It’s been a busy two weeks since A Whale of the Wild splashed down in bookstores on Sept 1st. Wildfires have occupied most of my attention this last week but I prefer to focus on much happier news. For example, there is a new baby orca in the Salish Sea! You can read all about it on the Center for Whale Research website. The photo below is by Katie Jones who helped me vet A Whale of the Wild.
Last Thursday I got to spend an evening with one of my favorite writers Janet Fox on the Books in Common NW writers series. We had a lovely chat about my book and hers, The Artifact Hunters. It was great fun and you can catch the whole conversation here. It starts a little slow because we are waiting for folks to join the zoom, so skip ahead a minute if you like.
I had hoped to create some science videos in my backyard here in Oregon this month as a supplement to school visits, but at the moment my back yard has the most unhealthy air in the entire world because of wildfire smoke, so I’ll be postponing that for now. Fortunately I haven’t had to evacuate yet and I’m grateful for all the help and prayers that people are sending.
If you are looking for a way to support people in my state, the Oregon Food Bank is going to have 40,000 extra folks to feed this month, so a donation there would be very welcome. If you are looking for more literature-specific aid, the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (BINC) gives direct aid to displaced booksellers and burned or shuttered book shops.
Thank you!
THEY CALL ME GÜERO by David Bowles is a collection of poems which together form a loose narrative about a boy living in South Texas and occupying the physical but also social and emotional space that spans the US-Mexico border. The poems are short and ring clear with emotional and physical details that will strike a chord with any reader. There are many words in Spanish but none that would be a barrier to a reader who knows only English. The glossary in the back is more a courtesy than a necessity. Teachers will be delighted to find many poetic forms and devices used throughout which make it ideal for using in school. I also found it notable in that it doesn’t shy away from the main character’s spiritual practice. A gem from Cinco Puntos Press
My favorite verse novel in quite a while is JAZZ OWLS: A NOVEL OF THE ZOOT SUIT RIOTS by Young People’s Poet Laureate, Margarita Engle. She takes on an episode in our national history that should be far better known–a racially targeted riot between soon to deploy WWII sailors in Los Angeles and the Hispanic community there. Engle’s spare language and vivid descriptions bring to life a time when the military was still racially segregated, a time when interracial marriage was not legal in California–only 75 years ago. This would be such a great book to discuss in a classroom or book club. The references and afterward make it clear that, as vicious as the racial attacks on Mexican-American’s were, justice was done in the end. The military did integrate and freedom to marry a person of another race did become legal. Still it’s chilling to see how easily the sailors of the 1940s found it to scape goat the Mexican community and how reluctant local law enforcement was to arrest servicemen on the eve of deployment. The art by Rudy Guitierrez strikes just the right tone. This is a gem of a book which I hope will find its way into many a high school history class.
What a treat to spend the weekend with Oregon’s school librarians. And then hearing keynote speakers R. Gregory Christie and Mitali Perkins was just the icing on the cake.