Author Archives: hemilykim

Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

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It’s a fine line between Ordinary and Extraordinary. Here at Gracepoint Berkeley church, I’m happy to be part of increasing the momentum of a culture shift, where reading is not only cool, it’s a given. Today’s picture is so mundane to me, but when I take a step back, I recognize the (Extra)ordinary in it. These middle school guys could be lost in the myriad Internet wormholes out there, playing video games, or just otherwise metaphorically or literally rolling around doing nothing. Instead they’re voluntarily coming to a library for independent reading. They don’t get community service points or extra credit for this. We don’t do any special programs. I have classical music playing, and pretty much leave them alone. We just read. (I actually get the most reading done during my times with these guys, so I personally look forward to it. Which some might find extraordinary in and of itself!)

Middle school guys totally in the zone — the auto reading zone — reading books that they *chose* to come to Bibliopolis to read. For an hour! (And some come early, just because.)

What’s your verdict: Ordinary or Extraordinary? 

 

Reading Testimonial: This “One’s” for Me!

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Today’s “Reader Testimonial” comes from Irene, new mom, staff with Koinonia Berkeley at Gracepoint Berkeley church, and as you’ll find out, a social worker by day.

OnefortheMurphys_low-ResJust wanted to share a bit about my experience reading the book One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. I am not much of a reader. I don’t read unless it’s mandatory, for the most part. But Emily suggested this book for me as a professional recommendation.  And it had me in tears as I read.

Working as a social worker in the child welfare system, this story about a child navigating her way through the system really struck home. The author was able to give light to the child’s emotional challenges and the reality of being in such a painful and tumultuous situation. The story helped give voice to the many clients I have worked with over the years. And it helped me to experience a renewed excitement for reading. As a professing non-reader, I was encouraged by the suggestion that fit my interest. And it was an easy read, and so engaging that I just couldn’t put it down!

Emily here: This is a favorite among many readers, young and old alike. And despite the semi-girly cover, and the female protagonist, this is a favorite among young men too! Almost everyone who has read this book has cried or gotten choked up. This is classified as a “middle grades” book, so it’s appropriate for 5th grade and up…all the way up! 🙂

For fans of One for the Murphys, Hunt’s newest novel is called Fish in a Tree, which is also awesome! It’s also awesome that it is available at Coscto, though of course, here at Bibliopolis, we do try to support independent bookstores, such as Books Inc. 🙂

Have you read One for the Murphys? If so, what did you think? Any youth out there want to write a youth book review for Fish in a Tree?

Back to the Future Day: Three Time-Travel Books

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backtothefutureday

Video conferences, check. Video glasses, check. Hoverboards? Still waiting!

In honor of Back to the Future Day, the day Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future 2 — yep, I saw it in the theaters in 1989! — I will give you a super short list of three very different time-travel books. I happen to love the time-travel motif, and often choose it as the superpower I would choose in those lovely ice-breakers. But I’ll tell ya, there is a lot of mediocre time-travel fiction out there. I consider the three in today’s list worthy of your time (nyuk nyuk) for different reasons.

A_Yankee_in_the_Court_of_King_Arthur_book_cover_1889

What the 1889 edition looked like.

[1] A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain (1889). We’ll start exactly 100 years earlier, in the other 80’s, the 1880’s. Most people have only read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And maybe The Prince and the Pauper. All good books, all good books. If you’re looking for a “classic” to read, and you’re a fan of Twain, you can expect social satire in this novel about a man from 19th-century Connecticut who, after a blow to the head, wakes up to find himself in King Arthur’s Camelot. Twain’s darkly comical commentary on the vestiges of Middle Age mores in his day make for a book that makes you chuckle as well as go “hm…” It’s funny to think of this book as a kind of “science fiction” or time travel, since in our 2015 minds, the 19th century “present” is so far back in the past. Apparently, there were several time-travel books published right around this book. So you see that there were fads in fiction even back then!

WrinkleInTimePBA1

The first edition cover. Very 60’s.

[2] A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1963). I’m including this in the list, only because I’m interested in your opinions on this book. I confess that I’ve never made it all the way through the book, though I’ve started several times ever since I was a young girl. I can name-drop Tesseract, Meg and Charles, and I know what the wrinkle in time refers to, but I can’t have a discussion about this book with my friend Christina. I also know that this book is a common class read aloud in schools, and that it is considered a “classic.” I also know that L’Engle is Christian, but that her books are considered somewhat controversial. This book has moved up my TBR pile, and today being BttF Day, I will move it up a few more slots, since a lot of kids have read or are considering reading this book.

kindred

Not your typical sci-fi novel.

[3]  Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (1979). This is a lesser-known book, but one I liked quite a lot back in 2001, when I had to read it because it was one of the lit circle/book club options for the 12th-grade English class I was teaching. Octavia Butler wrote science fiction, and her story as an African-American woman writer coming up during the Civil Rights Era is fascinating in its own right. Kindred is cool because it is difficult to classify in one genre. Is it realistic time-traveling science fiction? Historical fiction slave narrative? A mystery? Dana is a lawyer living in 1976, and she starts traveling back to a plantation in antebellum Maryland. You find yourself pulled into her story, just as she is discovering her own connections to this past. This book is not sparing in its depiction of slavery’s dehumanizing cruelty, and for that reason, this book is definitely upper high school to adult. This might be a good book for someone who isn’t that familiar with slave narratives, but isn’t up for reading denser, though very compelling memoir accounts like Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave.

How about you? What are your favorite books featuring time travel? Do you want to chime in about A Wrinkle in Time?