Hoang displays marvelous empathy with her characters: she wants them to be loved and she shows how they are loveable, despite social awkwardness, inapHoang displays marvelous empathy with her characters: she wants them to be loved and she shows how they are loveable, despite social awkwardness, inappropriate statements, etc. And Esmeralda is the most worthy Cinderella for a story.
And although arranged marriage is maybe not my favorite trope, the dignity Hoang permits her characters to have is just the best. And now I am sad that there are no more Hoang books for me to read yet.
Part of my wants to just delete all of the following, but I'll leave it for now. If anyone noticed that my review didn't actuallEdited to add 06/02/19
Part of my wants to just delete all of the following, but I'll leave it for now. If anyone noticed that my review didn't actually include a review of the book, they were to kind to mention it.
Anyway, here's the thing: Clavel gives the reader a little bit of memoir of her own education, a bit of how she came to educate her own children as she did in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Palo Alto and New York.. There is quite a bit about the educational ideologies of different countries and schools and many helpful tips for parents who have the time and resources to pursue the best educational options for their children. There is quite a bit on how egregiously non-democratic the US public education funding scheme is, and some about how disorganized it all is with more than 13k public school systems. There is quite a bit about how Clavel is fortunate enough to be able to provide her own kids with the best possible education, but not in a gloating way: it is recognition of privilege that most American's don't have based on income, race, and the grossly unfair way our system works.
All of this is useful, insightful, and good. And then Clavel explains how knowing full and damn well that her kids are privileged and will do just fine regardless of their school, she registers each of them into a private school. That's where it all goes pear-shaped. Please understand, I don't blame her, exactly. Everything in modern American life places the utmost value on parents providing their children with the best possible education. there is a reason why parents are shelling out insane sums of cash to get their children into the best colleges, and while there is a distinction between legal and illegal means, it can be difficult to distinguish them. Morally is there a difference between paying someone to "prep" your child for the SAT versus paying someone to actually take the test? If Princeton Review can guarantee a score improvement from 1150 to 1400 isn't that an acknowledgement that the entire premise of the test is bogus?
So Clavel's personal decision is added to that of every other individual American parent and a horribly unjust system is perpetuated because no one who could make a difference has any stake in the game. The Republican and Democratic parties may speak to different constituencies, but both sides make sure to keep their own kids above the fray.
***
Clavel begins by setting out her personal education context in the introduction. This seems like a clever innovation that could profitably be broadly applied. So here is my educational context which will end in three asterisks if you'd prefer to skip it.
I was born into a career Air Force family, and so moved into my sixth home just after my seventh birthday. Military bases provided day care which my parents happily took advantage of, but which I don't recall. While my father was deployed to Viet Nam we lived off-base and I attended a private preschool in Fort Worth Texas while my mother worked part-time. The following year I was enrolled in public half-day kindergarten in Colorado Springs where I also attended first grade. Then public school in rural western North Carolina for second and third grades. Then private school for fifth through seventh grades (they didn't offer fourth). Another move took me back to public school in suburban Greensboro NC through high school graduation, with half of each day my senior year spent in a magnet city-eide theater program. Then UNC-Greensboro and UNC-School of the Arts in theater with, finally, a bachelor's degree in English from Georgia State University.
After years of high grades and good school performance, my grades became erratic starting in eighth grade and continuing through the changed majors and colleges, which should be attributed to my undiagnosed ADHD rather than those schools per se, but with a caveat. My performance was likely to diminish as I encountered increasing personal responsibility for time-management on longer-term projects, that's pretty common. Moving from a school with 100 student spread over 7 grades to a junior high with 1,000 students in 3 grades was incredibly hard. Everything was different: not least going from being only middle class at an affluent 97% white urban school where most parents had college degrees to being near the socioeconomic top in a school with a large rural farming population that was more like 65% white.
My education suffered from a distinctly USian problem: local school control. Whereas my best friend at my high school had never been outside North Carolina, it was my second country and fourth state. I have always known that education in this country is manifestly unequal, unfair, and undemocratic. It also has the distinction of being stupid in that there is no specific intention to teach anything, let alone rely on millenia of research on best practices. It is a jury-rigged system that exacerbates every problem of increasing inequality and demonstrates the worst excesses of unchecked capitalism. Parents who choose the home-schooling option are not actually compelled to demonstrate anything: there are guidelines that are meant to be followed, but no actual oversight or repercussions.
My educational record is a freaking mess.
Atria Books offered me an advance reading copy because I had reviewed The Smartest Kids in the World, a 2013 book discussing education in an international context....more
Short form: this book is awesome and every home and classroom should have a copy.
Long form: This was a whim. I just picked it up because it had a fu Short form: this book is awesome and every home and classroom should have a copy.
Long form: This was a whim. I just picked it up because it had a fun cover and title, but once I started reading it I couldn’t bear to put it down. The introduction is amusing, the art is spot on, and the stories are delightful. Well, many of them have violence and heinous cruelty, or just plain gore, but Porath forewarns the reader with some very specific codes. And when he’s writing about the evil that is lynching he doesn’t shrink from sharing the horror. But also, whenever there is a specific named villain in the piece, he comes up with some amusing expletives. Somehow he manages to hit a sweet spot between maintaining a light tone and historical accuracy, and he manages to do it in both the text and the art. Even when he gives these women enormous Disney eyes he makes sure to get the period details right: you know he isn’t mocking these women, he’s taking them seriously but not striving for an imagined objectivity. And then there are art notes on many of the illustrations, which explain details one might miss and their significance. Dude has found his calling and I hope he sells beaucoup books and can continue to devote his time and energy to the project. I love this like I haven’t loved any history since Lies My Teacher Told Me.
It only just hit me that the reason I loved this book so much was that I really needed to read about kick-ass women who got shit done and had fun and/or really improved their world.
I love this book: the characters, the setup, the whole thing. But I had to read it again before The Devil Comes Courting because 1. I hadn't left myseI love this book: the characters, the setup, the whole thing. But I had to read it again before The Devil Comes Courting because 1. I hadn't left myself any helpful notes here and 2. the title wasn't evoking anything, and I'm usually good with titles and authors and there's a 3. For some reason the cover, especially when it's down to thumbnail, evokes Western in my mind
So, memo to myself in the future: kittens and clockwork. You're welcome.
In the US a middle-school girl finds fun and opportunity and camaraderie in a massively multiplayer online game. Gradually she becomes aware of the coIn the US a middle-school girl finds fun and opportunity and camaraderie in a massively multiplayer online game. Gradually she becomes aware of the conditions under which others are also playing, as gold-miners in the same game.
As in For the Win and Little Brother, Doctorow explores issues of activism and empathy among young people, in a book both entertaining and visually engaging.I'll be checking out more of Weng's work as well. I loved it, as did my 13-year-old daughter.
This is a book about zoonoses, diseases that come to humans from other animals. It is scary, sure, because there are always new microbes out there reaThis is a book about zoonoses, diseases that come to humans from other animals. It is scary, sure, because there are always new microbes out there ready to go rampaging through our vast society. It is also rather comforting, both the methodical search for vectors and reservoirs, the details of transmission and treatment, the stream of breakthroughs that enable researchers to locate and sequence. And through it all, Quammen maintains a casual, light conversational tone, reassuring the reader that sure, horrible new diseases can (and will) spring up seemingly out of nowhere to spread around the world, but that also we have been pretty good at controlling those sorts of outbreaks.
There's quite a lot about Ebola here, written before this summer's outbreak. It should prove very comforting to everyone whose loved ones are not currently infected. I heap praise upon him for pointing out that it isn't nearly as grotesque as Preston painted it in The Hot Zone.
The only part I really disliked was the pure fiction of The Voyager, which was too long and added nothing. This was particularly annoying as I was nearing the end and racing to finish quickly before the future biologist usurped in entirely.
Library copy
I don't usually comment on covers, but I will say that Chip Kidd managed to make a very disturbing one....more
All the best books about parenting are written for children.
There's a contest and a tour, so a strong homage to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. BoyAll the best books about parenting are written for children.
There's a contest and a tour, so a strong homage to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Boyce makes his kid characters okay despite the horrible parenting they receive though, so that's nice.
The best thing, though, is that the kids manage to lark about and have fun, and also get stuff done. Liam makes a great dad, although it's clear he'll enjoy going back to being a kid. Whereas Charlie is deserving because despite his unspeakable poverty he doesn't complain or challenge the system, but Liam earns his reward for working hard and challenging the status quo.
I don't recall ever thinking that I would get to vacation in the moon some day, but it is pretty to think so.
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