrong, a courage to translate that feeling into action, a resolution that carried him through any opposition, a belief and trust in God... A tragic intensity strangely coupled with a saving sense of humor marked all his days... he never lost... his human compassion..." (from a Dictionary of Names, published by Rodale in The Phrase Finder).

I thoroughly enjoyed a three-volume, shortened biography of him written by Carl Sandburg. Not sure if I'll ever read the original six-volume (!) set, but I love Sandburg, and he loved Lincoln, so who knows? David Herbert Donald's Lincoln was a best-seller, and is wonderful. Seriously. It blew me away.

But it, too, is rather long. So I want to recommend Lincoln: A Photobiography, by Russell Freedman.

An Anthology of Fantastic Zoology

The Book of Imaginary Beings is exactly the sort of book I would have been discouraged from reading as a teen. No plot, no scholarly analysis required, and in many ways probably seen as a shortcut to "real" reading in literature. Just one author's cyclopedic reference of the beings he has encountered in his life's reading – a literary Cliff's Notes as it were.

But this is exactly the sort of book I was craving. This alphabetic arrangement of the fantastical creatures would have done more to push me toward exploring other books than any teacher or librarian recommendation. I consider books like this a sort of "gateway" guide into possibilities for future exploration in reading; I would have then and I do even now.

Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine surrealist-fabulist, not only collects the fantastic beings of classic literature, but also the creations sprung from American and Chinese tall tales, the beasts from religious texts around the world, and the creatures recorded from the dream journals of other literary luminaries like Kafka, C.S. Lewis, and Poe.

Quicksand by Anonymous

If someone you know is diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, it can feel as if they and everyone who knows them is being pulled into quicksand. Today's title provides all the facts and information you need to learn about HIV and AIDS: what they are, how they are transmitted, how they can be prevented, how people react to the news, and what sorts of problems they can expect - healthwise and otherwise, given the bias against people with HIV/AIDS that continues to exist in our society.

Humans Were Born to Run

Christopher McDougall started the quest that became Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen with a seemingly simple question: Why does my foot hurt? Like the majority of runners (from the morning joggers you see in the park to the best trained Olympians), he was plauged with injuries that kept him from participating fully in the sport that he loved. His questions led him to scientists at top research facilities, sports medicine specialists, and ultimately to the Copper Canyons of Mexico and the Tarahumara Indians, a tribe of people who make running long distances a way of life. McDougall wanted to learn the secret to their seemingly effortless running, and along the way touches on the history of the human race as runners, a 100-mile race in the Colorado mountains, the science behind why your expensive running shoes might just be bad for you, and some of the interesting but relatively unknown characters in the ultrarunning world.

You don't have to be a super athlete to enjoy this book. McDougall alternates chapters between scientific research (which is presented in interesting ways--don't worry about a dry presentation of numbers here!), stories of some of ultrarunning's current powerhouses, and his own quests to find the Tarahumara and become a better runner himself. We meet Ann Trason, one of the few people who have given any Tarahumara runner a challenge in a race (and are left to ponder the question of why, as the distances get longer, the times of male and female runners get closer and closer). There's Barefoot Ted, a runner who, you guessed it, sings the praises of running barefoot. Jenn Shelton and Billy Barnett are known for partying as hard as they run. The man who ties the story together is Caballo Blanco, an outsider who has been living in the Copper Canyons for years, earning the trust of the Tarahumara and learning their techniques for both running and serenity. It is Caballo who has organized the race that brings the author, various other ultrarunners, and some of the top Tarahumara runners together and is the focus of the last third of the book.

Read Born to Run to meet some fascinating people, learn a bit of the scienctific design of the human body, and be engrossed in a story. It may inspire you to get out and run, it may make you look at competition and mindset in a new way, it may make you believe that humans really were born to run. Here's an interview with McDougall from the Daily Show if you want a bit more background on how he got inspired to research the Tarahumara.

Cross posted at Dwelling in Possibility.

Incarceron -- Catherine Fisher

I read Catherine Fisher's Incarceron back when it was released in the UK, raved about it, and was so very excited for it to be released in the US, so I could recommend it to everyone, everyone, everyone. Well, I waited. And waited. And waited. And now, years later, it has finally been released here.

The following is my original post about it:

From Incarceron:

It was decided from the beginning that the location of Incarceron should be known only to the Warden. All criminals, undesirables, political extremists, degenerates, lunatics would be transported there. The Gate would be sealed and the Experiment commence. It was vital that nothing should disturb the delicate balance of Incarceron's programming, which would provide everything needed - education, balanced diet, exercise, spiritual welfare and purposeful work - to create a paradise.

One hundred and fifty years have passed. The Warden reports that progress is excellent.

Court Archives 4302/6

Final Crisis by Grant Morrison, J.G. Jones and Doug Mahnke

I'm of two distinct minds where it comes to so-called "event" comics. On one hand, they are the sort of thing that rightfully deserves their place in discount back issue bins. But on the other hand, they are what initially brought me to comics as a teenager. Early adolescence disconnected me from what I felt were "childish" things - and comics were on that list. But somewhere around 1984 I was daring enough to venture into a local comic book shop (an extememly novel business at the time), where my eyes quickly found the first three or four issues of Marvel's Secret Wars.

Now, anyone who knows anything about comics of the past 25 years will tell you that Secret Wars (for lack of a better or more accurate phrase) sucks. And this is true. It does suck. Inconsistent and contradictory plotting collide with ham-fisted diaogue and ultra rushed art to create the paradigm of the "comics as pure product" movement. But to my teenaged eyes, it was a wonder. Here were all of the characters I had loved as a child fighting against all of their most familiar villains in an epic battle for the fate of existence. It was a way to instantly re-access all of these characters and catch up on the changes that had occurred to them over the years. It was my "gateway drug."

Creation Myth

Science gives us a lot of specificity. We know how the universe began (though we don’t yet know what came before it), and we know an quite a about what’s happened since then--the formation of the galaxy and of the solar system, the geological history of the earth, the evolutionary history of life. It’s all fascinating stuff.

But those old pre-science creation myths have a lot going for them, too, whether stories of Gaia and Uranus, or of turtles and coyotes, or of a God making the heavens and earth in six days. While they may be inaccurate from a factual basis, they capture much of the mystery and awe we feel when we consider the origins of everything. And, because they often center around human desire, love, revenge, or failings, they tell us quite a bit about humans too.

Operation TBD Is Back!

Guys Lit Wire has once again teamed up with the readergirlz and YALSA for Operation Teen Book Drop 2010, and we're once again aiming to get thousands of YA books into the hands of teens on April 15, 2010. The countdown has already started (see nifty sidebar widget).

This year, we're also teaming up with If I Can Read I Can Do Anything in order to drop publisher-donated YA books into the hands of teens on Native American reservations.

Nationwide, librarians, authors, and teens are invited to drop YA books in their own communities on April 15th, 2010, to raise awareness for Operation TBD 2010 and Support Teen Literature Day--and to join the readergirlz for a party that night, at the readergirlz blog.