Recently Read: Kimchi & Calamari by Rose Kent

“Joseph, the Ethnic Sandwich” is the title of our 8th-grade protagonist’s second essay for his "Tracing Your Past: A Heritage Essay" assignment. The first one was about an Olympic gold medalist from Korea, Joseph’s “grandfather,” and a prize-winning piece of total fiction. Joseph Calderaro, 100% Italian on the inside and 100% Korean on the outside, was adopted as an infant by his New Jersey Italian family. This end-of-year assignment, and the arrival of a Korean family to town, push Joseph to an Internet search for his birthmother, and his family to a new level of understanding about identity, ancestors and belonging. Joseph, an adopted Korean-Italian drummer-comic book junkie-funny guy, is “One hunk of Joseph slapped between a slice of Italian bread and a mound of Korean sticky rice.” And as his dad, and eventually Joseph, figures out, “Maybe that’s not such a bad combination.”

Kimchi & Calamari is told in Joseph’s voice, and a strong, real voice it is. 8th grade isn’t the first time Joseph’s thought about his genetic origins, but his parents, so rooted are they in their Italian-American heritage, have never given him an opening. Joseph is a realistic adopted “everykid” -- he longs to know more about MBA (“me before America”), while being exactly who he is and affirming that he is a permanent and real member of his ‘real,’ not by birth, family.

Recommended for readers 4th-9th grade, and all adopted teens.

For more, visit the author's website.

Librarian is a Cool Job for the 21st Century

Venerable personal finance advisor Kiplinger.com includes Librarian as one of its "7 Top Jobs for 2007," right up there with several medical careers, college administrator and landscape architect. It's not often that the "experts" are so clued in!

Librarian.
Forget about the image of librarian as mousy bookworm. Today's librarian is a high-tech information sleuth, a master of mining cool databases (well beyond Google) to unearth the desired nuggets. Plus you'll probably have regular hours and good job security.

And generally work with other smart, interesting people. What's not to like?

Reading Across Borders Book #5 The Last Dragon

If it didn't say so right on the book, I would never have guessed that Silvana De Mari's The Last Dragon was originally published in Italian. The translation is that well done.

At first, the star of The Last Dragon is little Yorsh, a very young elf born into a world where elves are loathed, oppressed and hunted. All alone after rising floodwaters destroy his village, he is found and grudgingly cared for by two humans, a woman and a hunter, also fugitives. Escaping the town dungeons, Yorsh finds a carved rune that seems say he is destined to save the world by finding the world's 'last dragon.'

It all sounds like a hundred fantasies already read. The Last Dragon, though, has several unexpected twists, sorrow, action, humor, actors known but not immediately recognized, and many likeable characters. A definite recommendation for junior high and high school lovers of fantasy and/or romance.

More about the Reading Across Borders challenge.

En Route to the Library-on-a-Camel's-Back

The Paideia Library's donation to the Camel Bookmobile is on its way. You can see below some of the wonderful books that went in the box.


I learned that indeed, there is a special rate for sending books overseas, in an M-bag. The box of books goes into a special canvas bag with destination labels inside and outside, and 11 lbs. goes for only $11.55! (it probably goes over by trans-Atlantic turtle, but it does get there eventually). Not all countries accept M-bags (Kenya does), so check before you box up books for overseas shipping. This is a great discovery -- I'm very pleased to have found a home for extra copies of books that the Padeia community has enjoyed.

A Nom de Plume for March 17

Should you feel a burning need to write under another name next Saturday (or do anything else incognito), find your very own "little people" moniker with this Leprechaun Name generator.

Leprechaun Name Your Leprechaun Name is Sneaky O'Grady Get Your Leprechaun Name at Quizopolis.com

Sincerely yours,
Cabbage Lips O'Grady

Reading Across Borders Book #4:The Shadow of the Wind

I bought this title for our library a couple of years ago, though I don't remember why (except that it sounded good, and it was on the New York Times bestseller list for a while, deservedly so). Browsing the shelves for a Reader's Advisory consultation with a student last week, I saw it again and decided to give it a go.

The Shadow of the Wind is the first novel by Carlos Ruis Zafón, originally published in Spain (in Spanish, naturally) in 2001, and was a word-of-mouth bestseller. It is a literary mystery, set in post-Civil War Barcelona. Unlike the "mystery and detective" genre that I race through for plot and entertainment, this novel uses the unknowns at the center of the story as a device to pursue character study, civilization, the role of literature, the nature of writing as an art, family secrets and post-war societal changes. And the Barcelona details are rich and colorful. The cartoon at right is a pretty good plot summary.

About halfway through I had figured out "who dunnit," and was a little disappointed that it had been so obvious. But, whodunnit isn't the point at all, in fact, it becomes irrelevant in the context of why, the characters' lives, what happened before, and what will happen in their futures. This is a gorgeous read, and beautifully translated. Whether you are a fan of mysteries, or shun them in preference to "literature," you will find The Shadow of the Wind to be a satisfying excursion.

Find this book in the Paideia Library, at your local public library or bookstore.
Thanks to Unshelved for the cartoon (published yesterday, March 11. How's that for synchronicity?).

No More Snakes . . .

From time to time, out of curiosity, I check the stats on this site, and I feel really guilty about all the people who get here via a Google search, hoping for information on the care and keeping of python reticulatus.

So, I've changed the URL of this site to The Reticulated Pi-Thon (http://reticulatedpithon.blogspot.com). It loses the wordplay a bit, however, before we cheered "Go Pythons!" we cheered "Go 3.14159 26535 89793 . . ."

Anybody out there who may have subscribed to or bookmarked the site, adjust your information.

And thanks for reading.