Tagged with recommended

This book got me to wondering about the Ls, who moved in down the street from me when I was a kid. They were from Chile, but I have no idea if they fled oppression or sneaked out with their money. Probably the former, given the timing, but I think my parents didn't like them, so I don't know. Anyway, this book is written mostly from the point of view of the son of a Chilean political prisoner. While the father, Marcelo, was being tortured in jail, his wife, eleven-year-old son Daniel, and eight-year-old daughter Tina emigrated to Madison, Wisconsin. Eventually the family is reunited, but Marcelo is very broken. At seventeen Daniel is doing pretty well; he has a girlfriend, excels at soccer, and plays guitar in a band. His sister isn't thriving quite as handily, and I'm not sure about Mamá.

I remember being kind of cool to this Judy Blume book as a kid, but I might have been too old for it the first time I read it. Reading it now I have a greater appreciation for its portrait of a 10-year-old Jewish girl from New Jersey in post-World War II America. Sally is kind of dumb or naive, which is probably another reason I wasn't crazy about her as a kid, but as an adult I'm not quite as bothered. What really appeals to me is how Blume portrays the future writer, not by having her write a bunch in her diary, but by sharing her imaginative inner life. Blume identifies this as her most autobiographical work, which makes total sense to me.

I was not engaged in the fat envelope frenzy myself, which in retrospect I think is a little sad. I wish I'd worked harder in high school, and had people supporting and encouraging me, and better Guidance. (If they'd told me to fill out one freakin' form, I could have had a scholarship, but because I was in a vocational program--performing arts--I missed the college prep sessions. That's pretty bad, right? Granted more of us kids in the arts that rode the tech bus were probably headed to college than those going to auto mechanics and cosmetology programs, but there's a bit of a chicken and egg argument to be made.) I probably ended up in the right place for what I needed--smallish school, college town, but sometimes I wonder... My nephew made a comment when he was a high school senior that it doesn't matter/schools are all the same, or some such thing. I hated to burst his bubble, but that is simply not true. I think all schools have different things to offer, not so much that they're better or worse than one another. But it's easy for me to speak about college admission from the distance of twenty plus years after writing my applications.

Whew! This one went by quickly. Well that's partially because I had to finish it before taking off for the US Social Forum in Detroit. It's a new book, so I couldn't renew it, and it's due before I'll get back. Anyway, it's the continuing saga of Cincinnati witch Rachel Morgan and her partners Jenks, a pixy; and Ivy, a vampire as they fend off coven witches, powerful elves, and greedy fairies trying to fuck with them.