Wayne Grady's Emancipation Day

Wayne Grady's Emancipation Day is knocking at my door. Really, the universe is knocking me over the head with it. 

A few months ago this book popped up on my radar. The local talk radio program (and I use local in the national sense...CBC Radio) was taking about Canadian author Wayne Grady and his new book - his first novel. I was interested since he's written 14 books, translated a dozen and edited a number of anthologies...yet this was his first novel? Then I learned that he resides in my backyard. And I mean 'backyard' in the Canadian sense, so within an hour of my home. I announced to my book club that I felt I should read this book. 

Shortly afterward, I was attending a meeting of the local Friends of the Library. It's a newly formed group that I've been volunteering a bit of time with. We managed to have a successful fundraising event in which a popular author visited. While basking in the glow of success, we began throwing names around of authors it would be nice to host. We were very much kidding around until someone said "Wayne Grady" and then someone else said they knew Wayne Grady...the very Wayne Grady who had written Emancipation Day and had been nominated for the Giller Prize this year. Mr. Grady was invited, he accepted and I need to bake cookies for his visit this Friday. 

Just last week a friend stopped by my house at a strange time. She had been out and about when she came across a locally published magazine that made her think of the Girl Child. The magazine featured the profile of a fencer. When flipping through it, I noticed that the topic of the Book Launch column was none other than Emancipation Day by Wayne Grady. 

I was not too surprised this week when a book club friend announced she had a copy of the book. She has no time to read it, so if anyone wants it before Christmas....I figured I should probably snap it up. After all, I'm not sure to what lengths the universe would go to. Sometimes it can be pretty insistent. 

❤Mrs. A. 

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October's Book Club

I've been going to a book club for a bunch of months now. I kinda like it. Not too surprising considering that I've always been a reader...

I was a bit scared to go as I've not ever been a terrible intellectual, philosophical sort of girl. Oh, how I wish the deeper meaning, the prevailing theme, the irony, the archetype would all jump out at me and I would make really intelligent sounding conclusions about that which I have just read. Sadly, not gonna happen.

I just get sucked into the story. And I've learned that I truly do enjoy a good, gripping story.

Book Club started when a few of us started to frequent a certain coffee shop a little too often. A once-a-month excuse was born.

Book Club is 'led' by a very cool, really smart homeschooling mom who got tired of her stuffy book club...so she started her own! She invited people she enjoys spending time with, who enjoy reading. Attendance leans toward being homeschooler heavy, but that just makes me love it all the more. There are no rules or required reading lists. There are suggestions and sometimes themes. And this cool, smart homeschooling mom who 'leads' our group has a knack for asking questions that inspire discussion and - this is big - helps me to see all those things things my high school English teacher wished he didn't have to point out to me.

This month we 'discussed' The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. A couple of us had wanted to read it to see what all the hype was about. It's a simple mystery and I couldn't figure out why it had to be such a thick book...but then I figured it took that long to get interested enough in the edgy female antagonist to feel the need to follow her story in books #2 and #3. I'll read the rest of the series, I think. The writing style is very easy to power through. The gritty, raw bits - presented in a very matter of fact way - turned off a couple of the more conservative in the group.

We came away from our coffee and chatting this month with a theme: mythology. I'm going to try out Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad. I haven't picked up an Atwood book since high school...and that was under duress. Hopefully I've matured since then. We'll see. Others suggested included God's Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips; American Gods, Neil Gaiman and The Stolen Child, Keith Donahue. I'm inspired - especially about the Keith Donahue book - and look forward to wading in.

Some suggestions from the group follow. I'd not try to make sense of it as we tend to be a little scattered in our discussion. I love it!!

• Genesis by Benard Beckett -a modern Brave New World?
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde - technically, this meets the requirements of some people's definition of a romance
• The Girl With the Glass Feet by Ali Shaw - apparently the final sentence clinches this book as a favourite for many
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• Triskellion by Wil Peterson - suggested when asked for a 'quirky' book
• A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Towes - a more modern 'coming of age' story, perhaps.

I'm off to start the Penelopiad,

~Mrs. A

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In The Library Bag...

This week's library trip was a quick one. Normally, we camp out in the children's section at one of the tables. We take the kids' school work and spend a good couple of hours with our books before browsing and signing out their books.

Today I browsed the display tables. I browsed the young adult section for The Girl Child, looking for something without a lot of sex, drugs, teeny-bopper dramatics, teen angst or mean-girl politics. The kids browsed for graphic novels - but not the Manga kind.

Today's haul was a small one. It's going to be a busy week and we're still reading a couple of selections from last week's selections.

Eldest
by Christopher Paolini

The second in the Inheritance trilogy, which is now going to be a four volume set. I'm reading it to keep ahead of the movies. I enjoyed reading the first in the series Eragon to the kids a few years back. I'm enjoying the story. If I were a more critical reader, I'm sure I would have a laundry list of complaints about Paolini's writing.

The Father Christmas Letters
by J.R.R. Tolkien

Every Christmas season, I try to have a nice read aloud on hand. This one should fit the bill this year. I'll let you know how it goes.

Early Christmas

by Bobbie Kalman

This is a more 'schoolish' book. However, our studies are taking us through Canada's formative years so it seemed relevant. Written pre-Eyewitness books, it's not as flashy, but it's layout is in manageable chunks rather than in pages of text. The kids will pick it up and browse it if I leave it conveniently laying about.

Eat, Shrink and Be Merry
by the Podleski sisters

I've reached my library imposed limit of 3 sign-outs of the 'Crazy Plates' cookbook. I had to return it. I kept finding recipes in it that my kids - the pickiest eaters on the planet - would try. This selection is similar in style and ingredients so I'm hoping for more success and further expanded palates.

A Really Short History of Nearly Everything

by Bill Bryson

For The Boy Child with his incredibly short attention span and low-fiction tolerance. Nice layout with lots of white space.

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I'm Going To Have To Make Another Chart. Damn.

If I could get someone around here to pitch in and contribute a little to their feeding and clothing and learnin', then perhaps I'd have a little more time to blog. Not everyone all at once now...let's not send me into culture shock or anything.

I had a brilliant brainwave this past summer: let's get rid of the chore chart we've been using for years with varying degrees of success. Just for the summer. The kids need a holiday, too, you know. Well. I'm trying to remember if I've ever come up with a dumber plan.

I'm on it though. Once I'm done reading this book, I'll have all the answers. The Boys Child was particularly concerned that I not skip the chapter called "Bribing Your Kids To Work".

One problem with this book, though. While reading it, I have come to realize that not only did I enter into this whole parenting game with inadequate tools, but I have developed bad habits along the way! My poor kids!

Hat tip to Lenore Skenazy over at Free Range Kids for the book suggestion.

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Scholastic Book Sale

My relationship with Scholastic Books goes way, way back. I think my favourite part of going to school was the Scholastic Book Order.

When the kids were at Montessori, I was re-introduced to those little newsprint flyers that would be sent home every month. I was a regular supporter of the book order. Through my contribution alone, I think the teacher earned a bookshelf worth of free books. Those early days of obsessive book-collecting should have been my first clue that I was destined to be a homeschooler!

Once I became a board member at Montessori, I took on the responsibility for the two classroom's Scholastic accounts. I handed out monthly flyers. I got to open the book boxes when they arrived. I got to sort and send home all those new, shiny books. I got to fiddle with the order paperwork in order to earn the teachers the maximum amount of Book Bucks which they could use to order classroom supplies. I even got to organize a Book Fair, which isn't hard at all. A big truck comes by and drops off everything you need. All I had to do was park a rolling bookcase, fill in some posters with the date and ta-da!! I had a successful book sale. Still, I was pretty excited. As a board-member/Scholastic account manager, I even got to attend a super-secret 50%-off Scholastic Warehouse Sale. My bookshelves have never been the same.

Once I began homeschooling, I found I really missed the monthly supply of new books. I didn't really order a lot, but those monthly $1.99 specials, for birthday gifts and holidays, for reference books, Scholastic sure had been handy. I looked into getting my own account.

Homeschoolers have some hoops to jump through in order to be able to participate in the Scholastic Book Clubs. Once I finally took the plunge and did so, I was disappointed to discover that Scholastic can't mail single copies of their monthly flyers. They come in chunks of 30. I received 30 flyers for the Grade 1-3 Book Club, 30 flyers for the Grade 4-6 Book Club and 30 flyers for the Special Order Book Club. I also received two teacher catalogues. A bit much, me thinks, especially if I wasn't ordering anything that month.

I decided I could peruse the monthly selections via Internet. Another frustrating venture. It takes sooooo looonnnggggg for the .pdf of the monthly flyer to load. Scrolling becomes a torturous nightmare as each page has to reload again and again. At this point, Scholastic went on the back burner for me. Too much frustration made me want to ignore it completely. Every now and then, I'd revisit the website but I wasn't motivated to find a way around my frustrations.

Today our French Tutor called. She'd just been to the Scholastic Sale. What is a Scholastic Sale, you ask? The Scholastic Warehouse Sale is a wonderful invention for book loving people. Twice a year, the Scholastic Warehouse has this giant sale where everything they stock is 50% off. I'm sure the purpose is to clear out the stock to make way for new stock. But whatever the reason, it's a Very Awesome Event.

The annoying thing about Scholastic Warehouse Sales is that invitations are not usually forthcoming. It seems that school teachers get invited, but not everyone with a Scholastic account. In our community, some of the public school teachers make a Special Secret Spy Club out of their Warehouse Sale 'privileges'. Annoying, really, as anyone can walk in and shop for books if they know about the sale. There are no bouncers checking I.D., no printed invitations to hand out, no retina scans to get in. So those little comments about 'The Sale' that you hear are just popularity posturing. A whispered "Have you been to The Sale?" will rally all public school teachers within a soccer pitch sized area and turn them in to a bunch of clucking hens showing off their feathers.

So, in light of this Very Awesome Event and due to my party-crashing nature and because buying cheap books is always a good time, when I got off the phone with the French Tutor, I rallied my resources (wallet, keys, responsible parent person to assume child supervision responsibilities) and I sped down the road to the warehouse. I had one hour to scour racks and racks of books. I limited myself to mostly resource material for the School Shelf. When all was said and done, I brought home $86 worth of books for just $41. Not a bad deal.

I should really get over myself and get a Scholastic Book Club arranged for our local homeschooling group. Then I could justify the copious mailings while enjoying the joys of new books. I will meditate upon the practicalities of the situation. In the meantime, I will enjoy my small haul of books.

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