The Frog Prince Continued

Written by: Jon Scieszka and Steve Johnson 

First line: The princess kissed the frog. 

Why you should read this book: In the modern tradition of fractured fairy tales, this book examines, with increasing silliness, the meaning of the phrase "happily ever after" and the question of what comes after that. Feeling unloved and incompatible with his princess, who doesn't seem to accept any residual amphibious traits in her beloved, the Frog Prince sets off in search of a witch who can turn him back into a frog so he doesn't have to deal with the constant nagging and criticism. While there are no end of witches infesting this kingdom, they all seem to be engaged in tormenting other fairy tale characters and even the most useful of them can offer only a temporary transformation, leading our protagonist to reassess the importance of perfect harmony at home. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're desperately working to escape an abusive spouse. 

 

 

If I Ran the Circus

Written by: Dr. Seuss 

First line: "In all the whole town, the most wonderful spot/Is behind Sneelock's Store in the big vacant lot." 

Why you should read this book: Young Morris McGurk waxes poetic/fanciful about his plans for a vacant lot in his town, which, if he can just clear out the trash, will house the most remarkable circus ever conceived. Along with a large number of increasingly improbable animals, his plans hinge on the full participation of old man Sneelock, an amiable grandfatherly type who seems content to lean against the door jamb smoking a pipe, although McGurk's vision depends on Sneelock participating in wild stunts, training animals, and performing dangerous feats such as diving four-fifths of a mile into a fishbowl. McGurk has a big imagination but the implication seems to be that he has no follow-through and there's no indication that he's secured financial back for this project. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Even for Seuss fans, this one is kind of phoned-in, derivative of other Seuss works, highly dependent on nonsense words to create easy rhymes, with no plot or conflict to speak of, other than the reader's relative certainty that Sneelock isn't going to participate on any level envisioned by the young narrator.

Becoming Brianna

Written by: Terri Libenson

First line: Well, here I am again.

Why you should read this book: Brianna can't figure out why she agreed to have a bat mitzvah when she doesn't know any Hebrew and hardly even feels like she's Jewish, but she did tell her mother to sign her up and now she's stuck with her decision. But as she finds herself more and more stressed out trying to learn an entire new language while being asked to find meaning in a religion that seems increasingly at odds with her own personal worldview, she's also in between her divorced parents' disagreements, and meanwhile, her best friend seems jealous of the attention Brianna's suddenly getting from the popular girls who want in on the party of the year. Will Brianna muddle through this ceremony with her relationships intact or will she lose her parents' respect and her best friend for good?

Why you shouldn't read this book: Do you often throw up before public speaking?

Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids

Edited by: Cynthia Leitich Smith 

First line: A powwow is/friends and family/gathered together to honor the Creator,/Kinnekasus, Man-Never-Known-on-Earth,/who watches over us. 

Why you should read this book: It's a collection of short stories for young readers, clustered around the experience of children attending the big powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan, written by a variety of authors from different tribes and traditions (with a glossary at the end, since the book contains snippets of many languages). Although the characters have diverse backgrounds and personalities (including those who don't have powwow or dance in their culture historically), patterns soon emerge: a fear of or reluctance to dance being replaced by joy in dancing, feelings around beautiful regalia, the experience of eating frybread, the experience of working in the family business selling food or crafts, the gulf between young people and their elders made small through love and communication, the embracing of identity in surprising new ways, the absence of missing loved ones and the joys of reunification, and the presence of a dog wearing a funny T-shirt. While these are certainly stories for kids, they also tackle bigger issues like death and mourning, cultural appropriation, and making retribution for mistakes. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: These are mostly what I call "quiet" stories; they tend to be less about plot and action and more about the protagonist's thoughts and feelings. 

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Written by: Susanna Clarke

First line: Some years ago there was in York a society of magicians.

Why you should read this book: Seventeen years ago, Neil Gaiman called it, "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years," and, as usual, I don't think I can improve upon Gaiman; this is truly a perfect book, the sort of book about which the only honest criticism could be that, eventually, it ends (although at 782 pages, it does its best to avoid that failing for as long as it can). While much studied by learned gentlemen in the early nineteenth century, English magic has fallen into disuse until revived by the prickly, prejudiced, and pompous Mr Norrell, a man as enamored with his own beliefs about magic as he is by magic itself, a man willing to take a critically hypocritical misstep to promote his own worldview. His only match is his talented pupil, truest friend, and occasional enemy, Jonathan Strange, a very different kind of magician with very different perspectives on thaumaturgical practice, one that holds the entirety of English magic, along with the fate of England, in the balance. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You never read the footnotes.

 

Christmas Jars

Written by: Jason F. Wright

First line: Louise Jensen was sitting alone, licking her fingers two at a time and paying serious attention to her greasy chicken-leg-and-thigh-platter, when she heard muffled crying from the booth behind her at Chuck's Chicken 'n' Biscuits on U.S. Highway 4. 

Why you should read this book: This definitely falls under the category of "books that I read because they were there" (in this case, "there" being, "in this AirBnB where I'm reuniting with my family since we're all vaccinated"). It's a sappy sweet pay-it-forward Christmas miracle story about an orphan girl who grows up to be a journalist in search of her first big scoop. When her apartment is burglarized on Christmas Eve, her despair turns to wonder and determination after an anonymous stranger leaves a jar of money at her door.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Saccharine, predictable, and dully expository. 

The Yiddish Policeman's Union

Written by: Michael Chabon

First line: Nine months Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered.

Why you should read this book: In prose so lush you could graze a herd of cattle on it, Chabon creates an alternate history in which the State of Israel lasted a mere three months before before being overrun by enemies in 1948; subsequently, the United States allowed a large number of Jews to settle in a temporary district in Sitka, Alaska. Here, in the modern day, we meet Detective Meyer Landsman, seeking solace from his multiple losses in a bottle of Slivovitz until some yid he doesn't even know gets his ticket punched in the terrible flophouse where Landsman is biding time until the district reverts to American control and he loses his job and everything else. His new boss, who happens to be his ex-wife, childhood sweetheart, and the only woman he's ever loved, tells him to let it go, but Landsman finds himself compelled to follow the case to its bitter end, even though every lead leads him deeper into personal danger and troubled territory.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You have a limited vocabulary and no Yiddishkeit.

The Desert Year

Written by: Joseph Wood Krutch

First line: Scenery, as such, never meant much to me. 

Why you should read this book: A New England academic, captivated by his scant passing views of the Sonoran Desert, dedicates a sabbatical year and change to living among the saguaros so as to learn the secrets of this strange landscape. Meandering yet focused, the narrative begins afresh with every chapter, with some observation of plant, animal, terrain, or weather serving as a springboard to the author's thoughts about life on earth (human and otherwise), philosophy, sociology, spirituality, along with biology, zoology, botany, and any other scholarly pursuit that springs to mind. In the tradition of the amateur American naturalist, Krutch endeavors to sit with his environment until it makes itself known to him, and then, in his professorial capacity, turns to books and experts to make further sense of the revelations granted to those who learn to love the land as they love themselves. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I guess if you didn't like Walden when you were in college, you won't like this. 

 

The Artist's Way

Written by: Julia Cameron

First line: When people ask me what I do, I usually answer, "I'm a writer-director and I teach these creativity workshops."

Why you should read this book: You should read this book if you are a "blocked artist," i.e. a person who wants to find fulfillment in creative endeavors, but for whatever reason, can't seem to create the things you want to create. This twelve-week course in creativity has been around for decades and helped guide countless artists through various obstacles to their eventual success, in many cases, to very great success. With numerous activities, writing exercises, words of encouragement, and tough love deconstructions of the psychological barriers that hold us back, it offers an almost hundred percent guarantee of meaningful change of one sort or another for those who follow its specific but simple guidelines; I was certainly skeptical to start, but about halfway through the program I did start to experience some of the promised "magic" of the program. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I personally had some difficulty with its dependence on a "manifesting abundance" doctrine that I'm afraid feels inherently classist, and I didn't really find a way to completely embrace the discussion of a "God" that rewards artists. Also, some of the writing exercises are psychologically extremely difficult.

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution

Written by: Terence McKenna

First line: A specter is haunting planetary culture—the specter of drugs. 

Why you should read this book: I suppose this will be the last of my COVID reads, but this is another book I've owned for close to two decades without cracking it open. McKenna's now-classic treatise on  psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and related plants delineates his theories on how they guided the development of human consciousness, archaeological evidence for their importance to ancient civilizations, how and why psychedelic experiences fell out of favor as civilization "progressed," what was lost in the transition, what was found when westerners rediscovered them, and what this all means for the future of our species. The book is, at times, heartbreakingly prescient in its discussion of the forces that continue to suppress the knowledge and practices that could heal humans, individually and as an animal species connected to a vegetable world, and yet containing kernels of hope that seem to pop every time another city, state, or country relaxes restrictions on marijuana and psychedelics. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are a cryptofascist, or you work for the CIA, or you have a financial interest in the alcohol industry, or you really fell for that lazy D.A.R.E. information someone spewed into your head in the '80s or '90s.