#tapir literacy

[happytapirstudio]

Tapir Book Review: "Deadlands bk 1: Hunted" by Skye Melki-Wegner

Do you remember when I discovered this book and got super excited that it existed?  Well that's it that's the story.  Was it everything I hoped and dreamed?  I think so!

So this is what the website says: "Wings of Fire meets Jurassic Park in this action-adventure middle grade debut series by Skye Melki-Wegner about five outcasts—and former enemies—who are the only hope to save their warring kingdoms from impending doom."

First off, every piece of dinosaur media in existence feels the need to evoke Jurassic Park as a selling point.   I'll bitch about JP in a separate post, but needless to say, the only thing Deadlands and that movie have in common is dinosaurs.  And I guess being action/adventure stories.  As for Wings of Fire, I can't say...haven't read it!   Going in I figured it would be a lot like Warriors, what with the whole concept of warring factions of animals.  Surprisingly...it wasn't much like Warriors, either!

You know what it *is* like?  Land Before Time.  It's clearly for kids, but it's still a mature story.  It's told from the perspective of dinosaurs (no humans whatsoever! thank christ.)  And the directors/author clearly did some serious research for it.  The world-building in Deadlands is a bit more involved than LBT--it portrays dinosaurs with a distinct culture, a rich oral history, a political system, and a magic stone-based currency--but in the bigger picture, I'd say the level of anthropomorphism is about the same in each.  These are dinosaurs in their natural habitat, engaging primarily in natural behaviors, by which I mean, their main goal in life is to eat leaves.  Everything built around that--rules, rituals, armies--exists only to support that kind of lifestyle.

Another big LBT parallel is that our protagonists are a motley crew of young, abandoned, herbivorous dinosaurs who band together in the face of serious hardships in order to survive.  In Hunted, an Oryctodromeus named Eleri is cast out of his herd and sent to the Deadlands, a carnivore-infested desert wasteland where dinosaurs chuck all their criminals and traitors.  There, he meets several other dinosaurs (not saying what kind - spoilers!!), and found family ensues.

I am trying soooo hard to avoid spoilers here.  But don’t worry, another post is coming up, chock-full of spoilers and rife with myyyyyyyy opinions.  [link forthcoming]  Here's what I have to say in closing:

I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves dinosaurs, especially dinosaurs in their own right, not just as props in a human-centric story (cough, cough...........Jurassic Park.....................) I think the prose is quite lovely, and the premise, themes, and characters are all pretty sound.  That being said, this is, at the end of the day, a chapter book for younger kids.  If you can't hang with that, or the talking animal genre really doesn't appeal to you, then you should probably go back to the library and look for something else.

I had fun reading this--a good before-bed read!--so if you did, too, please hmu and we can chat about dinosaurs together!! <3

[happytapirstudio]

Redwall Reread #1: Lord Brocktree

1st in chronological order, 13th in publication order (2001)

(major spoilers under the cut)

Summary: The Badger Lord, Brocktree of Brockhall, journeys to the legendary mountain of his ancestors, Salamandastron, to liberate it from the cruel wildcat tyrant Ungatt Trunn.

Framing Device: A Badger Lord many years after Brocktree's time is sharing this story with the greater Salamandastron community: his wife, two kids, the hares of the Long Patrol, and various seaside neighbors.

The Goodies: Primarily Brocktree (da badger on da quest) and Dotti (a young hare, headed to Salamandastron to visit her aunt.) Along the way they pick up Ruff the river otter, Gurth the mole, and a veritable shitton of other critters, including shrews, hedgehogs, and hares of the regular and mountain variety. Meanwhile, back at the mountain, we've got Brocktree's dad, the elderly Lord Stonepaw, and his host of similarly elderly warrior hares. One of these hares, Fleetscut, is sent on a quest to recruit younger warriors; he is saved and then joined by Jukka and her tribe of squirrels. In the last third of the book, a team of sea otters joins the fight.

The Baddies: Ungatt Trunn (wildcat), leading a horde of vermin (rats, weasels, foxes, etc.) all of which have dyed their fur blue. It is his Blue Horde, and there are a lot of them. There's a major nautical component to the army--they come in on ships, and a lot of their number are former pirates--but Trunn himself is a landlubber from the mountains. Truthfully I don't know where he got this incredibly massive army (arguably the largest in Redwall history), but I'm gonna say it was daddy's money. Notable underlings include the stunted fox magician, Groddil, a ferret called the Grand Fragorl, the rat captain Mirefleck, the stoat captain Fraul, the fox captain Karangool and the searat brothers Ripfang and Doomeye.

The Freakies: CRAB MOMENT 🦀🦀🦀!!! Additionally, a big pike.

The Birdies: A flightless, short-eared owl named Udara Groundslay and a (nonverbal) grey heron named Rulango.

Noteworthy Locations: Primarily Salamandastron and the surrounding coastal area. Also Mossflower Wood, pre-Redwall Abbey. Everything inbetween falls into the category of "somewhat arid open country", though I'd say King Bucko Bigbones' Clearing deserves a special mention as a sort of verdant oasis in all that sad scrubland.

Noteworthy Weapons: My main man Broccoli wields a double-hilted broadsword. With all due respect to the cover artists of both editions, I don't think that's what Mr. Jacques had in mind. I think it looked like a normal sword with a second cross guard on the blade itself. We've also got Tuna's weapon of choice, a three-pronged trident. Very nautical-core of him. Honorable mention to Dotti's carpet bag, swung about with wild abandon, as well as the hareccordion within.

Riddles: None!

Continuity Notes: Brocktree (+ Stonepaw) and Trunn are each part of their own extensive lineage of badgers and wildcats, featured in other books. We've also got a Martin the Warrior cameo (he shows up in one of Brocktree's visions.) Additionally, although Salamandastron and the Badger Lords have already been around for a long time, this book marks the beginning of I guess its "modern" age, with the founding of the Long Patrol.

Other Notes: This is perhaps the one and only Redwall book without a distinctive mouse character. Martin doesn't count, nor do the smattering of mice mentioned once in Bucko's court, as none of them have either a name or a speaking role. Squeaking role, excuse me.

Bonus Note - Homestuck: Trunn is, and I am not shitting you here, Vriska-core. He keeps his ship's stateroom full of spiders and spiderwebs, stocked with flies via the decaying bodies of people who pissed him off. Like the spider-pirate intersection is not one well-traversed in fiction, right? This is not a trope, right?? Also an uncanny coincidence that Trunn's sidekick, the crippled fox, is crippled because Trunn intentionally broke his back as a child. ?!? Alexa play X-files theme

Tapir Takes:

(1) I am a huge fan of the Brocktree-Dotti dynamic (big scary man burdened with the shadow of destiny + a sunny hyperactive little girl who seems apparently oblivious to life's darkness but can in fact dish out some serious ass-kicking.) Unfortunately, this relationship (and several others) are overshadowed by the exponentially increasing cast of characters and the forward momentum of the plot itself.

(2) Realizing for the first time that Redwall does a surprisingly good job at subverting gender roles. Not perfect, but still leagues above many movies and shows that are still coming out in this the year of our lord 2023. The girls can fight about as good as the boys, the boys can cook just like the girls, and nobody in-universe bats an eye. Some of y'all should be taking notes.

(3) Pulling out a quote in chapter 6: "If'n yore bound to take the life of a livin' thing for food, then take only wot you need. Life's too precious a thing t'be wasted." This is said by Ruff as he pulls fish out of the water for dinner. I've wondered about vegetarianism in Redwall before, and although I haven't got much to say on it now, I wanted to mark this passage for later. It's worth noting that fish are non-speaking animals in the Redwall universe.

(3.5) I'd also like to point out that the starving Horde plans to eat their captive hares once they've exhausted Salamandastron's food supply. Is this cannibalism, since the hares can talk and think same as the vermin? It's never explicitly stated in the series, but I think it's pretty clear that the differences between (talking) animals in-universe are more akin to race than species. Anyway, putting a pin in that for now.

(4) On a similar vein, I'm interested in the philosophy of Jukka and her tribe. She and her squirrels live in a patch of woods in the midst of the open grasslands, several days from the shore, but still close enough to consider themselves neighbors. In a world where nearly all non-vermin fight only to defend themselves or the weak, Jukka's squirrels are unusual, in that they fight "for profit". To them, war is a business, a means of acquiring weapons. They kill all and take no prisoners. This is all pretty similar to general vermin philosophy. Perhaps the two main differences here are attitude (vermin are cruel and disloyal even to one another, whereas the squirrels demonstrate compassion for one another and even sometimes strangers) and necessity (vermin tend to steal everything, and are unable to support themselves without exploiting others, while the squirrels really only steal for weapons, and can provide themselves with food, clothes, shelter, etc.) I'm putting a pin in this one too, because the good guy-bad guy dichotomy in Redwall deserves some major analysis, particularly once we get to Taggerung and Outcast of Redwall.

OVERALL: I enjoyed this book tremendously. Bar is high for the rest of the books, but I'm confident they'll measure up. Cheers everyone :D

[happytapirstudio]

Redwall Reread #0: Intro

My intro to Brian Jacques' Redwall series was actually the animated adaptations that aired on PBS Kids in the early 2000's. I was talking about them with my (much older) next-door neighbor one day and she was like "oh yeah I love those books", and I, a young but avid reader, was like, "Books?"

For those of you who don’t know, Redwall is a children’s fantasy book about mice and other woodland creatures living in an abbey (Redwall Abbey), which they are pressed to defend against invaders (”vermin” like rats, weasels, foxes, etc.)  It’s also the name of the subsequent series of 20+ books that followed, published between 1986 and 2011.

The world of Redwall is complex and charming, and thus still widely read and beloved decades after its original publication.  For me personally, it was one of my favorite series growing up, and consequently had a huge influence on my writing style.  I’ve read all but the last few books, several of them multiple times.  Originally I read them in publication order (the recommended reading order for first-timers, and what I was naturally inclined towards), though I’d grown a little tired of them towards the very end, and stopped reading around 2012-13.  Mr. Jacques was writing these books right up until his death.  In fact, the final installment, The Rogue Crew, was published posthumously.  Truthfully, the stories could at times be a touch formulaic, and my impression ten years ago was that this formula had run its course, at least for me.

That being said, while the stories’ predictability was a common complaint, I think it’s also a testament to the success of the original formula that Mr. Jacques was able to craft so many delightful books by staying true to that original model.  He really did create a beautiful world, beautiful largely I think because it promised readers that goodness and love and peace would always outlast cruelty and misery.  My intent with this reread isn’t necessarily to dissect that Redwall Formula.  Mostly I’m just feeling nostalgic, and I’m using that as an excuse to revisit a rich a wonderful world, and to re-explore Redwall with an adult perspective.

But there will be essays. Oh yes, there will be essays.

I’ve always wanted to read Redwall in its chronological order, to try and piece together the lineages and subtle evolution of Mossflower Wood, so that’s what I’m doing now.  Lord Brocktree is in the bag, with Martin the Warrior soon to follow, so expect to see posts for those two shortly.  I will be writing a general reaction for each book, titled “Redwall Reread no. X”, in addition to more general thoughts and fleshed-out essays; all will be logged under the tag ‘tapir’s redwall reread’.  I’m anticipating this to be a two-year project.  Not that anyone’s counting.

Speaking of “years” though I do want to mention one last thing - sort of bring this full-circle - a couple years ago, it was announced that a Redwall movie adaptation was in the works, courtesy of Netflix.  Mr. Patrick McHale was set as the writer.  Yeah I totally flipped my shit about it.  Yeah we haven’t heard much else since then.  Who knows?  Mayhaps in the time it takes me to reread and review every Redwall book, that project will see the light of day.

But until then...

[happytapirstudio]

August 2024 Book Log

New This Month:

Dragon Magic by Andre Norton

Icefire by Chris D'Lacey

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris

Continuing:

The Legend of Luke by Brian Jacques (reread) (UNfinished)

The Deadlands Book 2: Trapped by Skye Melki-Wegner

Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher (finished)

No longer listing the books that haven't been touched in over two months....too tedious, too shameful.

Okay I need everyone to know that Andre Norton is a GIRL (*vine boom sfx*) who was born Alice Mary Norton, but had several pen names, including Andre Norton (*vine boom sfx*), Andrew North (*vine boom sfx*), and Allen Weston (*vine bo--) Make of that what you will.

I like her book. I want to read more of her books. I want to read more children's fantasy from the 70's. They were straight-up writing entirely different sentences back then. It's like a breath of fresh air.

I like Icefire a bit more than The Fire Within...D'Lacey's voice feels more consistent; the action is clearer, more natural. And, although I wouldn't say The Fire Within had slow pacing, I was kind of baffled at how little dragon lore we received. The story was primarily focused on those stupidass squirrels, which felt kind of off to me, not just because I was waiting for that Big Dragon Reveal, but also because I felt like the drama and emotion surrounding the squirrel shit was kind of forced. So Icefire is much more balanced in that regard.

I'm kind of going apeshit over Mists of Avalon. I feel like I've been plowing through it, but there's no "plowing through" a text this long and dense. I also know it's kind of a cornerstone text in the fantasy genre, so I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself for now.

RIP Legend of Luke...the kids in Redwall are fucking insufferable to read, lmao.

[happytapirstudio]

July 2024 Book Log

New This Month:

The Legend of Luke by Brian Jacques (reread)

Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher

Continuing:

The Deadlands Book 2: Trapped by Skye Melki-Wegner

My Good Man by Eric Gansworth (unfinished)

Ranger's Apprentice Book 3: The Icebound Land by John Flanagan (finished)

On Hold:

The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

Orochi Volume 2 by Kazou Umezz

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco (reread)

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

Tremendously embarrassed that Carroll's 100 or so pages of easy-to-read pictures has got me stonewalled. My sister read it all in one sitting, and I should've too, but I got flustered by Women and put it down for a second-turned-month. I'm sorry, Women.

I'm reluctant to talk too much about Ranger's Apprentice because I feel simultaneously that it deserves more and less than a couple paragraphs at the bottom of a monthly book log. Here's the thing, I have a lot more books to get through in this series, plus three other spinoff series that I probably won't even touch. There was a lot I wanted to say after book 1, and that number only doubles with each new book. The world just keeps unfolding. As do my critiques. So I'm going to hold my tongue and wait until the show's over before I start hurling tomatoes.

I stumbled upon Obsidian Mirror totally on accident. I wanted to reread Fisher's Relic Master quartet (called The Book of the Crow in GB), which is an all-time favorite of mine, but then I saw Mirror and went !!!! and grabbed it instead. (Also I just hit up her wiki page to verify titles and she's written so much?????? I only ever see Relic Master and Incarceron/Sapphique on shelves so I had no idea. Wow I'm gonna have to dig into this.) ANYWAY it's dope as fuck so far, and I'm really excited. I adore the way she blends fairytale-fantasy and scifi, it scratches my imagination just the right way. Her prose is also just. Pleasant to read. Unlike. Some other writers. We shan't mention. (but already have......)

Reading was at an all-time low this month because of Art Fight and also being consumed by??? Dark spirits of a sort????? Fear not, we'll get those numbers up once more. Redwall and Deadlands reviews forthcoming.

[happytapirstudio]

June 2024 Book Log

New This Month:

Bravelands: Thunder on the Plains Book 1: The Shattered Horn by Erin Hunter (finished)

The Deadlands Book 2: Trapped by Skye Melki-Wegner

Ranger's Apprentice Book 3: The Icebound Land by John Flanagan

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

Continuing:

The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond by André Gerolymatos (unfinished)

The Chronicles of Prydain Book 2: The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander (finished)

The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán

The Fire Within by Chris d'Lacey (finished)

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (reread, finished)

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco (reread)

On Hold:

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

My Good Man by Eric Gansworth

Orochi Volume 2 by Kazou Umezz

This month felt like a weird black hole. What the hell was I even doing these past four weeks?

You'll notice I've sort of reverted to my old way of formatting these, now with a new section for books I've technically still got a bookmark in but haven't touched in over 28 days.

The Bravelands book revived me. I don't keep track of which Erin is writing what, all I know is they take turns, and the Erin for The Shattered Horn did a really good job. Some really outstanding lines, good voices for some of the characters, and (I'm not sure if this was even their choice, but I'll congratulate them anyway) didn't shy away as much from mentions of polyamory as previous books have.

Also I finally got the next Deadlands book, I am STOKED. *does a little dance* Oh my God I still have to finish my "expanded review" post for the first book.

[happytapirstudio]

May 2024 Book Log

(bold means new this month)

The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond by André Gerolymatos

The Chronicles of Prydain Book 1: The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (half-reread) (finished)

The Chronicles of Prydain Book 2: The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander

The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

The Fire Within by Chris D'Lacey

Graceling by Kristin Cashore (unfinished)

My Good Man by Eric Gansworth

Orochi Volume 2 by Kazou Umezz

Pegasus Book 1: The Flame of Olympus by Kate O'Hearn (finished)

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (reread)

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco (reread)

It looks like I've read sooo much this month but that's a fucking lie. I should redesign how I present this information. Or like. Maybe just not have so many books open at once.

Anyway my perception of time this month has gone absolutely sideways, and while typing this up, I realized I totally forgot I'd finished reading Pegasus.

What the fuck. Was that ending.

I have similar thoughts on The Fire Within even though I'm not done with it yet...like I guess YA authors circa 2010 planned their whole series out in advance and were totally okay ending on cliffhangers and/or making their entire first book some weird prologue that dances around the actual heart of the series for several hundred pages. I'm over three quarters of the way through The Fire Within and we have yet to have any big dragon reveal. Genuinely thought that was going to happen in chapter three or four. Then I'm like "well certainly by the halfway point." Then "well perhaps it'll be part of the climax, near the end." No go fuck yourself straight to hell, D'Lacey said. Squirrel drama all the way.

Another note on that book: when I initially started reading it, I was really digging the writing style. It had a nice cadence, really flowed off the brain quite well. "Ahhh," I said to myself, "I see why this book was so popular in its day." I don't know if I was just in some special state that night, or if the first couple chapters really were a cut above the rest, but I'm not so in love with the writing now. It's very Disney-esque, in a way I can't elaborate on; which is charming at some times and frustrating at others.

And I genuinely don't understand why David is so caught up with these squirrels. Like 80% of this book is squirrel-related; the dragons (ostensibly what the book is about????) occupy a much smaller space, and information about David himself is laughably scarce. We get a couple throw-away sentences about college, and next to nothing about his childhood or personal life, which makes it that much harder to understand why these squirrels have become the focal point of his life.

Also there is no way in heaven or hell that this book is set in Massachusetts. D'Lacey's British and all his characters are British. Factually. For starters, no single person in the United States is unironically eating toast and beans.

And that's fine???!!! Like apart from the note in the beginning (which I missed the first time) and a joke about the President, there is no strong indication that this book takes place in the US. Nor is there a reason for it to be in the US. This is a very British story, a very British setting, and very British characters with decidedly British mannerisms. It makes me wonder if the story was written to be in England, but some editor went, "Hmmm I think kids would be more interested if this was set in New England instead." Loser.

But yeah. Chalk another one up under Tapir Reads Books Everyone Else Was Obsessed With In Elementary School. This one's for you, Shaun.

I was also really looking forward to Dinosaur Lords, which is part of a trilogy set in an alternate Earth that's juuust enough like real Earth to make you go, "I think that woman's supposed to be Russian", except no one actually calls her Russian. Though they do speak Spanish, Italian, etc. Except it's not called Spanish, Italian, etc. Which is a little aggravating, because, between the giant cast and this slew of dinosaur names, there's already a lot to keep track of. Having to remember Milán's made-up name for Spain, England, Romania, etc. on top of all that is making this book a lot harder than it needs to be.

Enough bitching let me find a few compliments about this book. Ummmmmm. Well there are homosexuals; I can get behind that. He also makes good use of the dinosaurs in his book: reconstructs convincing images of them, builds them fairly well into this alternate reality. I really locked in once we got a chapter from the Allosaurus's perspective. Like YES that's what I'm talking about!!!

But our two main characters are your run-of-the-mill Strong Independent Men, and I've really had enough of that in general. So in addition to stumbling over this exposition I'm holding back my groans every time we switch back to Rob (yes that is his fucking name Rob and yes he's fantasy Irish) and Karyl.

I think part of my frustration, apart from having high hopes, is that a lot of the things Milán does in his book that tick me off are things I've done in mine. And subsequently edited out, even before reading Lords, because I knew they were dragging down the text. I'm not well-versed in High Fantasy in any way, so I can't exactly compare these techniques with the standard--though I'd say, given the genre's tendency for pulling esoteric magic systems and fictional landscapes out of its ass, this is probably on par for the course--but I can compare it to my own work, and that fills me with no insignificant amount of dread.

Okay let's end on a positive note. Persepolis fucking slaps and I'm so glad I'm rereading it as an adult with a fully-formed brain. Thank youuuuuu Marjane Satrapi.

[happytapirstudio]

April 2024 Book Log

(bold means new this month)

The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond by André Gerolymatos

Bosnia: A Short History by Noel Malcolm (finished)

The Chronicles of Prydain Book 1: The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (half-reread)

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Orochi Volume 2 by Kazou Umezz

Pegasus Book 1: The Flame of Olympus by Kate O'Hearn

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (reread)

Ranger’s Apprentice Book 2: The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan (finished)

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco (reread)

Guess who kept going back to the library and getting new books before the old ones were finished.

Like Graceling and (from last month's log) Ranger's Apprentice, the Pegasus series was one I always saw hanging around shelves and in other kids' book piles. It's a thick volume, so it definitely stands out. I'm enjoying it so far, but I must confess that I cringed when I read that our main character's dad is a cop. Funny how that would've gone straight over my head if I'd read it as a kid. What probably wouldn't have gone over my head, even back then: the soldier who's serving in Iraq. What a way to date your book.

I'm gonna be honest I would not have guessed there'd be such a strong mythological component to this book? I thought I remembered reading the backs of one of these books--though it might've been another series, come to think of it--and getting the impression that it was its own universe, and a pretty mature one at that. But it's not, and that only makes sense...Pegasus is a mythological figure, after all! Not just some horse with wings! It's still giving Horse Girl, though, and I appreciate that.

One little detail I love is the fact that Pegasus, as an Olympian, subsists on ambrosia in his home world, but the best we have on earth is ice cream and sugary cereal. So he just chows down on that. Completely disregards normal horse food. Reading that made me cackle.

You'll notice Goražde is back on the list. I finished Malcolm's Bosnia and wanted to reread Goražde immediately now that I had clearer historical context.

Another graphic novel nonfiction reread up there...Persepolis! I think I initially read this when I was in high school, so I really didn't know nothing. Like nothing, nothing. Still, it left a really big impression on me. Originally I started rereading it on a whim when I was in Baltimore--just picked it up at a library and read a few chapters before I had to leave--but then after we got home we made a dedicated trip to a special branch to get The Book of Three, and Persepolis was there, so I grabbed it, too.

As for The Book of Three...let's just say checking out books and needing to return them before I finished reading them is one of my oldest and strongest talents. I had just gotten my rats when I first tried reading this, and they were still quite scared of and aggressive towards me, so I read part of this out loud to them in hopes of trying to bridge that gap. I guess it's no surprise that I didn't finish it.

Well the scene in the barrow has haunted me ever since, so I've been meaning to get back to it for a while now. Already halfway through in only a couple days, well past the point I originally stopped at, so I'd say we're doing good! I keep wondering how many of the authors whose work I read as a kid had read this book when they were kids. Everyone in fantasy always cites Lord of the Rings or maybe Narnia, but The Chronicles of Prydain (from the 60's) must've been right up there. There's something sort of ubiquitous about this story. I'm not even at The Black Cauldron, but already I can say the Disney adaptation did not do this series justice.

[happytapirstudio]

March 2024 Book Log

(bold means new this month)

Bosnia: A Short History by Noel Malcolm

Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 6: Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver (reread, finished)

Crowded Volume 2: Glitter Dystopia by Sebela et al. (finished)

Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older (unfinished)

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Orochi Volume 2 by Kazou Umezz

Ranger's Apprentice Book 1: The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan (reread, finished)

Ranger's Apprentice Book 2: The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan

So CoAD 6 and the first Ranger's Apprentice both got read in a single weekend each. This is strange for CoAD because book 5 took me several months, for some reason, despite being an embarrassingly slim book. I think once I finished 5 I was like "the end is in sight LET'S GO" and just took off. Also I had a dream after finishing book 5 that the series had been adapted into a movie and it sucked ass. I'm telling you, this series had a grip on my entire psyche. Felt a shaking sense of loss and nostalgia when I finally finished it, but then I remembered Paver wrote three more books in 2020. My diseases shall continue...

Now Ranger's Apprentice is a weird one, because I genuinely do not like this series, but I think it was the exact genre and/or brand of mediocrity that I needed at the time I picked it up. Both that series and Graceling are books I remember my high school friends reading and loving, and they actually have a lot in common. They're essentially reverse sides of the same coin: the coin that represents the state of YA fantasy in the 2000s. That is... Boy Fantasy (TM) ...and... Girl Fantasy (TM) (C) (R).

As always I could say a lot but I'll restrain myself. Neither of these books/subgenres are ones I particularly enjoy reading or writing, but it's for that precise reason (in addition their overall prevalence in the YA scene) that I'm drawn to them. I need to know how they tick. I need to pick them apart page by page.

My briefest review of Ranger's Apprentice is that it's possessed by the spirit of passive misogyny. That is to say, male characters far outnumber female, and the few women we do see are constantly measured by their attractiveness to male characters. Thus far, we've yet to meet any ladies who are framed as obnoxious or villainous because of their female traits (i.e. shrill, cunning, bossy, sexy-evil), but I wouldn't hold my breath. Insanely enough, I think I'd find that much less misogynistic than this bouquet of sweet-smelling Women (c) (TM) who are So Very Pretty and can Do No Wrong and Never Ever Say Anything Mean Whatsoever.

Also I always find it interesting when a series chooses to have the antagonist's supporting forces be largely composed of "stupid" monsters simply taking orders from a single Big Bad. Definitely a major characteristic to me of the "Boy Fantasy" genre. To me it automatically makes the story much more shallow. It takes a certain power away from the battles, because at that point you're not killing soldiers, you're disabling robots and racking up points. And it (deliberately and understandably so) removes any difficulties from the concept of killing, which takes the interesting edges off all these rugged warrior-men and turns them into a pack of two-dimensional action figures. This is the blonde one. This is the one who gets mad at other people. This is the fat one.

Oh. Do not get me started on the fatphobia in this series lmao.

Compare that to Graceling, where (chapter 1-level spoilers here) the main character is a girl gifted with superhuman strength, speed, and reflexes, making her an exceptional fighter and killer. Her uncle, the king, uses her as an assassin to punish those who've wronged him. She has a body count that would put half the cast in Ranger's Apprentice to shame, but she's not exactly proud of it the way they would be.

In fact, her feelings about herself and her powers are very complicated...she sees herself as a monster, a dog who works for her uncle. She tends to isolate herself from others in a way that comes across as conceit. For the most part, she is proud of her skills, partly because she's spent so much time honing them, and partly because she truly is better at what she does than basically anyone else alive. But she knows she's ruining lives for her uncle. She recognizes her enemies are people just like her, not campy villains or flat stereotypes. She understands that she isn't just taking a life or breaking a finger, she's effecting change that impacts the lives of everyone around them. For this, she resents her uncle, and she especially hates her inability to resist his commands. She can't imagine herself as anything other than an outcast because of her gift and her history.

That's not to say Graceling is without its own set of flaws, but I definitely take its story and characters more seriously than those of Ranger's Apprentice.

[happytapirstudio]

February 2024 Book Log

(bold means new this month)

Bosnia: A Short History by Noel Malcolm

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 5: Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver (reread, FINISHED!!!!)

Crowded Volume 1: Soft Apocalypse by Sebela et al. (finished)

Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes (unfinished - due at library)

Mossflower by Brian Jacques (reread, finished)

Orochi Volume 2 by Kazou Umezz

Pride Wars 2: The Four Guardians by Matt Laney (finished)

Guess who finally finished tCoAD book 5 lmaooooooooo okay jumping ship to Pride Wars 2 what the fuck was that ending. No spoilers but. Hello?????? Felt like I was being repeatedly tossed into the air by a gorilla until I landed face-first on solid rock. I'm anticipating this to be a finite series (four books, probably), so I'm gonna save my full review until after I finish the whole thing. I just need you to know I'm not happy with like...the whole last quarter of book 2, maybe more.

Once again defeated by due date. RIP Kindred I'll check you out again soon. In the meantime I'm reading a much slimmer volume on the history of Bosnia - 99% sure this is the text Sacco was referencing when he made Goražde.

Crowded was loads of fun. I spent like an entire Sunday reading it. Orochi is my friend's book...I have a lot of books of his I need to finish (I've been "borrowing" them for about two years now smh smh smh smh smh.) I typically have a hard time following the action and dialogue in manga, but Orochi is much easier for me, and a nice change of pace overall from most of the stories I read, comic or otherwise.

Dactyl Hill Squad has been in my inventory for nearly two months, and is on the very last leg of its library loan period. I grabbed it on impulse because it had dinosaurs. (You know me.) It's young YA, like Pride Wars, so it's got the typical young-YA quirks, but I'm really enjoying the core of the story: orphans of color navigate the aftermath of the Draft Riots in New York City during the American Civil War, in a universe where humans live alongside dinosaurs.

It's such a refreshing perspective that I'm even willing to forgive it for being set in NYC lol. This is, dinosaurs aside, a very different NYC - none of the hyperactive bustle and conceit of modern NYC that inevitably poisons the blood of any book or movie set there. This is old NYC...mid-19th century old...and I dig it.

I also love what Older does with his dinos: a healthy mix of traditional and modern interpretations, creating something unique and engaging. My only issue with the story so far is that we're not given good descriptions for about half the characters. Lots of names get thrown around in the beginning with little to no associated images, descriptors, or voices, so I'm having a hard time keeping track of the cast. Other than that, an exciting story! Glad it caught my eye on the bookshelf :)

[happytapirstudio]

January 2024 Book Log

(bold means new this month)

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 5: Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver (reread) (i knooooow it's been on here FOREVER)

Dinosaurs - The Grand Tour: Everything Worth Knowing About DInosaurs From Aardonyx to Zuniceratops by Keiron Pim

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson (reread, finished)

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Mossflower by Brian Jacques (reread)

Pride Wars 2: The Four Guardians by Matt Laney

For me, this was less of a reading month, more of a writing month. Dinosaur Summer was part of a massive haul of books I got last fall at a giant used book sale, and not the only dinosaur fiction I found! And yes Dinosaurs The Grand Tour is essentially an encyclopedia that I am reading like a book. I'm gonna be honest, despite its grandiose shelf presence, it's a pretty shallow read, for a reference book. I expected a lot more knowledge per page, but overall it gives the impression of a kids' dinosaur board book formatted for adults. Probably gonna skim the rest and return it this week.

In the Garden of Beasts was a much more captivating read for me at 26 than it had been for me at 16. It's an insightful (and humbling) look at the intersection between politicians and everyday people. Also fascinating to read 300 pages of people going "wow this looks bad...someone should do something" over and over, not with the hindsight of knowing how bad it'll get for them, but of knowing that, almost a hundred years later, people are looking at more or less the same shit and still saying to one another, "wow this looks bad...someone should do something." Unprecedented Times indeed.

[happytapirstudio]

Redwall Reread #2: Martin the Warrior

2nd in chronological order, 6th in publication order (1993)

(major spoilers under the cut)

Summary: A young mouse warrior named Martin escapes from slavery at the evil fortress Marshank and journeys to the hidden valley of Noonvale to raise an army, destroy Marshank, free the slaves, and seek vengeance against the stoat tyrant, Badrang.

Framing Device: Two travelers stop by Redwall Abbey one winter night and tell this story to the creatures there.

The Goodies: Martin’s our main boy, obviously.  Felldoh the squirrel, a fellow slave-turned-warrior, is also a key player.  Then we have the critters from Noonvale: Rose (full name Laterose) and her little brother Brome, both mice, plus her friend Grumm the mole.  While Martin, Rose, and Grumm travel to Noonvale, they recruit the hedgehog Pallum.  They also encounter a variety of beasties: a tribe of savage pygmy shrews, the lovely mole wife Polleekeen, a family of stuffy rabbits, and a rowdy horde of squirrels, plus of course the denizens of Noonvale, including Rose’s mom and dad.  Back at Marshank, we’ve got a whole host of slaves, who later team up with a group of traveling performers, the Rambling Rosehip Players, whose most notable members are Ballaw the hare and Rowanoak the badger.

The Baddies: Two stoats ((two of them))!  Badrang the Tyrant, former corsair, now the cruel and calculating ruler of Marshank, and Captain Tramun Clogg, his old sea-going partner.  Each of them have their own little vermin swarm, among which the only individual really worth mentioning is Hisk the weasel, Badrang's head slavedriver and personal enemy of Felldoh.

The Freakies: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, it is time for...REDWALL HERPETOFAUNA.  This demands an entire essay but for now I will just say we’ve got a whole mess of reptiles and amphibians crawling around these here Marshwood Hills.

The Birdies: The Warden of Marshwood Hill, a grey heron.  AND.  Boldred, the map-making short-eared owl, and her husband Hortwingle (a stay-at-home dad) and daughter Emalet.  AND.  A cute little dipper who Rose befriends in Marshwood Hill.  Special shoutout to the various unnamed seabirds, particularly the one who steals that piece-of-shit baby shrew and tries feeding him to its hatchling.

Noteworthy Locations: All of this takes place in the northwestern region of the Known Redwall Universe, away from Mossflower Wood and the Western Sea.  Most of the time, we’re at or around Badrang’s Fortress, which backs up to a stretch of coastal marshes that includes Marshwood Hill up to the north.  Inland is a rich stretch of forest, including the idyllic Noonvale (which I high-key wish we’d revisit in later books), and a small mountain range/highland area.

Noteworthy Weapons: Martin the Warrior’s sword for sure.  Or, I guess, his dad’s sword.  For most of the book Martin’s using a pygmy shrew sword, which probably looks even more pathetic than I’ve been imagining.

Riddles: Just a little one...when Martin and friends ask Polleekeen for directions to Noonvale, she provides them with a short riddle.

Continuity Notes: This is a key story in the arc of Martin the Warrior (go figure, huh), and we also get some significant insight into Luke very early on.  Apart from that, the only other scraps come from the pro- and epilogue: the storytelling takes place after Mariel of Redwall, with characters from that story.  The travelers are descendants of Brome and Pallum.  One of them brings Rose’s namesake from Noonvale: the seedling of a variety of late-blooming rose, which, once planted in spring, will become a characteristic component of Redwall’s appearance.

Other Notes: I believe this is the only book where rabbits make an appearance?  I mean I straight-up forgot they ever made an appearance at all, that’s how rare they are.  Additionally, the previous book I read (Brocktree), which takes place in a coastal terrain like this one, also features a grey heron and short-eared owl on its bird roster.  The birds’ personalities are very different, though.

Tapir Takes:

(1) The B in Badger stands for Butch.

(2) I wrote down “Martin acting like the protag of an 80’s film” and I stand by it.  If these were humans, he’d be the tanned youth with blue eyes and sandy-blond hair tousled by the sea wind.  This vision came to me when he was rescuing that pygmy shrew nuisance from the seabirds.  It also re-contextualized that earlier period of time when he first meets Rose, and he’s freaking head-over-heels, stuttering over his words, goo-goo-eyed and ga-ga-faced.  Insufferable. Disney Channel Original Movie-type shit.  Thank god it goes away after a couple chapters.

(3) Similarly, Rose acts like a damsel-in-distress more often than I'd expect? Ultimately yes I'd characterize her as a warrior first and a princess second, but there are still moments where she reacts to things in a distinctly feminine way (screams, passes out, paralyzed with terror), while her male companions do not.

(4) And then Martin will jump to her defense so fast!!! He is her freaking white knight. They'll all be laughing at a joke, but the moment it turns sour against Rose, Martin will intervene. And as a whole they are sooo codependent. Like when Martin was just hurling himself at the gates of Marshank and Rose was the only one able to pull him away (which I think she knew...the calmness she approached him with suggests a confidence in her own ability to get him to see reason.) She's always talking reason to him, but she herself will also do reckless things because of him, and ultimately gets herself killed running into battle alongside him. In many ways this is a really well-crafted tragedy. To me. It's also, in other ways, really freaking obnoxious (see point 2). To me.

(5) Returning to Gender for a moment. Overall, the girls in this book are a lot more finicky and shallow than they were in Brocktree. (These volumes were written nearly a decade apart, so perhaps that explains it.) I'm thinking primarily of Celandine the squirrel, secondarily of that whiny old mouse lady. For sure, there are just as many, if not more, grizzly girl warriors than there are damsels in distress, but Celandine's character still surprised me. And, like a lot of other things about this book, something about it feels a little corny, a little melodramatic, and pointedly one-dimensional in a jarring way.

(6) I can't wait to write about warriors in Redwall. This book is chock-full of characters, scenes, and quotes that illuminate the various facets of Redwall Warrior Culture. Stuff about the nature of a warrior's spirit, the inherent grief and tragedy of the warrior's destiny, the importance of nonviolence roles (while also emphasizing that such roles must coexist and cannot be substituted for one another.) Essay forthcoming, indeed.

(7) Martin definitely has some of the blandest Redwall villains.  I remember Cloggs, and the double-assassination scene is always fresh in my mind, but I think that’s mostly from watching the TV show between my initial and present read of this book.  It’s particularly upsetting to me because everyone in the book insists Badrang is pure evil, but there’s very little to demonstrate that evilness.  He’s just a slave-owner, something most Redwall villains already are.  I think the evilest thing we see him do is leave Martin out for the seabirds, but after that all he does is yell at his underlings and dish out insults.  And besides that, he has no personality, especially compared to Cloggs.

(8) The frenemy angle between Badrang and Cloggs could’ve been so much more interesting than it was!!!!  The crossed-wires assassination was cool and I wish we’d had more stuff like that!!!

(9) Druwp is a really interesting character.  Really, really interesting.  Tucking him away for later.

(10) I don’t like what Jacques does with his herpetofauna, and I don’t like how he does it two more times in this book, first with the pygmy shrews and then with the Gawtrybe.  You know what I’m talking about.  Essay forthcoming.

(11) The Marshwood Hill arc (?) did prove something important to me, though! Something I mentioned in my Brocktree post! Is it cannibalism to eat another talking animal, even if they're a different species? YES!!!!!! The denizens of Marshwood are called cannibals several times because they eat any travelers that come near their marsh. However, when the Warden eats them, it's treated differently. It's gross and perhaps excessively strict, but he is not called a cannibal, or considered to be stooping down to the frogs/lizards/snakes' level. Perhaps the definition of cannibalism excludes birds? When life closes an answer God opens a question. Wait that's not how that goes

(12) The end of this book always felt very sudden to me. I think that's equal parts an intentional choice on Jacques' part and an inevitable consequence of the tragedy genre. Still, I feel there should've somehow been more padding around Rose's death and the last few chapters.

(13) I mentioned the show earlier.  So I’ll drop my Redwall TV Show Story here: I watched the show before I found the books.  Loved the show.  They adapted three Redwall books: the original, the direct sequel (Mattimeo), and this prequel.  I actually own the original on DVD, somehow.  At any rate, I watched religiously as they aired in chronological order on PBS, but then during a playdate with my neighbor, whose mom did not let her watch this show because it was “too violent” (pffffft baby) ((we were four)), I missed an episode early on in the third season and totally fell off the wagon!  It haunts me to this day.  I tried rewatching it when it was on Netflix, but I just couldn’t get into it.  I might do so now, though.  Just found out via the Redwall Wiki that they transed Pallum’s gender.  A huge win for feminism.

OVERALL:  I think I remember being not a huge fan of this book when I first read it.  Well I hate to say it but I’m definitely not a huge fan now!  It seems it had the makings of a good story, but the delivery fell somewhat short. Still, it had its moments <3

[happytapirstudio]

2023 Mega-Book Log

Except it only covers the last third of 2023. *disco dances*

So here's a mega-list of all the books I read AND FINISHED in 2023! From September thru December, that is!:

Bamboo Kingdom Book 3: Journey to the Dragon Mountain by Erin Hunter

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 4: Outcast by Michelle Paver

The Deadlands Book 1: Hunted by Skye Melki-Wegner

Kenny & the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi

Lord Brocktree by Brian Jacques

Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques

A Peculiar Peril by Jeff VanderMeer

Pride Wars Book 1: The Spinner Prince by Matt Laney

The Rise and Reign of Mammals by Steve Brusatte

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco

Tuki: Fight for Fire by Jeff Smith

Warriors of the Black Shroud by Peter Howe

Here are the books I didn't finish, but enjoyed nevertheless (to some degree at least...):

Chaucer’s People by Liza Picard

The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 6) by Michael Scott

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

And of those, here are the books following me into 2024:

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 5: Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

I would not have expected my finish to unfinished ratio to look like that. I always feel like I abandon so many books. So this is uplifting to see! I am a very slow reader, though, in part because I insist on reading five or more books at a time. Greedy greedy...

I'm gonna take the time to just give a quick overview of my year so I can put the 2023 mega-log into context: this year sucked elephant balls for me. Huge, hairy, sweaty, dirty elephant balls. I mean the first eight months of it did; the last four months, when I left my shit job, moved to Virginia, and started this book log, were much better. I've got plans for 2024, some of them book-related, though I feel re-employment will be inevitable. This will, of course, have a significant impact on my reading patterns.

My main reading goal for '24 is to keep up with my Redwall reread. I've also discovered this year that I enjoy having at least one science-y book open at a time...the weeks inbetween Mammals and Kindred felt a little vacant to me. Reading such works is like encountering a hydra: as soon as I finish one, I discover through its bibliography two or three more that catch my interest.

Before I got Fucking Covid (TM) at the beginning of '23, I had plans to read more classic literary works by people of color. Clearly that didn't work out at all. As luck would have it, my friend lent me several books that fit this criteria (over a year ago now.....), so I will definitely be getting to those. Hopefully I can get a few more in besides that.

There are also quite a few books I'd like to buy and own. Most are out of print and will have to be bought secondhand. Certainly not something I should be indulging while unemployed. But wait! What is that shelf of unread books calling to me from the other side of the room? Surely something I can ignore...

Well less writing and more reading!!! I'll see y'all in a few B)

[happytapirstudio]

December Book Log

(bold means new this month)

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 5: Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver (reread)

The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 6) by Michael Scott (unfinished...for now)

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson (reread)

Kenny & the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi (finished)

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques (reread, finished)

Pride Wars Book 1: The Spinner Prince by Matt Laney (finished)

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco (finished)

Tuki: Fight for Fire by Jeff Smith (finished)

Do you like my new format? I'm sure you do. I'd like to take this moment to remind you not to be intimidated by these lists in any way...they look long only because there's so many repeats from previous months. I get glimpses of BookTok against my will, thanks to Instagram's algorithm, and I am realizing there are people out there who read nonstop and at the speed of light. Rest assured that I am not one of those people.

Very excited to read Kindred because I've heard lots of good things. So far, I'm enjoying it immensely. Very engaging - vivid, poetic, lively. Very in-step with the past couple popular science books I've read, all published from 2020 onward - Otherlands by Halliday, Beasts Before Us by Panciroli. I know this blend of creative writing and nonfiction paleontology has roots going back decades, but I still feel like I'm in the presence of a rare sort of treasure every time I read one of these books.

I first read In The Garden of Beasts for my high school German class, so that one's a real throwback. Tuki was a book I bought in Buffalo over two years ago, so I'm really glad I finally took the time to sit down and read it. Bones man knocks it out of the park once again. Pride Wars was interesting for a number of reasons...might make a post for that as I read the next books in the series. Goražde, as one might expect, will be living in my head for a very long time. The Enchantress was a slog so I had to return it early to the library. Unfortunately, I'm experiencing a "sunk cost" type phenomenon here, as this is the last book in a series of 6, one that I feel obliged to finish. No doubt it will return in a later book log.

[happytapirstudio]

November Book Log

From Last Month:

Chaucer’s People by Liza Picard (unfinished*)

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 5: Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver (reread)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (unfinished*)

New This Month:

The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 6) by Michael Scott

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (unfinished*)

Kenny & the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi

Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques (reread)

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco

*Saddest thing in the world...you can't renew library books indefinitely! And I am evidently a really slow reader. Possibly in part because I'm always reading five or more books at the same time.

Sorry to admit this, but I probably won't be re-checking any of these out, except maybe Spenser's classic English epic, since that's on my bucket list. I am so sorry Ms. Jemisin I just couldn't get into your book it was very well-written there just weren't enough talking animals :(((( Ms. Picard I'm only minimally sorry. Your book was pretty neat I just got bored about halfway through. I don't know enough about British politics and I don't care to learn.

I have to talk about Sacco's book for a minute. In Fall 2019 I took a comics-making class, and our prof (himself a published cartoonist) would bring in a bunch of comics every week for us to peruse for the first thirty minutes or so. He brought like the special-edition oversize copy of Goražde and the pages I read that evening have haunted me ever since. So I looked for it in every comic store I went to and finally found it a few months back.

There's a lot I want to talk about, but I don't think I'll ever be equipped to, even after I finish it. All I can say is, it's very good, and I strongly recommend it.

I think it's surreal for me to read in part because the whole conflict (Bosnian War) took place only a few years before I was born in '97. The culture I grew up in--the Disney renaissance, the early internet, dozens of bands and musicians I still listen to today (who I listen to with nostalgia but somehow don't consider "old"), 90s styles and technology, and numerous fundamental components of my very young childhood--was concurrent with the Bosnian War, a conflict marked by horrific acts of violence and destruction. A war that, for me at least, was only briefly mentioned in my world history class, crammed in along with other post-Cold War events in speedrun form at the end of the year. In other words, a war I grew up nearly oblivious to.

And the way Sacco writes and draws makes for an extremely immersive reading experience. Moreso for me personally than a book or even a film could be. (This is just how my brain's wired - to this day Maus has been the Holocaust story that's left the biggest impression on me, that felt the "most real", weird as that sounds.) In the case of Goražde, I think part of this sense of authenticity might be in the way Sacco draws buildings? And this one type of fence, in particular--tile or brick, I'm not sure. Like, I see it and it makes me think "oh my god this is a real place. These are real people, real lives." But "real place" also in the sense of "place I've been to", though I most certainly haven't. I don't know it's just tangible in a very peculiar way.

Well I've gone on too long already and said almost nothing of substance. I'll just close with the note that Mr. Sacco has written numerous books on occupied Palestine, and I intend to get my hands on them sooner rather than later.

[happytapirstudio]

October Book Log

From Last Month:

Chaucer’s People by Liza Picard

The Deadlands Book 1: Hunted by Skye Melki-Wegner (finished)

Lord Brocktree by Brian Jacques (reread, finished)

The Rise and Reign of Mammals by Steve Brusatte (finished)

New This Month:

Bamboo Kingdom Book 3: Journey to the Dragon Mountain by Erin Hunter (finished)

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 4: Outcast by Michelle Paver (reread, finished)

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 5: Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver (reread)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

I'm a huge rereader, if you can't tell. I'm also still devoted to whatever the Erin Hunter conglomerate keeps spitting out. Between Bamboo Kingdom and Bravelands, I prefer the latter--it has richer world-building, more memorable characters. But Bamboo Kingdom is captivating enough for me. Both are a departure from the typical one-species narrative, incorporating instead the whole ecosystem, with a wide variety of animals. My complaint about Bamboo Kingdom is that it feels a little...orientalist....sometimes.....their deity being an eastern dragon and all.......... But whatever I guess.!

Back on my Chronicles of Ancient Darkness grind...need to finish the original six so I can read the three that Paver just published a few years ago. Very captivating world to me. Paver obviously did an insane amount of research into prehistoric (and modern) hunter-gatherer societies and ecology, then does a superb job bringing it to life, designing characters and conflicts and perspectives that are unique to that paleolithic world.

Speaking of "reread" and "grind", keep your eyes peeled for my Redwall Reread posts: an intro and one for Lord Brocktree. I also have some words (many words) to share about Deadlands. (Short version: I liked it :3)