About six months ago, I recieved an email from a good friend who is from… an older generation. And this friend declared that after two episodes of Exploding Kittens, they have determined that animation just isn't what it used to be:
"When I was a kid, animation was more sophisticated. It included gazillions of hand-drawn pictures with tons of details. Everything in the frame was moving. Animation gradually got weaker—and cheaper to produce—with very little movement. Usually only the main characters move now, and even then very little. It's boring for me after growing up on Disney's fantastical fun-filled, action packed displays."
I'm going to be honest with y'all. I have never wanted to say "okay, boomer," more in my life.
What was worse, this was from a friend who I normally don't associate with this behavior. This is someone who I think of as trying to embrace technology and learn from people who are younger than them. I also thought of this person as someone of an intellectual persuasion--someone who examined facts in order to draw conclusions.
I sent back what amounted to an essay detailing the ways in which animation has evolved over time and warning against judging decades of media on one hour of one show. I recommended a dozen other movies and shows and what, specifically, I thought made them sophisticated. Well, it's been six months, ya'll, and I still haven't gotten a response, which indicates to me that this person is more interested in telling people why their favorite movies suck than actually engaging an intellectual discussion. And I guess this sentiment pissed me off so much, I started a blog.
A blog in which I embark on a year long quest to prove good animation still exists.
Basically, I intend to create a larger data set in order to test the hypotheses my friend put forth in their email. I counted seven in total:
Hypothesis 1: Modern animation is less-sophisticated than old-school animation.
There are a lot of vague terms here. My friend does not provide a timeline for when they think animation got less sophisticated. I was born in 1990, and my siblings in the 80s, so I'll be defining modern animation as anything released 1980 or later, and old-school animation as anything before that. As for defining sophisticated, we'll look at a few more hypotheses first.
Hypothesis 2: Modern animation is less detailed than old-school animation.
I am inferring this hypothesis because my friend describes old school animation as highly detailed. Therefore, I will try to give careful attention to the amount of detail in what I watch.
Hypothesis 3: Modern animation is not hand-drawn.
Again, my friend explicitly points out that old-school animation is hand-drawn, and therefore, I believe, implies that modern animation is not. CGI has actually been around since the 1950s, when it was first used in Vertigo, but I don't think it was particularly used in animation until the 1990s, when Toy Story came on the scene. For that reason, I'll try to keep track of eras to see if any trends emerge in types of animation. I also want to specify that I will be interpreting hand-drawn as any animation in which 2D animation is drawn one frame at a time, whether this is on paper or using a tablet to draw directly into a computer program. From what I have seen, this seems to be how "hand-drawn" is typically defined within the industry.
Hypothesis 4: Modern animation has less movement than old school animation.
This, my friend more or less states directly, so I will try to give careful attention to what is moving in the frame and what is static.
Hypothesis 5: Modern animation is cheaper than old-school animation.
Okay guys, I'm just going to concede this one because I think that, in general, modern techniques have made animation cheaper, which has also allowed it to become more prevalent. I also don't want to spend a lot of time researching how much each film cost and how that compares to older films, adjusting for inflation, etc. If I happen to run across that information, or if others are more knowledgable and want to share it with me, then we can look at it further.
Hypothesis 6: Less work goes into modern animation than old-school animation.
This is the hypothesis that I think requires the most interpretation. My friend doesn't really state anything about the amount of work that it took to draw old-school films, but their use of phrases like "gazillions of hand-drawn pictures" indicates, to me, that they are imagining how much work went into making each of these films. Likewise, I feel that their claim that modern animation is less detailed implies that it is less work to create. Their claim that animation has become both cheaper and weaker also implies this to me, as if they are claiming that, in general, fewer resources are put into modern animation than old-school animation.
Hypothesis 7: Modern animation is weaker and less sophisticated due to hypotheses 2-6.
Basically, I interpret Hypothesis 1 as my friend's thesis statement, and hypotheses 2-6 as their evidence. The problem is that I don't believe they have enough data to support their own evidence.
And while I'm here, I thought I'd take a crack at three other hypotheses I see come up a lot in the discussion of animation.
Hypothesis 8: Disney is a superior animation studio.
I don't know if my friend actually believes this, but they did mention Disney specifically. And I have heard other people say that they "don't like animation," despite loving Disney films. So this appears to be a general social hypothesis in the United States. That being said, there are a lot of people who don't agree with it, and a lot of people who think it's only true for older Disney films, with older, again, being a subjective term. But those who I have met who do hold this belief seem also to have very small data sets when it comes to non-Disney movies.
Hypothesis 9: All animation is for children.
Hypothesis 10: Animation is inferior to live-action media because it is for children.
It took longer than I thought to break this down, so I'm going to stop here and explain the way my project works in another post.
Most Recently Read: You'll Find It All Still Here by Lise Greenwald
Genres: contemporary fiction, romance
After finishing Nothing, I knew I had to read something light, so I picked up You'll Find It All Still Here, a rom com about adult summer camp. By the time I'd reached the end, I... kinda wished I'd just read something heavy. Let's get into it.
So... I actually met Lisa Greenwald, and she was super nice, so I don't want to trash too hard her book. But I also didn't title this Confessions of a Literary Snob without reason. And I've never been a fan of romances. So I'm going to try to use this book as a way to analyze why.
To begin with, I have been spoiled by Tamora Pierce, okay? I just finished my review on Protector of the Small, and you know what PotS is filled with? Healthy relationships. Kel and Neal, Kel and Lalassa, Kel and Peachblossom... honestly, there's not enough time to list them all, so let me mention one of my favorite little ones: Kel and her sisters. Her sisters are both taking more traditional routes for women, and this would have been a very good opportunity for Pierce to have them talk about Kel getting big for her britches or something. Instead, in the one scene in which we see them, we see them talk to her like a human being (even if they have good reasons for not wanting her to be their server) and they bristle at their dinner companion who thinks Kel shouldn't be a knight--they have different interests, but all for their little sister pursuing her shield. There's just so much love.
What does You'll Find It All Still Here give us? Well, to begin with, Mira's bubbie gets on to her about not having a boyfriend... on her birthday... shortly after her mother's death. (Though, admittedly, this scene does have serious bubbie energy). Then after she sends Mira to camp, she calls her incessantly--when she should be at camp--being present--and helicopter bubbies to the degree that she shows up at camp to complain to Mira that she (Mira) is not getting enough nookie and even calls the police because her granddaughter--who is at fucking summer camp--hasn't answered her phone in a couple of hours. You know what I did when I went to summer camp? I turned off my phone. For four days. I am so terribly glad that no one in my life is like Mira's bubbie. It would have ruined the experience.
Then there's Josie, Mira's best friend, who decides she's going to have an affair at camp to determine if she really loves her boyfriend or not--which Mira seems to think is a good idea. Oh, she also calls Mira's bubbie to basically tattle on Mira that Mira is not having sex. And that's really what it gets to. The drama of it all. And the physicality of it all. At one point, Mira is like, "what a loser I would be if I went to adult summer camp and didn't have sex." As someone who did exactly that, I'm honestly a little offended.
But at least Mira's intentions explain why this book seems to have no semblance of camp. I mean... they walk around the camp a lot. They talk in the cabins. They talk on the tennis courts. They talk in the dining hall. They talk on the basketball court. They talk by the lake. But that's all they do. They attend Shabbat services and leave to hide in the bathroom and talk about men. They literally have a conversation in the middle of a color war dodgeball game. There's no indication they're playing, of course. I guess they're just standing there, watching everything happen? And considering their are virtually no main characters aside from the main four or five, most of the book just feels like them walking around an empty camp.
I'm reminded of this video I ran across recently about kishotenketsu, which makes the argument that if you're writing with this story structure (instead of a western 3-act structure), then instead of introducing conflict, you need to introduce texture--deepen your world and immerse your reader in it. If your character is baking bread, he says, don't skip over the scene as "she baked bread." Make us experience the flour everywhere, the feel of the dough as it's kneaded, shaping the loaf before the final rise, etc. And this is what I would have loved to see more of in this book. Instead of mere dialogue during color war, let us experience the dodgeball game. Or swimming in the lake. Or roasting marshmallows late at night. Camp manages to somehow pack an entire week of experiences into a mere twenty-four hours, and while Mira says that, we never get to feel it. Which is a shame because I suspect anyone who has been to a camp like this--as a child or an adult--would understand that. Then again, considering Josie has sex like... eight times her first day, these character's probably aren't participating in any of the activities.
Only, that lost me with Mira. I know she's supposed to be a sympathetic character, but I was just annoyed by her. She keeps complaining that no one wants to be friends with her, but she makes virtually no attempts to be friends with anyone else! She spends almost all of her time in the company of either Josie or Noah, her old flame.
Now, on some level, I'm not sure I can blame the author (but maybe I just don't to because she was really nice, y'all!) Because romance is designed to be formulaic. So maybe all of this is just part of the formula. Maybe publishers are telling authors, no, readers want incessant drama between characters who make virtually zero good decisions. No, they like characters who want to have sex, even if it means forgoing all other things. And they definitely don't care about the setting. They won't notice if it's a flimsy backdrop that feels like a ghost of a real-world experience. And to be fair, this is all true. This is why I left my book club. Because it was full of these kinds of readers. They would have lapped this book up.
But consider, for a moment, a different version of this story. What if Mira's Bubbie had sent her to camp because she was worried about her granddaughter self-isolating? That's easy to do when a loved one dies. And what if she calls only once--just to be sure Mira made it. And then says, "I want you to be present, Miraleh." And what if Mira took that to heart and tried to get to know people. And then she re-kindles her old flame not by immediately getting in bed with him, but by scheduling the same breakout sessions, so they can spend more time together. What if he wants to do the climbing wall, and she hates it, but she does it anyway to be with him, and that gets her out of her comfort zone and she learns to trust people again. What if she makes other connections and leaves with a sense of fulfillment and calm that she's been missing--the kind of feeling that only "camp time" can deliver? She can still sleep with Noah at the end of the book. And Josie can remain exactly as she is. But now camp feels like camp, romance is more than physical relationships, and we have just as much (if not more) character growth with half the drama.
Just ran across this Slate article, and I realized this is what I missed from this book--this is what camp is about, and bubbie (and everybody else) completely missed it.
Your baby isn't having a bad time. He's transcending.
The story of Icarus always spoke to me deeply as a Black boy who grew up trying to find his wings. Mixed with the African Folklore I grew up with I found something magic. We launch on Kickstarter in just 13 Days, follow our page on Kickstarter and help us take Flight 🪽💫
A coming of age story about Black kids who finally have power to fight back against systems designed against them.
Most Recently Read: You'll Find It All Still Here by Lise Greenwald
Genres: contemporary fiction, romance
After finishing Nothing, I knew I had to read something light, so I picked up You'll Find It All Still Here, a rom com about adult summer camp. By the time I'd reached the end, I... kinda wished I'd just read something heavy. Let's get into it.
So... I actually met Lisa Greenwald, and she was super nice, so I don't want to trash too hard her book. But I also didn't title this Confessions of a Literary Snob without reason. And I've never been a fan of romances. So I'm going to try to use this book as a way to analyze why.
To begin with, I have been spoiled by Tamora Pierce, okay? I just finished my review on Protector of the Small, and you know what PotS is filled with? Healthy relationships. Kel and Neal, Kel and Lalassa, Kel and Peachblossom... honestly, there's not enough time to list them all, so let me mention one of my favorite little ones: Kel and her sisters. Her sisters are both taking more traditional routes for women, and this would have been a very good opportunity for Pierce to have them talk about Kel getting big for her britches or something. Instead, in the one scene in which we see them, we see them talk to her like a human being (even if they have good reasons for not wanting her to be their server) and they bristle at their dinner companion who thinks Kel shouldn't be a knight--they have different interests, but all for their little sister pursuing her shield. There's just so much love.
What does You'll Find It All Still Here give us? Well, to begin with, Mira's bubbie gets on to her about not having a boyfriend... on her birthday... shortly after her mother's death. (Though, admittedly, this scene does have serious bubbie energy). Then after she sends Mira to camp, she calls her incessantly--when she should be at camp--being present--and helicopter bubbies to the degree that she shows up at camp to complain to Mira that she (Mira) is not getting enough nookie and even calls the police because her granddaughter--who is at fucking summer camp--hasn't answered her phone in a couple of hours. You know what I did when I went to summer camp? I turned off my phone. For four days. I am so terribly glad that no one in my life is like Mira's bubbie. It would have ruined the experience.
Then there's Josie, Mira's best friend, who decides she's going to have an affair at camp to determine if she really loves her boyfriend or not--which Mira seems to think is a good idea. Oh, she also calls Mira's bubbie to basically tattle on Mira that Mira is not having sex. And that's really what it gets to. The drama of it all. And the physicality of it all. At one point, Mira is like, "what a loser I would be if I went to adult summer camp and didn't have sex." As someone who did exactly that, I'm honestly a little offended.
But at least Mira's intentions explain why this book seems to have no semblance of camp. I mean... they walk around the camp a lot. They talk in the cabins. They talk on the tennis courts. They talk in the dining hall. They talk on the basketball court. They talk by the lake. But that's all they do. They attend Shabbat services and leave to hide in the bathroom and talk about men. They literally have a conversation in the middle of a color war dodgeball game. There's no indication they're playing, of course. I guess they're just standing there, watching everything happen? And considering their are virtually no main characters aside from the main four or five, most of the book just feels like them walking around an empty camp.
I'm reminded of this video I ran across recently about kishotenketsu, which makes the argument that if you're writing with this story structure (instead of a western 3-act structure), then instead of introducing conflict, you need to introduce texture--deepen your world and immerse your reader in it. If your character is baking bread, he says, don't skip over the scene as "she baked bread." Make us experience the flour everywhere, the feel of the dough as it's kneaded, shaping the loaf before the final rise, etc. And this is what I would have loved to see more of in this book. Instead of mere dialogue during color war, let us experience the dodgeball game. Or swimming in the lake. Or roasting marshmallows late at night. Camp manages to somehow pack an entire week of experiences into a mere twenty-four hours, and while Mira says that, we never get to feel it. Which is a shame because I suspect anyone who has been to a camp like this--as a child or an adult--would understand that. Then again, considering Josie has sex like... eight times her first day, these character's probably aren't participating in any of the activities.
Only, that lost me with Mira. I know she's supposed to be a sympathetic character, but I was just annoyed by her. She keeps complaining that no one wants to be friends with her, but she makes virtually no attempts to be friends with anyone else! She spends almost all of her time in the company of either Josie or Noah, her old flame.
Now, on some level, I'm not sure I can blame the author (but maybe I just don't to because she was really nice, y'all!) Because romance is designed to be formulaic. So maybe all of this is just part of the formula. Maybe publishers are telling authors, no, readers want incessant drama between characters who make virtually zero good decisions. No, they like characters who want to have sex, even if it means forgoing all other things. And they definitely don't care about the setting. They won't notice if it's a flimsy backdrop that feels like a ghost of a real-world experience. And to be fair, this is all true. This is why I left my book club. Because it was full of these kinds of readers. They would have lapped this book up.
But consider, for a moment, a different version of this story. What if Mira's Bubbie had sent her to camp because she was worried about her granddaughter self-isolating? That's easy to do when a loved one dies. And what if she calls only once--just to be sure Mira made it. And then says, "I want you to be present, Miraleh." And what if Mira took that to heart and tried to get to know people. And then she re-kindles her old flame not by immediately getting in bed with him, but by scheduling the same breakout sessions, so they can spend more time together. What if he wants to do the climbing wall, and she hates it, but she does it anyway to be with him, and that gets her out of her comfort zone and she learns to trust people again. What if she makes other connections and leaves with a sense of fulfillment and calm that she's been missing--the kind of feeling that only "camp time" can deliver? She can still sleep with Noah at the end of the book. And Josie can remain exactly as she is. But now camp feels like camp, romance is more than physical relationships, and we have just as much (if not more) character growth with half the drama.
I ran across Nothing when I was going through books on the shelf in my classroom, and I was intrigued by it's simple and open premise: a boy stands up in the middle of class one day, announces that nothing matters, packs up all his things, and climbs a plum tree, leaving his classmates in an existential crisis. It is rare that I read a book in one night, but Nothing gripped me until I finished it. I immediately wanted to talk about it to someone, and yet, it is almost impossible to describe.
I will try to keep the spoilers down because this one did leave me reeling. Nevertheless, I think it's worth it to have some idea of what you're going into. The blurb on the back of the book describes the story as "wildly bleak," and I can think of no better description. It begins odd and quirky--almost funny--until you find yourself in a downward spiral reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. (Here's your one big spoiler: the dog does die.)
Recalling my experience reading Lord of the Flies in ninth grade, I think Nothing might be a better book for today's teens. For one, the book was published in 2000, so it's literally more modern, both in it's setting and it's language (though the author is Danish, so if you're reading it in English, like me, you're reading it in translation.) Furthermore, to the degree Lord of the Flies wraps itself in allegory, it seems Nothing lays itself bare. The entire story is about symbols and their significance, so the characters engage in regular conversation about such things. Why is the Lord of the Flies... I mean, the church crucifix... so important? Why is it meaningful?
Honestly, I see why the book is award-winning. I think it could make for great classroom discussion: How do we imbue things with meaning? And why? Must something always be meaningful in order to be meaningful at all? I wanted nothing more than to tell Pierre Anton that with the very act of climbing the plum tree he imbued the very concept of meaninglessness with meaning.
But I think the most interesting question might be where are the adults when all of this is happening? Because unlike Lord of the Flies, Nothing doesn't take place on a deserted island. It takes place in the middle of a small Danish village. In a review of the film adaptation, one viewer said they didn't believe that the kids could have gotten up to quite as many things as they do quite so quickly. But I think the absence of adults in the book is a feature, not a flaw. Now, I haven't seen the movie. I don't know if the timeline is compressed. But the book takes place over the course of several months at least, and I absolutely believe that a group of twelve/thirteen year olds could get up to this. I would not put it past my students. All it takes is for the adults to be occupied with their own meaning... or perhaps the lack of it... to miss perhaps the most meaningful thing of all that's happening right under their noses.
Most Recently Read: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Genres: fantasy, fairytale, YA
As I mentioned during my year of animation, Howl's Moving Castle is my favorite Miyizaki film. I knew it was based on a Dianna Wynne Jones novel, but I'd never read it. Until my husband picked me up the fancy Barnes and Noble edition with the sprayed edges (seriously, this is possibly the prettiest book I own). So then I had to read it.
The following includes spoilers for the book.
I do have several friends who have read it, so I had a few preconceived notions going in. One friend said the movie is only part of the book, and still only resembles book as an outline. Another said Howl is even more dramatic in the book than the movie. Let's address that one first. Because yes, he is. In the movie, his bleached-blonde hair goes black and he's furious. In the book it turns ever-so-slightly pinker. Maybe. If you look hard enough. And he loses it. It was so funny.
Though honestly, Sophie is who surprised me the most. I loved how she took to acting like an old lady after she'd turned into one. And I think it made Howl even more dramatic because she was mature enough to know he was just throwing a temper tantrum. In a way, it sort of alters my view of Miyizaki's practical Sophie. (Though certainly, Miyizaki's women tend to be very practical, and it's possible he was drawn to the character because of her practicality.)
I also didn't expect her to do magic. Or for Calcifer to be blue. Or for Howl to turn out to be a Welsh rugby player. Of course, immediately after that first scene in which he takes everyone to the world beyond the black doorway, I realized this is Diana Wynne Jones we're talking about. I read Chronicles of Chrestomanci. Of course Howell Jenkins is a Welsh rugby player. I shouldn't have been surprised at all. (I'm very glad the movie left all of this nonsense out. It's covering so much already!!)
As for the adaptation, yes, it's considerably different from the book, but also in many ways the same. I remember reading scene after scene after scene and thinking, "yes this happens in the movie." Though I did expect the shooting stars to come into larger play, since that scene is so central to the film's story, and they're all over my copy of the book. Yet, in the book, they were more of a... theme... than anything else.
I also don't know if I would say that the movie only tells a part of the story. That put me in the mind of expecting a chunk of the book (say, chapters 8-14) to be essentially the movie plotline, with other events happening around it, which was not at all what I got. Instead, it was something along the lines of About a Boy, where the book has larger context than the movie (such as Howell's home in Wales), but the two begin in more or less the same place, and deviate more and more as the tale goes on. Of course, I also feel like About a Boy ended up further away from the original text than Howl did.
Ultimately though, I do think this is a lesson in the importance of watching the movie first. Everyone says to read the book first, but you know what happens when you do that? The movie always feels like a let down. Because it's not adapted the way you would have adapted it. But when you watch the movie, it's get to appreciate it and form your own opinions of it separate from the book. And then it inspires you to go find the original which you can love as its own entity. I have a tendency to search the internet for opinions about what I'm reading or watching, and I noticed a lot of hatred toward the movie, and I wish these people would let it breathe as an adaptation and see it for what it is. Because now that I've experienced both, I love them both. And both of them make it clear why their creators are so beloved.
Separation of Church and Hate: The Good, the Bad, and... the Jewish?
Books Read in 2026: 14
Books Started in 2025: 4
Most Recently Read: Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang
Genres: nonfiction, political
My mom sent me John Fugelsang's Separation of Church and Hate in the mail, and I didn't really expect to literally drop everything to read it, but I kinda did. I read the Introduction right then and there, and then each night, found myself on the couch highlighting, and annotating. It's been a while since I've done this. While I liked most of it, there were things that didn't hit right, but mostly, it got me thinking about Judaism (as these things do.) Let's get into it.
The Good
Overall, I really liked the book. I think the premise is great, and for the most part, Fugelsang hits his points very well. I particularly like that he argues we have to have these conversations--that if we don't start talking to one another, we cannot cure the growing rift in our country (which, by the way is what the bullies in power want.) I'm a little tired of hearing people I know blow others off as not worth listening to because they have an opinion that differs. Fugelsang even talks about having debates with friends and family members he loves who sit on opposite sides of political issues--debates that didn't even change anyone's minds, but still proved that they could actually talk and listen to one another, a skill which is rapidly receding from our current population. The echo chambers we're building for ourselves are so massive that I literally met someone last year who didn't know what one was.
I also really appreciate that Fugelsang does not attack religion in this book. He says from the get-go that that is not his goal, and I personally didn't feel like he strayed into that territory. He is attacking fundamentalism (specifically fundamentalist Christianity) because fundamentalism is what weaponizes religions that otherwise can be incredibly meaningful and beautiful. And I appreciate that he explicitly states that fundamentalists are small populations of the broader religions they are part of. In my experience, society tends to forget this.
I have, unfortunately, met a lot of atheists who treat members of some or all religions as if they are inherently fundamentalists. I personally, think of this attitude as its own form of fundamentalism, and I could probably write an essay on this alone. But in an attempt to be brief, fundamentalist atheists, in my experience: openly mock anyone who is religious, believe anyone who is religious is brainwashed, believe they hold a moral high ground because they are not brainwashed, will readily assume another person's political/moral/social views based on their religious identification, will readily assume a person's religious identification based on small details about their person, and will sometimes obsess over knowing someone's religious identification, as if it is necessary to form an opinion about them.
I've met far more Christians in my life than atheists, but until meeting my husband and his friends, the percentage of atheists I had met who were fundamentalist was far far higher than the percentage of Christians I had met who were fundamentalist. And this attitude can be incredibly alienating for non-fundamentalist Christians, who are caught between the actual fundamentalists and the people who assume all Christians are just the same. (Hell, it was alienating for me growing up, and I was, at best, Christ-adjacent.) So I really, really appreciate that Fugelsang draws a line here. He makes it very clear that (1) the majority of Christians are not fundamentalists and (2) you can have sane conversations with non-fundamentalist or even fundamentalist adjacent Christians about difficult topics, but only if you enter into such conversations with openness, honesty, and respect.
The rest of his book is intended to be a blueprint for such conversations, and I think he does a decent job laying that out. He provides Biblical context so that any uninitiated person reading can have a better understanding of both the scripture that is used to back hateful claims and what scripture one can best challenge these claims with. He also provides a lot of historical context, for young'uns like me to understand how some of this nonsense developed. (For example, I didn't really know the history of how abortion became such a hot button issue.) And within that, he just lays down some great truths: Jesus was killed by the Romans, who then converted to his religion, and (not wanting to look bad) blamed his murder on the Jews, fueling centuries of antisemitic hate crimes. Also, Jesus was not white. But eurocentric artists depicted him as white, likely because they believed they were inherently superior to people of color, and then used these false depictions as evidence that they were inherently superior and justification to commit horrific acts of violence against anyone who didn't look like them.
Honestly, this book feels like an unexpected companion to Protector of the Small. And maybe that's why I dropped everything to devour it so quickly. While Squire only briefly discusses how people in power try to use religion as a means of keeping others down and Separation focuses on it, both books warn readers about the same thing: people who use power differentials to bully others and maintain control. That, Fugelsang argues, is the ultimate goal of fundamentalist Christians--not to live by the words of Jesus, but to control as much of the world around them as possible. And how do we defeat them? By following the example of Keladry of Mindelan... er... Jesus....
The Bad
While I do think Fugelsang's book a is great starting point for understanding the moves that fundamentalist Christian bullies make and a good layman's guide to taking back the Bible, as he states, I found myself wondering if he was, at times willfully ignoring context, despite this being one of his major criticisms. He's typically pretty good about putting Jesus into context. And usually Paul--explaining that thing they said doesn't mean what you think it means. He even has quotes from various clergy to help put things into context, including Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg who talks about how Jesus's arguments with the Pharisees, following in traditions of Jewish argument and debate, were likely very academic in nature, and lacking in this hostility with which they are often interpreted. (I've heard Ruttenberg talk on this and other topics in the past, so I was pretty excited to see her in there.)
But that makes me wonder why Fugelsang went with today's interpretation of "turn the other cheek" and not the literal interpretation that (supposedly) factors in actual Roman law? Okay, to be fair here, I'm only vaguely knowledgeable about this. First, I'll tell you what I've been told: According to Roman law, to back-hand someone had a different meaning than to slap them with an open palm. Therefore, by literally turning the other cheek, a person forces someone to hit them differently than intended, and thus changes their relationship with you in the eyes of the law. You now have different legal rights when it comes to challenging this person. I've also heard that a person could be compelled by a Roman soldier to carry something for up to a mile, but not further. Thus, when Jesus suggests going two miles when someone asks you to go one, he's literally telling people to do things that force the other person to be out of compliance with the law.
Under this interpretation, Jesus is different from the hippie-dippie pacifist Fugelsang makes him out to be. He is a radical who encourages bending the laws the defeat the Romans at their own game. Granted, I did not go out of my way to do research as Fugelsang did. I ran across this information in some discourse or another. But I do know it comes at least partially from Biblical scholar Walter Wink, which seems valid enough for it to at least get a passing mention in Fugelsang's book, the same way that the argument that Paul was actually very progressive for his time gets a passing mention. He could have said, "According to Walter Wink, there's actually more to this, but that's literally an entirely different book. For details, check my bibliography." (Oh wait... he doesn't have one.) So I'm kind of left to wonder, does Fugelsang neglect this information because he is unaware of it? Or because he is also cherry-picking and believes that hippie pacifist Jesus makes a better argument than radical law-manipulation Jesus?
He does this sort of thing in other places too. On page 88, he points to Deuteronomy 21:10-14, which lays down rules for men taking women as the spoils of war (briefly, if the man chooses to take the woman as a wife, he gives her a month to mourn her family before he beds her. Later, if he decides he doesn't want her, he lets her go rather than selling her as a slave) and sarcastically declares, "got that women? It's nice how they let you mourn your slain parents." Only... it is? I mean, sure, you can point to this and talk about how women used to be property blah blah blah, but giving a woman any time to mourn her parents before bedding her? Declaring that the man either take her as a wife or let her go, and cannot sell her as a slave? To me that sounds pretty damn progressive for the time period.
Now, I'll readily admit that I'm standing on even softer ground here than the "turn the other cheek" issue, as I have no scholar to point to whose discussed this. My notions may be completely off-base. But there is certainly a broader context, which again, Fugelsang fails to make even a passing mention of. If he did, would it frame Jesus differently? Less of a radical overturning centuries of sexist laws and perhaps someone who backed up his proposed changes with sacred texts? Is it possible Jesus pointed to this passage and asked what his present day version of that type of progressivism might look like? Is it possible he was a feminist because he was raised on the story of the Daughters of Zelophehad? Maybe it doesn't matter. Because Fugelsang's argument is that Jesus supported women and there are a lot of people who claim to follow Jesus who do not support women. Maybe the reason he supported women is entirely irrelevant.
But I want to know now. For example, I want to know why if, as Fugelsang claims, men were not supposed to talk to women they didn't know in Jesus' day, it doesn't seem to be a problem when Abraham's servant talks to Rivka? Is this part of a longer history of people twisting around religious ideas? Or were there ongoing debates about these things? Is Fugelsang missing additional context? Or am I? And maybe I'm the only one, but this does bring me to the most egregious flaw in his book, which I've already mentioned: he has no bibliography. Despite the fact that Fugelsang introduces himself as not the expert, he presents historical context of both the United States and the Bible, and doesn't always tell us where it came from.
I have a tendency to go looking for the bibliography as soon as some interesting factoid shows up that I want to know more about. And sometimes I chain my reading together bibliography to bibliography. For example, I selected Abigail Pogrebin's My Jewish Year out of the bibliography in Sarah Hurwitz's Here All Along, and 100 pages in, I'm already digging through Pogrebin's bibliography for more reading. I also picked out Brown Girl Dreaming from the book list at the back of Kate Messner's Breakout. Messner's a novelist. She's literally making things up. Fugelsang is offering up historical facts, and expecting me to... take it on faith that he knows what he's talking about. That, or track down his experts after digging them out of the acknowledgements section that resembles the boring Biblical genealogies he cites on page 28. (Mind you, I'm not trying to say that an author shouldn't have an acknowledgements section. I just don't think this is the only place their resources should be listed.)
Maybe he thinks a bibliography isn't necessary because he assumes on one's going to be reading this shit anyway. After all, he argues, no one reads the Bible. Though obviously someone does, or he wouldn't have had experts available to ask. (Honestly, I know quite a few people who probably have read the whole Bible, and some people--both Jews and Christians--that follow some of the laws he assumes no one follows, including not eating shrimp, having no tattoos or piercings, and not wearing clothing made from mixed fibers. So it was kind of annoying to find him confidently repeating that no one reads these things or cares.)
But there are a lot of small things that lack context as well, which leads me to question the significance of irrelevant side comments or wonder why they were given so much weight. Granted, Fugelsang is also a comedian, so maybe he's just trying to be funny and he's not used to how humor translates into a written medium. For example, he argues that God disapproves of football with the implied reason that a football is sometimes referred to as a "pig skin" and pigs are not kosher, but I'm pretty sure footballs aren't actually made of pig-skin. Aren't they made of cow leather? Or rubber? Did he not wonder if the joke would make him look less credible?
Similarly, on page 68, he mention's Balaam's talking donkey with the sentence, "I don't know what believing this has to do with Jesus." Well, considering that story predates Jesus... nothing. Thus, I'm not sure why he's bringing it up. I mean, sure, it's in a list of stories in the Bible that are hard to believe, including the book of Jonah, the tower of Babel, and God stopping the sun for Joshua. But it's the only time the story is mentioned, and it's not even the last one in the list. So it doesn't read like Fugelsang saying, "here's a bunch of kind of unbelievable stuff. I don't know why you have to believe these things to believe in or follow Jesus." Instead, he singles out Balaam's talking donkey, leaving me to wonder... are there people who do think it's necessary to believe in order to believe in Jesus? Is this a story that Christians hone in on? And if so, why is he not giving us this context?
My favorite (or rather, least favorite) bit of implied context is, "I also believe most guns and ammunition should be legal and free for most women." (pg. 237) All the mosts put me in mind of this local sign that says "most marriages performed." What marriages are not performed? For which women should guns and ammunition not be legal and free? And why specifically women?
Singling out women implies there should be a difference between laws regarding women with firearms and men with firearms. What is it? Should guns and ammunition be legal and free to all men, but only most women? Or should all guns and ammunition be legal and free to men, but only most of them to women. Or should they be legal and free to women, but men have to pay? Was Fugelsang not touting gender equality a mere six chapters ago? Did he change his mind over the course of the last hundred or so pages? I don't know. Because he's making yet another logical leap he assumes I have the context for. And I don't. I think the book could have really benefitted from one more pass from a beta reader, preferably someone with a very different background from Fugelsang himself who could have said, "excuse me? WTF does this mean?"
The Jewish
But considering much of the context Fugelsang does focus on is putting Jesus into the context of first century Judaism, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that the book gave me some Jewish feelings (honestly, it shouldn't be a surprise at all. Everything gives me Jewish feelings.) But where it really hit was when he talked about people suggesting, "efforts to address poverty are ultimately futile, so why try so hard?" (pg. 183), which immediately put me in mind of the famous words of Rabbi Tarfon, "it is not your duty to neglect the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it," which is often cited in reference to social justice. (As Lori Beth Susman explains, there's plenty of debate on what it's about, but this review is long enough.)
I do think Christianity tends to be more focused on the end goal while Judaism is more focused on the present moment, though I typically examine that contrast in analyzing literature and the shapes of stories. I don't think that being Christian automatically means you have a defeatist attitude (nor does being Jewish mean you don't.) But there was something about seeing that in print that made me really understand why focusing on the present moment over the end goal can be so important. When I find myself having a defeatist attitude, it is often this quote that keeps me going.
But on that note, I would argue that Fugelsang approaches his own text from the perspective of doing the work, regardless of finishing it or not, with that work, in this case, being to engage in honest, sane conversations with the people around us, especially those with differing ideologies. It is the work of breaking down the walls that are built by the us/them attitude that has come to permeate modern society. It puts me in mind of an interview with editor Isaac Saul from Slate Magazine, back in December. In the interview, Saul says,
The people who need to hear it the most often need to hear it from the people they think they hate.... It's literally what the evidence suggests.... there's a whole genre of autobiography about the like these guys who have left these really radical groups and every single one of them has stories about how they had a Jewish boss who was really nice to them when their mother died....
And that, in my opinion, is the most important message in the book. And it's valuable enough to make up for the books flaws--even it's lack of a bibliography. Ultimately, this book is about the power of conversation. It's about how by talking (and perhaps even more importantly, listening) to those who have different perspectives than us is necessary for taking back the Bible, for taking back our country, and for taking back our sanity. I know the work is hard. I know it's exhausting. And I know there are minds out there we cannot change. But none of that gives us the right to stop trying.
I ran across Goat via a YouTube video about its gender dynamics--it centers on a gender integrated pro sport in which female players can not only be considered great, but can be... well, the GOAT. After some preliminary Googling, I noticed a lot of negative reviews, and honestly, I don't understand the hate. Let's get into it.
To start off: animation. Sony does seem to be playing to their strengths there. The backgrounds are just gorgeous. And I love how they use the animal anatomy to their advantage--things like Jett using her tail the way she does, Mane running around on all fours, Will climbing the crevices of the court at the end, Olivia burying her head, the list goes on. The only movie that has made characters equally human and animal the way Goat does is Flow, and y'all know how much I love Flow. There are a lot of stories out there where some animals are anthropomorphized and others aren't, so I love the detail with the cockroaches--including the comment that Will talking about "battling cockroaches" offended the cockroach community.
Sony also used what seems to be turning into their signature style with the lower frame rate. I think it worked much better here than it did for K-Pop Demon Hunters, which just looked choppy to me. This, at least feels more purposeful, the way it is in Spider-verse, possibly because Will reminds me a bit of Miles, in how he wants to be part of this team, but he's getting rejected (though in contrast, where Miles isn't sure of himself and has to learn to do things his own way, Will already knows exactly who he is at the beginning of the movie.) I do think this style works especially well for the action sequences (my favorite is Will and Jett running to the subway), and I love the work with the camera angles.
What I don't get is the complaints about generic characters and a predictable plotline. I mean, K-Pop Demon Hunters won Best Animated Feature last year, and you think Goat has problems? Did I find the plotline for Goat predictable? Sure. But I invite you to tell me where Demon Hunters surprised you. As for the characters, this is where things get interesting. While I think there's a strong argument to be had that the side characters in Goat are no more fleshed out than in Demon Hunters, Zoe and Mira felt like gimmicks and Archie, Lenny, Olivia, and Modo feel like people.
Take Modo for instance. His gimmick is that he's weird. He has this obsession with his egg, he does all these weird dances, and the movie even acknowledges that he makes people feel weird. And none of that gets explained. We never find out why he dances or what the deal with the egg is, but I also never felt like I needed it. He's just a really weird guy, but he's a genuine guy who is always there for his team. That's all any of the characters need, and that's good enough for me. I think that might actually be the difference, actually. In Goat, the team knows Modo is weird, but they just accept it. I don't need a backstory that even the characters don't have. In contrast, Mira in Demon Hunters has a backstory that is alluded to multiple times, but is never talked about directly, which makes her feel like they just never bothered to flesh her out.
Archie, my third favorite (his daughters are my second), is a another good example. He's raising two girls. We're never told where their mom is, but based on the events in the movie, we can presume that she's out of the picture for one reason or another. And while this is a backstory I'm interested in, I don't feel let down by the fact that the movie doesn't give it to me. Again, I think this is because this is never alluded to. The characters may or may not know what happened to the girls' mom, but no one ever mentions her. Instead, the movie focuses on Archie's relationship with the girls--showing how much he loves them and even shows him struggling with whether or not he's parenting well. As an audience, we see it, rather than just being told.
Where Goat really shines is in the details. If you've read literally any of my Craig of the Creek reviews, you know I love a story that has good attention to detail. And Goat delivers. Coach Dennis has a CPAP machine. We have multiple scenes in which the penguins are carrying around their egg. The voice over guy is a rabbit whose normal voice is high and squeaky. The creators of this story clearly thought out their world and all the characters in it, not just the protagonist.
Goat's plotline may be predictable, but it's worldbuilding is tight. I feel like all the details of the setting are effortlessly integrated. We're given enough information about roarball in the opening scene to follow the character's conversations. Later, we learn about the six different courts--each with their own extreme environments (delivered in a way that feels perfectly reasonable in-world). Our heroes are the thorns because they're from Vineland, a forest-type environment. Their stadium is called the Gardens. Their chant is "roots run deep." This is a story about knowing where you come from and about the things that support and hold you up. What's more, it's about community, and trees don't usually grow alone. They grow in forests and groves. How does Jett come around? By going back to her roots and being reminded of her beginnings. The same is true for Olivia and Lenny. Archie improves his game by focusing on what grounds him--his girls. Will gets through because he is constantly being supported by the community around him. And he plays with that community in mind (not to mention his mother--his roots.) This is why it's so important that the Thorns stay in Vineland. Because these are their roots.
I do think that like Demon Hunters, Goat suffers from a short runtime, even though, at 1 hr 40 minutes, it's not that short. But I do think the story could be slowed down and meander a bit. would have loved to see more of Grizz, for example. I love that he goes from being an antagonist to rooting for Will and supporting smalls on the court (but also forcing Will to talk to Jett.) It reminds me a little of the beaver's turn around in The Wild Robot, though Grizz's turn feels earned. What's more, Will is set up to have a solid flat arc--he knows where he stands, and he doesn't change so much as he changes the people around him--and I wanted more of that. Getting more of Grizz could have given us more of that. Or maybe another small telling him he's inspired them to play roarball now.
I also would have been interested to see the movie spend more time tackling the usually short careers of pro athletes and what happens when someone gets too old. And it feels like Jett's arc was maybe headed this direction. She's aging out of the game, and I got the impression that with her injury, she won't be able to play anymore, at least not pro. I would have liked to see what the next steps in her life were. How does she stay involved with roar ball while passing on the torch? Depending on what they did with this, it could have played nicely into the theme of roots. For example, maybe we see her playing recreationally and advising kids in her community. (Honestly, I thought she was going to buy the team out from whoever Flo had sold it to, but Modo winning it in an Uno match really did surprise me.)
Ultimately, I didn't like it as much as the Spider-Verse movies, which are just some of the tightest movies I've seen, but I am much more likely to re-watch this than Demon Hunters, and I would love to see it get more love.
Protector of the Small is one the Best Series Ever Written, and Everyone Should Read It
Books Read in 2026: 13
Books Started in 2025: 4
Most Recently Read: Protector of the Small (quartet) by Tamora Pierce
Genres: Fantasy, YA
CW: This review talks in broad, non-explicit terms about sexual violence, as it's an issue/theme tackled by the series.
I don't recall what, exactly, sparked me to reread the Protector of the Small quartet, other than maybe a lack of Neal in my life. (Please, if you are reading this, send me your favorite Neal fics.) I do remember telling a friend I wanted to reread them, only to realize that I'm pretty sure PotS is the only Tamora Pierce series of which I own none of the books. The next day, she texted me, "don't go out and buy any books. Your birthday present will be in next week." (In case you're wondering, my birthday is in September.) Because she knows me. And knew what I was about to do. Only, I couldn't wait a week. So I checked the entire quartet out of the library was halfway through Squire before she was able to give me the new books. And I couldn't bear to open the new set and start in the middle of Squire. It would be like neglecting First Test and Page. So I determined I would finish the library books first. And then I could read the whole series again.
Kel is one of my top two Tortall heroines (Beka is my other). I relate to her a lot, though I only dream of having her level of determination and follow-through. (Also, Kel x No One is my favorite Tortall ship.) And while I think Beka may barely edge Kel out as my number one protagonist, I think Kel's books edge out Beka's for my favorite series. I could probably write 1001 essays on these books (and when I finish my next read through, I'll probably write another), but today, I'm going to tell you why it's my favorite Tortall series. And, no, I'm not sorry for how long or who detailed this is. (But I do apologize for any factual mistakes I make in reference to these books, even though I recently finished them, the events may have run together a bit.)
Here there be Spoilers
Let's start with this quote from the description of the First Test audiobook:
"More timely than ever, The Protector of the Small series is Anti-Bullying 101 while also touching on issues of bravery, friendship, and dealing humanely with refugees against a backdrop of action-packed fantasy adventure."
Anti-Bullying 101
By the time I read PotS for the first time, I was already an adult. And what impressed me about it was how accessible Pierce made very heavy, important topics. First Test begins when its protagonist, Keladry of Mindelan is ten years old, and it centers primarily on bullying and society's response to it. Kel is bullied incessantly by Joren of Stone Mountain and his cronies. She gets into regular fights with them, not only to challenge their bullying of herself, but to challenge their bullying of others. There's a great scene toward the end of the book where Kel's best friend, Neal, challenges her on going out to pick fights with Joren, specifically why she's going alone. And she tells him (as well as the other boys who are listening) that she hasn't asked for help because she didn't think the others thought it was a problem. She thought she had a different perspective because she was a girl.
There's a lot of unpack here. First, the other boys have done nothing to stop the bullying because they've been raised in a society that has taught them it is acceptable. Before Kel starts her page training, her older brother, Anders, warns her that the teachers are not looking for excuses. They don't want to hear that students got into a fight because one was abusing the other. Older pages haze the younger ones, and that's just the way things are. It's the way things have always been. And the best way to get through it is to keep your head down. What's more, Kel is bullied by adults. Lord Wyldon has, at nearly every turn, treated Kel unfairly and turned his back when the boys have bullied her. In one scene, Joren even states that he believes he's doing what Lord Wyldon wants by trying to stop Kel from becoming a knight.
(And yes, I say nearly every turn on purpose. Aside from letting her continue past her probation, if Wyldon does one good thing in First Test, it's allowing Neal to be Kel's sponsor.)
But then there's Kel's perspective, which is partially different because she grew up in the Yamani Islands. Therefore, she (probably) wasn't taught to ignore bullying the way the boys were. But she's also correct that she has a different perspective as a girl, which brings us nicely to Page, where Pierce does the thing that makes these books brilliant: she builds on the foundation she's laid with First Test by framing sexual assault and rape as forms of bullying.
Yes, First Test does mention gendered violence. Obviously, Kel is bullied because she's a girl. And she talks about Yamani girls being taught to defends themselves against would-be rapists. But Page is where we get to the meat of it, when Kel takes on her maid, Lalasa, who she slowly comes to realize has been abused physically, emotionally, and sexually. And that some of that came at the hands of her family. Pierce does not pull her punches here. She wants you to be horrified by what men have done to Lalasa. And she wants you to know that it is no different from Joren making younger pages mop up spills with their shirts or pick the same books up off the floor over and over again. I don't think I had ever read a book that frames violence against women in this way. I don't know if I have since.
And that's what makes these books hit home over and over again. We often think of topics like sexual assault, rape, and abuse as "heady" themes that our kids aren't ready for. We need to protect them from these problems. Or maybe they're considered too big and complex to understand. But by stating they are forms of bullying, Pierce proves all of that wrong. They are not too heady or complex for children. And they are topics we should be discussing with them.
PotS not only offers a template for calling out this crap for what it is, but for creating the type of community that rejects it. What's more, she directly shows us that little bullies grow up to be big bullies, which brings us to Squire, when two squires fail to become knights. I remember thinking it a little funny that everyone was like, "we've never had so many people fail!" in reference to two just people, but this time around, I was able to put this into better perspective: there are only six squires undergoing their ordeal. Two is literally one third of the group. What's more, one of them dies in the process, also a first.
But Pierce doesn't stop there. She reminds us this problem is systemic. And in one of the best scenes in the series, Lord Wyldon resigns from his teaching position because he knows that the failure of these squires is not theirs alone. It also lies in the adults who allowed their childish bullying to persist and grow into the adult form of bullying. Just as she uses the second installment to reframe sexual assault and rape as forms of bullying, she uses her third volume to draw a direct line between the two. Not only are these forms of bullying, she tells us, but these bullies bully people because they learned to do so as children.
And that brings us to Lady Knight.
Sigh.
I have problems with Lady Knight, okay? The end of Squire introduces these "killing machines" made of metal-coated giant bones, and... they're robots, okay? They're robots. They're robots powered the by souls of little children, and robots showing up three-quarters of the way through my sword and sorcery series is a genre crossover I just can't get on board with!!!
Okay, rant over. Let's proceed with what I like about Lady Knight.
Like Page and Squire, Lady Knight builds on the foundation the previous books have already laid. It continues to deal with matters of sexual violence, but also expands the general theme of abuse of power as a form of bullying. Yes, the other books deal with this some, but Keladry essentially gets the position of running a refugee camp because she's trusted not to abuse her power. And scene after scene after scene shows how people bully those they have power over--whether those people be poor, children, criminals, etc, all the way up to Blayce the Gallan, who I personally think is Tamora Pierce's most chilling villain. And the fact that he is her most chilling villain is the reason I tolerate the necromancy robots. Because he's the guy creating them. And he purposely uses the souls of children, preferably of the age of 12, who he dolls up and pampers before he kills them.... the rest is left to your imagination.
More Timely Than Ever
And that's the point. Everything from a child trashing someone else's dorm room to the horrors wreaked by Blayce, "The Nothing Man," is bullying. Sexual assault? Bullying. Denying criminals medical care? Bullying. Corporal Punishment? Bullying. I am particularly drawn to the fact that Pierce frames Wyldon's treatment of Kel in the early books as bullying. Because I live in a state where bullying is literally defined as student-on-student behavior--teachers, by definition, do not bully. By definition, bullying only happens between peers. And only between children. But along comes Pierce and says no. Actually, bullying happens where there is a power differential (or a challenge to one.) When people abuse power to make themselves feel bigger. Granted, this is a common theme in Pierce's books--that if you are someone high in the social hierarchy, it's your responsibility to care for people who are lower in the hierarchy than you. We get a lot of this with Sandry in the Circle series. But never does she make it more explicit than in Protector of the Small. Well, of course not, just look at the title.
And I think, on some level, this is why I love reading it. And this is why I needed to read it again. Now. Why couldn't wait a week to get my own copies of the books. And this is the reason I may just read them again before the year is out. Because as I said in a previous review, I read to process, and we're living in a world full of bullies. People who abuse power. People who are mean because they feel like it. Because they can get away with it. Because they feel the need to make themselves bigger. And Kel? Kel is an inspiration. She's the Steve Rogers of Tortall. Every time she gets knocked down, she stands back up. I can do this all day. She is a blueprint not only for how to take back our world against bullies but why. Because for every person Kel defends, every battle she fights, every time she stands back up, she gains another ally.
I started this review by saying I related to Kel, but I think it's more than that. I think Kel is the character I aspire to be. As perhaps, should we all. Any time, but especially now.
okay hear me out: Tortall animated series that starts with daine and doesn’t get to alanna until season five
season one: daine 1&2
season two: daine 3&4
season three: kel 1&2
season four: kel 3&4
season five: alanna 1&2
season six: alanna 3&4
season seven: aly 1&2
this is the hearing me out part
if you start with daine, the whisperman plot gets way. more. fun. with chronological order, you know george is the spymaster and it’s funny thinking of everyone being so afraid of our sweet murder babe george
if you do it with daine first, you can draw that out. you could even have the whisperman and george cooper as separate identities, like whisperman is Known and Scary, but george cooper? nah he’s just alanna’s goofy husband. it could come out at the end of daine’s seasons, or kel could find out some info she doesn’t know what it means but the Clues are right there and you could pull it all the way to the kel’s second season with the smuggler reveal when they’re crossing the river to rescue the kids
and the difference between young george and old george and getting to see this guy we know to be pretty cool and friendly being Super Dark and legit murdering people and the whole king of thieves arc, getting all this background on alanna and george once we already love them
and just think about how wild the jon and alanna theories would be after four seasons
and then like the absolute tragedy of their romance is heightened even more bc we’ve met their lovely spouses and sweet children and know they’re both happy
seeing everyone young would be really fun too, like how they did in queen charlotte or this is us, where you know the character and where they end up but not how they got there and the fun is finding out. in the books we know raoul and gary and jon are dorks and it’s cute watching them be grownups, it would be equally cute seeing these Vast Impressive men as little boys laughing at fart jokes
like imagine when you figure out the cat laying at the goddess’s feet in season two is the same kitten she gives to alanna in season five i would start Bawling and then at the end knowing how faithful dies??? Dead. Gone.
daine’s books get going quicker, which i think is important for tv. the suspense of it all, not knowing what’s happening to daine, why she has these powers. learning her secret, that she almost lost herself, would be a ‘the storm’ moment like in atla with aang and zuko’s backstories. and then the immortals war is just visually very appealing especially in a animation format, i mean stormwings? so. cool.
I can totally get down with starting with Daine but I think you have to have Alanna before Kel.
There’s something to watching Alanna fight tooth and nail to become a knight, and watch Jon slowly change the kingdom, while also knowing that ten or so years later in Daine’s series, she’s still the only lady knight. It makes the viewer wonder if that will ever happen again and then bam! Kel.
I also think Alanna’s absence from Kel’s series will hit a lot harder if we already know who she is and what she went through. Plus, a lot of the fun of Kel’s books is “omg blorbo from my Alanna books!”
And THEN, you finish Kel’s series, you already know about Alanna and you think “wait a second…is Alanna’s daughter also going to become a knight?” And then bam! Spycraft and political intrigue for the kiddos.
I think Pierces book (Emelan and Tortall alike) are above all, the books I want adapted. And after my Year of Animation, I now believe that for many many book adaptations, animation is the better way to go. Because animation lets you go places live-action doesn't. Not only do I think there are elements that may be easier to pull off visually, but I also believe you animation lets you reasonably go to darker places than live-action. (We had this discussion about Aunt Josephine's transformation at the end of Netflix's The Wide Window.) And Pierce does not pull her punches. Thus, I would accept no less from a TV series.
(But also, is there any way that we can include Beka? I know there is a legitimate concern about copaganda, but God, I love her. I love that she's basically chosen by the Black God and that she talks to ghosts and dust spinners and that her "birdies" are literal birdies and that we get to see Pounce again!!)
(Also also, this reminds me a of a conversation I recently had with one of my classes. I have a student that legitimately looks like Beka Cooper--especially those icey eyes. And I told the class so, and then brought the book to show them. And they were like "oh, yeah, you do look like this character." And then they were like, "so... why isn't this a movie?" and I was like "I don't know friends, I don't know...")
Most Recently Read: A Body in Redwork by Hillary Doan Sperry
Genres: Cozy Mystery
A Body in Redwork is the second of Hillary Doan Sperry's Missouri Star Mysteries that I've read, and I'm trying to decide which was worse.
Spoilers for Chain Piecing a Mystery (Sperry's first book). Weirdly, no spoilers for Redwork beyond what's in the book blurb.
Let's begin at the beginning. I am a quilter. And I live pretty close to the Missouri Star headquarters. So when my sister-in-law encountered Sperry hawking her books at a creator's booth at a local event, she thought I would be the perfect audience for some cozy-quilting-mystery action. And what mystery is cozier than a quilting mystery?
I read Chain Piecing a Mystery a few years back, and it has one of the best murder mystery premises I have ever come across: a hypnotist is in town. He does a show (actually, I think something goes awry with it), and the next morning, three people (including our protagonist's niece) turn themselves in to the police for murdering the guy (each in a different way). The police go knock on his trailer, and he answers. Very much alive.
I simply loved this idea. Unfortunately, the book was riddled with typos--misspelled words and sentences that weren't complete sentences? Things like, "That night, as she walked." Like... that's not a complete sentence? Why are you ending it with a period? To be fair, this is all mechanics. These are conventions of writing, and authors break writing conventions all the time. Just look at Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. But there's nothing consistent about the breaks in convention--nothing that indicates Sperry is doing it intentionally, so I'm pretty sure the book was just poorly edited. But possibly even worse, she gives away the story in the first chapter. Unintentionally, mind you, but she does.
I say all of this because the only way I can talk about Redwork is to compare it to Chain Piecing. The premise is much more of your standard mystery story: Jenny Doan and her friends are at a quilters retreat, one of them dies, and the rest plays out about how you'd expect. That being said, either Sperry got better at writing or she hired a better editor because there are way fewer typos. I'm going to go with better at writing because the story is also better plotted. I had options for who the killer might be this time.
Furthermore, both books were compelling. It was like reading Twilight or watching the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. I didn't... like it... exactly? But I wanted to keep going. (Though of the three, Sperry's work is the best. Unlike the live-action How to Train Your Dragon, it's original, and felt like less of a train-wreck than Twilight.) I'm even interested in picking up her third book, The Haunting of Quilter's Square (which also seems to have a more exciting premise than Redwork.) And if she continues to improve from Redwork, Haunting will be the best so far.
And yet... okay, here's the bit where I spoil Redwork. I won't tell you who the murderer, but I need to talk about the last scene.
Upon finishing this book, I determined that on some level, cozy mysteries aren't my thing. They're a little too surreal. Take Redwork for example, which ends with Jenny Doan and her husband playing the Clauses in a Christmas parade, almost as if she's forgotten that multiple people were murdered--people she knew--people who were her friends. The mystery is solved, so everything is hunky dory, and we don't really have to think about the dead or how it's affected their loved ones because they were just props.
And I realized this is what I love so much about The Circle of Magic series, or more specifically, The Circle Opens. All four books detail grisly murders, and no one is let off the hook. Yes, all four books do still end on an optimistic note, but Pierce doesn't shy away from how these murders affected people, including our protagonists. It's something you see in Pierce's other works too--Kel's interactions with women and girls throughout the Protector of the Small series and Beka Cooper's conversations with ghosts.
None of this is to say that cozy mysteries are bad, especially if they're your thing. I just realized they're not my thing, at least not that often. In fact, if I had Chain Piecing and Redwork back to back, I probably would have burned out. Because I prefer my cozy mysteries in small doses. These books are designed for escapism. And some people read for escapism. Which is why we need them. But I've discovered that this is not why I read. I read (and write) as a means of processing the world.
Again, this is not to say it's wrong to read for escapism. I suspect everyone reads for escapism at least sometimes. And even if you read for escapism 99% of the time (I'm not convinced anyone reads for escapism 100% of the time), that's valid. There are all types of different readers out there. It's why we have all types of different books.
Though, even for people who read for escapism and like cozy mysteries, I don't know if I can recommend Sperry's work. Unless, of course, you're a quilter. From what I understand, these books began as serials in the Missouri Star Quilt Magazine, so she had a very specific audience. Jenny's murder board always takes the form of a quilt, which is a nice stylistic touch, but rarely does the text explain the quilting terminology. So if you don't understand what it means she pulls out a churn dash square and runs a sashing strip next to it, you're kind of out of luck. And I have to wonder if someone who is not a quilter might get bogged down in the quilter jargon. But as I said, Sperry's writing seems to be improving, so maybe that will get better too.
Most Recently Read: Jade Green by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Genres: Horror, YA
Did you know what the author of the beloved Shiloh books also wrote a gothic horror novel? What's more, it's genuinely frightening and all too real. It also one of my all time favorite horror novels, the first horror novel I ever read, and probably the book that got me into gothic horror (probably my favorite horror subgenre.) But to explain what makes it great, I must leave no spoiler unturned. You have been warned.
I picked this one up again mostly because I found it in a pile of books that had been donated to my classroom library, just waiting to be read. I also had a student who wanted to read it, so we read the first couple of chapters back in November, before she moved. Then I finally picked up the book again and read the rest of it all in one night. (This, incidentally, is how I know my reading rate has improved.)
What I love about Jade Green (and I'll talk more about this in the future, with the review of a different horror novel I read this year), is that the supernatural elements are not the truly scary part of the story. Don't get me wrong, the supernatural elements are plenty creepy. For one, the ghost in the story is literally a disembodied hand. It scuttles around this big mansion and sometimes takes to playing the piano in the middle of the night. There's also a scene toward the end where the protagonist throws a brick or something at it, and almost severs the pinky, so it just continues to walk around, dragging its broken pinky behind it. Basically, imagine Thing from the Addams Family, but with considerably less whimsy.
Personally, the ghost is one of my favorite bits about Jade Green. It always felt unique, as I'm used to ghosts being whole people or disembodied voices. The ghost of Jade Green has no voice. It has no body. Yet it's terrifying. And perfectly represents the violence of the dead girl's death.
But, ultimately, the ghost is not malevolent. (By the way, I'm literally going to tell you how the book ends now. If you don't want to know, stop here.)
Not only does the ghost save the protagonist's life at the end, but it disappears after. Because its unfinished business was to with the man who sexually assaulted her. I don't even see this as the ghost getting revenge, but justice, especially because no one else in the story seems all that interested.
And this is what I didn't remember from my first read as a kid: just how much cousin Charles's violence is foreshadowed. I think part of the reason I loved the book so much as a kid was how much that final conflict--Charles attempting to rape Judith (or kill her, if she "won't let him") and Jade's ghost rescuing her by killing him instead. What I didn't remember was just how creepy Charles was from the moment he appeared. Or the way Judith's uncle's comments and disapproval of his son imply that he knows Charles has assaulted and raped girls (may even know what happened to Jade), and while he disapproves and has taken some action against Charles, including more or less disinheriting him, he also covers up Charles' behavior, which is all too real a story.
And I think that's what makes the book such a good one. And so powerful. That it is, in the end, more about how society treats women and their abusers than it is about anything ghostly and supernatural. And that is something that is truly horrifying.
It will surprise virtually no one that I re-read Peter Pan. It's my favorite book in the world and has been since middle school. And I guess the big takeaway this time around has more to do with how we approach this text as a society than how I approach(ed) it personally.
Peter Pan is a book that gets written off a lot as "being for children." It's assumed to be a childish story and an easy read because most people associate the novel with the Disney movie and/or the Broadway show, both of which are considered "family friendly," if not specifically targeting children. I would not say that the book specifically targets children.
This particular re-read came at the hands of my students, who decided they wanted to read my favorite book. I'll admit it was kind of flattering that they asked what I liked to read because most students want to create as much distance between themselves and their teachers' preferred books as possible. But I simultaneously thought this was a bad idea. Because contrary to common belief, Peter Pan is not an easy read.
But we gave it a go. One of my students and I read the first chapter together, alternating every page or two. Honestly, she did much better than I expected she would, but she determined by the end of the chapter that while she wanted to read the book, in the sense of experiencing Barrie's novel, she didn't want to literally read the book. Because it was a difficult read. And if you're even thinking about complaining about how kids these days don't believe in reading or complain everything is too hard, then I know you haven't ever read Peter Pan.
I repeat: Peter Pan is not an easy read. The book was written by a turn of the century Londoner, and it reads like it. After that first chapter, I read the book aloud to my students, which they enjoyed. It was a nice break, and they were interested enough in the story that most days, they wanted to continue, provided we had the time. But there were many places where I myself got tongue tied (notably chapter 12, which is rather short, but mostly centers around the "proper" way for pirates to go into battle with an indigenous tribe of islanders.)
We found ourselves very fortunate to have copies with footnotes, as we ran into many words and phrases which don't make much sense to modern day Americans. And as an added bonus, I got to teach my students the purpose of footnotes and how to use them! By the end of the book, one of my students knew that any time there was something she didn't get, the first thing she should do was check the footnotes.
I also enjoyed watching my students' reactions to some of the darker bits of the story:
The implication that Peter kills lost boys who grow too much
My personal favorite line, "to die will be an awfully big adventure."
The famous scene in which Tinker Bell nearly dies saving Peter from Hook's poison.
The fact that Tinker Bell is still dead by the end of the book (and Peter doesn't even remember her.)
All of these, by the way, are notably left out of the Disney cartoon. Because while the Disney cartoon may target children, the book, as previously stated, does not.
The book certainly didn't have the same effect on my students as it did when I was their age, but it was still a nice foray into adaptation, as well as a jumping off point for how books become classics and how our understandings of stories change over time, even as their words don't. Considering this is my favorite book, I'd really like to do a series on my favorite and least favorite adaptations of it, but that will still probably be some time in coming... after school is out at least.
Most Recently Read: The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket
Genres: Middle Grade Fantasy, Humor
Wow. Either I have slipped into a different universe where The Miserable Mill has changed or I added a lot of head canon as a kid. See, I remember that after Phil found out that it's not legal to pay employees with coupons, the workers ousted him from the company and Charles took over. Now, I should have known this was head canon because this is The Series of Unfortunate Events we're talking about, and those are several fortunate things happening all at once, even if they're not happening to the Baudelaires. But I guess I've always been an optimist at heart.
I also don't remember the insanity and intensity of the final battle (and it really is a final battle!), though I did vaguely remember Violet having to think like Klaus and Klaus having to think like Violet.
Come to think of it, I didn't remember much at all of this book, compared to the last three. But I do think it was one of my least favorites as a child. I think it actually made more of an impression on me this time around. Especially this line:
You're alive, and that's lucky.
It's been a touch and go over here for the last month or two, and there's been more than one occasion on which someone's asked me how I am, and I say, "I'm alive. And that's lucky." After which I may or may not burst into tears.
Most Recently Read: I Survived the Nazi Invasion by Lauren Tarshis
Genres: Middle Grade Historical Fiction
My class decided to continue their I Survived streak with I Survived the Nazi Invasion, which allows me to talk a little more at length about what I meant in the last review about seeking historical fiction elsewhere for personal reading and why that's not intended as a slight on Tarshis. Because my favorite piece of WWII historical fiction is probably Alice Hoffman's The World We Knew (note to self: re-read). The World We Knew is close to 400 pages. It changes between 3-5 different points of view, and it's full of like... symbolism and allegory and a heron that I still haven't caught all the nuances of. And it has a higher death count than Tarshis's novel. (It's also magical realism, but that's kind of beside the point.)
Tarshis's book is 90 pages. It's cast is kept (I suspect purposefully) small. Things like symbolism and even figurative language are probably kept to a minimum, and I don't think any of the heroes died. The point is, Tarshis is writing for a different audience--an audience that doesn't have a lot of reading stamina, and maybe not a lot of reading skill. She's writing for kids who might not have a strong grasp on figurative language or the working memory to keep track of shifting narratives. In her author's note, Tarshis even states how difficult it was to keep a story about the Nazi Invasion to 90 pages.
This is what I mean when I say the I Survived books are what I expect from a book of their caliber. I mean that I don't expect I Survived the Nazi Invasion to read like The World We Knew. I expect the story to be shorter, simpler, and more concise. And, as I said in my last Tarshis review, while that's not what I would normally seek out for myself, it's perfect for my students. Their biggest complaint about the I Survived books so far? That they're all about boys. Yes, I know there are some about girls, but both the books we've read are about boys, as are the other three I currently have in my classroom library. But I secretly hope that in their quest for female protagonists, I might be able to convince them to read I Survived the Great Molasses Flood....
But I'm getting off topic. Because while I've contrasted Tarshis and Hoffman's novels, what I really need to talk about is what they have in common: both books are about Jewish partisans. In fact, if I remember correctly, Tarshis's dedication is to the real-life partisans who inspired the characters in her story, and she has a lot of information about Jewish partisans in the appendices, including some resources for students who want to do further research. I don't really remember ever learning about partisans when I was in school, so I'm really excited that it's there in books for kids. Thanks, Lauren Tarshis.
