Not a best-of list, just a list

Inspired by the fab Sarah Miller's look back at her year in books, these are the ones that stood out for me:

Awesome new-old author discoveries:

Edith Wharton
Oscar Wilde
Yeah, somehow I hadn't gotten around to reading her books until this year. But I finished The House of Mirth not long before BEA, which made walking around Washington Square Park with Guinevere that much cooler. And how did no one ever tell me how funny Wilde is?

Biggest shift in emotions from beginning to end of book:

The Actor and the Housewife, Shannon Hale
Until this book I would have told you Shannon Hale doesn't make me cry. Look at that cover. What could possibly be tearjerking here? Bah. Don't be fooled by all the funny bits and the great writing and the awesome story. Many tears fell at the end.

Books that made me think about a new career path:

Talking Back, Andrea Mitchell
Written in Bone, Sally Walker
I gave up on the idea of being a journalist not long after I finished college, and being an archaeologist even earlier. (Kind of hard to do when you don't like to get dirty.) But these books almost made me reconsider.

Possibly my new favorite researcher:

The Frog Scientist, Pamela S. Turner
Does anyone want to argue whether Tyrone Hayes has the best hair among frog experts? No, I didn't think so. He's also got cute kids he pulls into his work, a lab full of grad students that seems like it was made to be written about, and photogenic test subjects. One of these days I'll review this book properly.

Book that I wouldn't have read if I'd been given proper warning:

Mr. Pip, Lloyd Jones
Everybody was excited about this one. I finally got around to reading it for Twitter Book Club, but seriously: "this book takes place in a war zone" is not sufficient advisory for those of us who don't like reading about graphic violence.

Book that might make me eat my words:

Uglies, Scott Westerfeld
After The Beekeeper's Apprentice, I stopped saying that I don't like mysteries. Now I might have to rethink my stance on dystopias. (I've already promised I'll finally give Hunger Games a try.)

Book I wanted to like as much as everyone else did:

When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
I'm not saying it was in any way a bad book - I listened to it through the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina, and was totally engaged. (And also paying attention to the road - don't worry!) But the logic of time travel in this world really didn't work for me. On the other hand, it's the reason I'm still thinking about it months after finishing it.

Most satisfying series conclusion:

The Spellmans Strike Again, Lisa Lutz
I adore Izzy Spellman, and I still like her when she decides to grow up. (Yeah, the book isn't out yet, but this list is based on what I read in 2009.)

Book one that hooked me on a new series:

Heist Society, Ally Carter
Teenage master thieves presented in a way that's simultaneously total fantasy and realistic. And fun. Did I mention fun? I started rereading this one as soon as I finished it. The Gallagher Girls are good, but Kat is awesome.

Adaptation that makes me okay with the fact I haven't read the original:

The Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids, Michael Pollan
I read In Defense of Food, but so far haven't gotten into the original Omnivore's Dilemma. The young-reader adaptation seems to capture all the essentials of the story without getting too caught up in the technical details.

Best tongue-in-cheek narrative voice:

The Case of the Mistaken Identity, Mac Barnett
Not only does this book do a great job of spoofing the Hardy Boys style with its book-within-a-book, it also brings a delightfully dry humor to the difficulties of becoming a boy detective in the modern world.

Book that made me think the awards committees know what they're doing:

The Hemingses of Monticello, Annette Gordon-Reed
The book deserved every award it got. And probably some others I've never heard of. Yes, it really is that good.

Book that made me care about Darwin:

Charles and Emma, Deborah Heiligman
I know it's Darwin's bicentennial, but I'm just not that into him. This look at his marriage, though, was awesome. I particularly like the fact that Emma Darwin was not above bribing her kids when it came to winter wear.

Book with an awesome illustrator:

I and I Bob Marley, Tony Medina
The biography-in-verse didn't do much for me, but Jesse Joshua Watson's illustrations rocked. (As they do on the covers of the Hank Zipzer books.) I was thrilled to find out he sells paintings and prints through his website. Next time I have some decorating to do, I'll be looking there.

Online gag that worked in book format:

Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float, Sarah Schmelling
The whole blog-to-book thing is overdone. I think we can all agree on that. And not everyone can make a joke last for a hundred pages or more. Sarah Schmelling managed to pull it off (and inspire some worthy imitators) while reminding us how much absurdity there is in classic lit.

Journalists who make it work in book form:
The Defining Moment, Jonathan Alter
Rome 1960, David Maraniss
Magazines are having their troubles, but there's a lot to be said for the style of writing their best journalists learn. The storytelling and short chapters make The Defining Moment more than just another book about FDR. As for Maraniss, take a look at what he got his Pulitzer for before writing him off as just a sports guy.

Best book handed to me by the author:
Any Which Wall, Laurel Snyder
Yes, it's true. Laurel Snyder is absolutely as awesome as she seems on Twitter.

Anna and Ellen

When Anna Quindlen hung up her keyboard earlier this year, I sighed and said, "At least Ellen Goodman hasn't retired yet."

So really, I should have seen it coming.

As of January 1, Ellen Goodman is retiring from her Boston Globe column.

(If you know anything about Gail Collins' career plans, I don't want to hear it. Let me keep my illusions a little longer.)

I grew up reading Anna Quindlen in Newsweek - she'd already left the New York Times by the time I discovered her - and Ellen Goodman in my local paper, which syndicated her column. And then I acquired some of the column collections they'd published - including some from before I was born, which I devoured.

I'm not the type to write fan mail - I just gush on Twitter, or something like that - but I do want to say a profound thank you to two women I never met, but learned a lot from.

Correction

It was Miss Grey. But who doesn't need an excuse to reread Sense & Sensibility?

Grad school applications are in, and Cybils nominee blogging commences (finally!) this week.

"...you will allow to be impossible, when you understand my affections have long been engaged elsewhere"

No, I'm not leaving you for a Miss Gray with 50,000 pounds.

Just admitting that I have to put blogging on hold for a few weeks. I have a grad school personal statement to write, and even though (or perhaps especially because) I'm not making much progress on it, I shouldn't spend that writing time on a blog post.

But I have loads of Cybils books to write about, along with the next few Trixie Beldens - not to mention thoughts on bookselling and politics and whatever else comes to mind - so be patient, por favor, and I'll be back soon.

(Post pic is me studying AP U.S. History back in high school, since I haven't been photographed hunting the elusive personal statement.)

Tinker v. Sleepyside-on-Hudson

The seventh Trixie Belden book, The Mysterious Code, was published in 1961. That means we have to take a little legal-framework field trip back to the days before Tinker v. Des Moines.

Tinker, decided by the Supreme Court in 1969, holds a pretty secure place in lists of significant Supreme Court decisions. It's got some great pull quotes, like

"It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate"

and

"In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are "persons" under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State."

Tinker deals specifically with the free expression clause of the First Amendment, not the freedom of assembly clause, but I'd argue that wearing a Bob-Whites of the Glen jacket would be protected in the same way that wearing an armband is.

(Quick summary of Tinker: Three students decided to wear black armbands to school as a form of protesting the Vietnam War. The school announced that anyone wearing armbands would be suspended. The students wore their armbands, were suspended, and appealed their case. The Supreme Court found for the students and remanded the case. My introduction to Tinker was through The Rights of Students, a book published by the ACLU that totally made me want to take a case of my own to the Supreme Court.)

Back in fiction-land, the Bob-Whites are facing the caprice of a pre-Tinker school system.

"The school board is having a meeting tonight -"

"And?"

"And they may very well tell us that we can't ever be a club again!"

Mr. Stratton, the principal, explains the logic like so:

"The board feels it must scrutinize closely the reason for any organization not sponsored directly by the school. It doesn't want secret societies to exist in Sleepyside schools, when clubs - really gangs - can be the cause of so much trouble."

I'm still not buying it - really, the school board can make decisions on a non-school-based activity? - but let's not quibble. The Bob-Whites are in trouble, and have to come up with a way to prove that their club has a valid purpose.

After a UNICEF info dump, it's resolved that the B.W.G.'s will hold an antique show fundraiser as a public display of altruism. Can't argue with Trixie's logic:

"Well, you know how it is here in the East," Trixie said, the words falling over one another in her eagerness to explain. "Everyone is interested in antiques."

Yes, welcome to the region that turned "antique" into an active participle, describing a weekend activity. Walk down Ridgefield's Main Street someday, and you'll see that she was not exaggerating. (Then stop by my store, where even people without farmhouses to furnish can find something.)

It doesn't take long for Trixie to assume that someone's going to have a nefarious interest in all the antiques gathered in one place. It's almost a refrain:

"We want to be careful not to mention how valuable some of the antiques are that we will show," Trixie said. "It might give people ideas about stealing them."

and

"Someone has read in the Sun about the jewel box and the antiques we have in the clubhouse. We'll have to guard them night and day."

and

"If we make a big fuss about the oak desk, a lot of other people may find out about the things in Mrs. Vanderpoel's house and break in... and they may break in the clubhouse."

Naturally, Trixie's proved right in the end, when thieves break into both the clubhouse and the warehouse. And even though they end up holding Trixie hostage, she outsmarts them.

And yet that's only one of the plot threads in this book, which manages to pack quite a bit into its pages. Trixie also gets attacked while bringing Bobby home from a neighbor's house, and later lost in a snowstorm and has to spend the night in an old schoolhouse (because, as Brian says in one of his less-endearing moments, "All right, Trixie, if you say you're going with us, you will. Some girls just never seem to know their place.")

And she loses a femininity battle with Moms, who complains, "I wish you weren't such a tomboy. You looked so pretty when you dressed up every day and pretended you were impressed with that cousin of Honey's" and then drags her daughter dress shopping.

Other points of interest:

Brian on Mart's use of big words:

"He probably doesn't know what the words mean himself. He reads the editorials in the New York Times and learns them by heart." Secretly Brian was proud of his younger brother.

And I not-so-secretly continue to love these two.

The phone number for the Sleepyside Sun is Sleepyside-9680. Not surprisingly, I've never had a phone number with letters in it. (But I loved seeing everyone on child_lit reminisce about theirs!)

Some nice wordplay and dry humor in this book:

• Brian's jalopy "did not sound much louder than a cement mixer."
• Trixie says she "could eat a boiled owl I'm so hungry."
• Mrs. Belden orders her daughter to "give the furniture... a good dusting, not just show the furniture to the dustcloth."

This is not one of Diana Lynch's more favorable appearances. First we have this:

"He should know, too," Diana said, "how the B.W.G.'s gave my parents and me a whole new set of values. We're lots omore of a family since my mother and father discharged the butler, the nurses for my twin brothers and twin sisters, and half the maids. They thought when we firt moved into this neighborhood that we'd have to live like millionaires. I guess we couldn't do it because we've really been poor most of our lives."

And then this:

Diana's puzzled violet-blue eyes widened. She even mixed up one-syllable words.

And then right after getting excited about Mr. Belden's offer of a vacant warehouse to hold the show, Trixie tells Diana they can't accept an old oil burner from Mr. Lynch to heat the clubhouse, because it goes against the "doing everything ourselves" ethic. But borrowing a warehouse doesn't?

[Book source: My collection. Bought it ages ago.]

The James Herriot of bookselling

Or something like that.

The Bob-Whites added Arizona to "Places I've Been"

(In other words, Sarah Schmelling's Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float is definitely worth a read. And maybe a place in English classrooms, for when you need a break from comparing Poe's brand of horror to that of Ambrose Bierce.)

Sorry about that. Totally unsolicited (and uncompensated) book plug over.

Actually, Trixie could use a dose of lit humor in The Mystery in Arizona, since she starts the book by announcing

"I'm not passing math and English, and it's all your fault, Honey Wheeler. I would have spent more time studying if I hadn't been having such fun up at your place skiing, sledding, and skating on the lake."

Sure you would.

But even though Trixie's failing two of those tedious classes, her parents decide it would be too cruel to keep her from joining the rest of the Bob-Whites on a trip to Diana Lynch's uncle's dude ranch.

Which leads to important questions like this:

Would she, Trixie, stick out like a sore thumb if she didn't wear things like real cowboy boots and a ten-gallon Stetson hat?

The idea of the Other is predominant in this book, from "genuine" cowboys to "Navaho" jewelry to "ancient Aztec" customs. Arizona is exotic territory for the Westchester-bred Bob-Whites. Not surprisingly, the book is filled with headdesk moments, which I'm not going to bother quoting.

But the book does have some fun with the Otherness of the West, in terms of both the ignorance and expectations of tourists.

At a rodeo, one guest assumes all those fancy clothes are just costumes:

"I always thought you wore those kerchiefs as decorations. I mean, instead of a necktie. And those things you wear on your legs - chaps - they're just for fun, aren't they?"

And when one of Trixie's mysteries gets cleared up:

"A lot of the dudes wouldn't like it if they knew I was working for my Ph.D. They want their cowboys to behave and talk like the cowboys theyve read about and seen in the movies and on TV."

Sure, there's value in confounding expectations and overthrowing stereotypes, but it doesn't bring in as many tourist dollars.

Trixie doesn't get to escape schoolwork, even on vacation:

"Jim has given me ten absolutely impossible problems. They're all mixed up with fractions and decimals and yards and miles and square feet with a few gallons and ounces thrown in."

And later:

"I did those in school last month," Trixie told him with a sniff.

"That's right," Jim said with a mischievous grin. "The idea now is for you to do them correctly."

Finally our intrepid heroine admits why her grades are so bad:

"The truth is that I have no patience. If I had, I wouldn't have had the answer come out in gallons instead of square miles."

Which is why just about every math class - and a decent number of my science classes - made such a big deal about getting the units right. It's so easy to confuse area and liquid volume.

At the end, Jim does take a break from tormenting Trixie to dance with her. And we add another "aw" moment to the collection.

"You've got to wear one of those darling new dresses you bought in Peekskill."

Trixie shrugged. "I suppose I will, but I won't be responsible for the consequences."

"I will," Jim said gallantly. "As my partner, you will be the most graceful lady on the floor."