Challenged books

I am listening to "The Face on the Milk Carton" by Caroline Cooney. It was on the list published by ALA(American Library Association)of the most challenged books from 1990 - 2000 reported to the ALA. www.ala.org.org A girl of sixteen sees her own face on the milk carton at school and faces the fact that she may have been kidnapped by her own parents when she was just three. Well told, vivid description of her feelings, thoughts, and "daymares" as she finds her memory coming back to her in bits and pieces. It is the first of a trilogy of stories by the same author. I wonder if Caroline Cooney writes under another name in adult fiction. As I am listening I am reminded of Carol Shields book, "The Stone Diary". I usually do not like to read a book written in the first person, but I like the way this is written. I especially like the language that is used. It is quite different and almost poetic.

Letterboxing

Just for fun try your hand at letterboxing. Look for Book Bunch's new letterbox at the following website. www.atlasquest.com

Friday Night Knitting Club

I'm into a new book, a novel by Kate Jacobs. "Friday Night Knitting Club" published by J.P. Putnam, 2007. It is the author's first novel. The basic story line in about the friendship between some women in New York City whose only connection is the local yarn shop owned by a single mother, Georgia Walker. Georgia has a daughter, Dakota, who figures into the story as a thirteen year old who is just coming into her own as she shares her talents as a cook-entrepreneur. She meets her father for the first time and starts a relationship with him that shakes up Georgia's world. All members of the Friday night knitting club have their own challenges and detours, and together it makes for an interesting book. In addition to reading this for the last few weeks, I'm listening to "Year of Pleasures" by Elizabeth Berg. A widow begins a new life in a new town and cherishes her new life and her old memories. As I listen along I am surprised by the beautiful description or enlightenment, and I want to rush to the printed word and underline the profound parts. Over the years I would find myself copying out favorite parts of books onto 3x5 cards...to savor. That's what I want to do right now. Memorize a special part of the books that states an idea in just the right way, an insight that I never quite heard it put that way. I want to own the book and write notes into the margins and then I'll be onto another book that excites me in quite another way. Ah... the words and how they speak to me. This is why I read...to see life from a new vision, a new perspective, and relate this to my own experience.

Get Caught Reading, sponsored by AAP

Get Caught Reading, sponsored by AAP

Indian Treaties

I am surrounded by books and I found what I was looking for, at least a little of it. This book was in the stacks: Treaties between the United States and the Indian tribes / edited by Richard Peters. [Boston : Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846] There is a treaty with the Chayenne Indians that was recorded in 1825. I need to find out what land was allotted to the Chayenne Indians in 1825. This treaty basically stated that the Indians acknowledge that they are living in the United States territory "they reside within the territorial limits of the United States, acknowledge their supremacy, and claim their protection," and will not wage war. They also agree that the conduct of one individual acting alone will not cause the government to hold the tribe responsible. Excuse me if I am using older language or terms but I am reading about the people our government was referring to in 1825, and the spelling has changed. Also the term Native Americans is actually more correct to use.
Could this treaty be found online? Maybe. Yes, there it is on www.firstpeople.us
Amazing this world we live in today. And complicated. The spelling on the website is "Cheyenne." Treaty with the Cheyenne tribe July 6, 1825

Now I just found another treaty with the Arapaho and Cheyenne February 15, 1861, and Little Wolf is a representative of the Cheyenne with others. We will see what has been promised.

Fiction vs. Nonfiction

Reading a book of fiction that is based on facts, some call this historical fiction, creates the desire to know more about the actual historical event. I am presented with a story that has some historical setting, historical figures, and the historical event that may or may not have happened. I get so caught up in the story that all along I find that I don't really know the history behind the book. I want to know more, I want to expand my knowledge. So if I am lucky, I will read up on the historical facts of that time period and check it against the story itself, to see if the story is believable. This is not alternate history, when the novelist begins with the historical setting and plays a what-if game with himself and the reader. For example what if the North did not win the civil war back in the 1860's... what would have happened. An example that was used by Philip Roth last year in "The Plot Against America", what-if the U.S. Presidential election had been won by Lindbergh, not Roosevelt before World War II. How much is based on fact and how much is pure fantasy?
In this way I find I am reading fiction, followed by nonfiction. After I read "Dark Star" by Alan Furst I found that I wanted to read books on the Stalinst purges. This part of my history lessons I didn't remember. And the little that I did know needed some updates. The number of communists killed by the followers of Josef Stalin is mindboggling. And I began to wonder myself how the Soviet communists were able to stand up against the Nazis after so many leaders were sacrificed?
I am now reading "1000 White Women: The Journal of May Dodd" by Jim Fergus and I want to separate the fact from the fiction. I know very little about the 1875's in Cheyenne territory. I am totally captured by the story, itself written so well that Mary Dodd is alive to me. I am listening to the audio version, Laura Hicks reading aloud, even singing the songs of Phemie, former slave/now Cheyenne. I love when Laura Hicks speaks the Cheyenne language, and relates how the character is soon enchanted herself with the sounds. And after the book is over, what will I read that tells me more about the facts of the actual 'Brides For Indians" plan offered to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant by the great Cheyenne "Sweet Medicine Chief" Little Wolf? Will it Be the newspaper's written in 1874? Based on our own newspaper accounting's I know those will not be the facts. Where can I find the transcript of the audience of Little Wolf and Grant? Hummm...and the treaties? Are they still out there for our perusal? What will be the nonfiction account that I will read just to answer some questions that came to me while I read?

Learning to blog

Blog: a diary of sorts online.
First create your user name: people will associate this with you, it will be displayed on your computer screen for all to see.
The mighty password: this is my stumbling block, I can never remember when I create a new one for all the accounts online that exist, so remember your password.
Your email address, create a new email address online on a free website if you don't have a network provider, has to be done first. All accounts are related to this email address once you start on blogger.