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This year, unusually, feast days from many of the world’s religions have fallen around these last few days – so, as Time put it:

unlike some holy days — say, Christmas, which some non-Christians in the U.S. observe informally by going to a movie and ordering Chinese food — on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday…

Today I focus on two books, which each in their own way explore the celebration of one of these religious festivals against a different cultural background.

Mina’s Spring of Colors is a very special story about a young Indian girl who, although she now lives in Canada, is determined to throw a Holi party for her school-friends and neighbors: they won’t just watch the celebrations but participate in them. The book is aimed at 8-11 year olds, though younger children could enjoy having it read to them. It will certainly fill their heads with ideas about how to throw their own Holi party. The author Rachna Gilmore said in an interview with PaperTigers:

I have wonderful memories of Holi - memories of the physical excitement and dread and anticipation of getting others with coloured powders and water and also trying to dodge them in return, the shrieking, hysterical laughter and the wild delight. I don’t know of any readers who have put on a Holi party for themselves, but oh, I do hope some have. Kids love the idea and I know it would be an absolute blast. In one of the libraries I have visited to do a reading, the librarian was very keen on the idea, but of course, we couldn’t use coloured water and powder, so instead, we sprinkled each other with sparklies and squirted those cans that spurt multicoloured streamers. It was great fun.

There are some great pictures from this year’s celebrations in India here (and I can’t resist these from a couple of years ago too!); and you can find out more about Holi here.

Charlotte chose Amelia Lau Carling’s gorgeous, autobiographical picture-book Sawdust Carpets/Alfombras de aserrín as the subject of her first post for the PaperTigers blog, back in May last year; and it’s well worth pointing it out now as a special book for Easter. It exemplifies a harmony of both diversity and fusion of cultures, as we learn about the celebration of Holy Week in Guatemala through the eyes of a young Amelia. Her parents had fled China during the Second World War and had made their new home in Guatemala, as described in Carling’s first book, Mama and Papa Have a Store. As well as insight into her family’s participation in the festivities, we learn about the incredible carpets made of dyed sawdust and millions of flower petals, which everyone joins in making to celebrate Easter:

They are offered up as a sacrifice in anticipation of the procession that will destroy them by marching through the painstaking and fantastic creations.

So whatever you may have been celebrating these last few days, we send you best wishes – do tell us about any special traditions you have, from whatever part of the world you come from; and if you have any favorite books to recommend…

The official bio: Matt Beynon Rees is the author of the Omar Yussef Mysteries, a series about a Palestinian detective. The first book, The Collaborator of Bethlehem was published in February by Soho Press, which also will publish A Grave in Gaza in February. Born in Newport, Wales, he worked as a journalist in the Middle East for more than a decade and now lives in Jerusalem. The French magazine L'Express dubbed him "the Dashiell Hammett of Palestine" and Colin Dexter called Omar Yussef "a splendid creation".

Here were Matt's favorite reads this year:

The best new read of the year is The Patience of the Spider: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery by Andrea Camilleri, the maestro of the Italian detective novel. It's the eighth in his series about Sicilian sleuth Salvo Montalbano, a fabulous creation and a true cult hero to Italians. When he isn't obsessing about the crime at hand, Montalbano's nearing tears at the quality of the delicious food in his favorite trattoria and enjoying a tempestuous romance with his long-distance girlfriend. Camilleri is, however, not the cheery tour guide type. The Patience of the Spider is the darkest in a series which is becoming increasingly bitter about law, order and politics in Italy. The nicely constructed plot revolves around the kidnapping of a girl from a family which used to be rich. But the heart of the book is the struggle by the aging Montalbano--after a lifetime waging war against the lawlessness and neglect of Sicily--to assert his own faith in the goodness of other human beings. A beautiful novel, full of humour and cultural insight.

The tragically early death of Magdalen Nabb prompted me to reread her lovely classic Death of an Englishman, in which Marshall Guarnaccia attempts to negotiate the trouble waters of the Florence police department and the murder of an English resident of an old palazzo, while in bed with a terrible flu that seems destined to prevent him traveling home to Sicily for Christmas. It truly illustrates what a loss to the mystery world Nabb's premature death was.

Though I naturally like to read new mysteries, it's important for me to read widely in history and culture, partially because I get ideas and context for my own writing, but also because it's good to see just how murderous history really is (as a counterpoint to all those annoying people who like to tell mystery writers that their detectives aren't credible, because no one would ever bump into so many corpses in real life.) Well, to prove just how bloody the world truly is, read The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 by Tim Blanning, a Cambridge professor whose fabulous history gives us everything from the (bloody) world of diplomacy to the (gritty and bloody) life of the ordinary peasant during a fascinating period.

Here are your Recommendations From Under the Radar for Friday. You can see the whole week schedule (with direct links and quotes from each post) at the master schedule. And an explanation of what Radar Recs Week is all about is in my earlier post.

Thanks so much for staying with us this week!

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: The Vietnam books by Ellen Emerson White
Big A, little a: The Deep by Helen Dunmore
Bildungsroman: The May Bird Trilogy by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Finding Wonderland: The Avion My Uncle Flew by Cyrus Fisher: "Quite possibly no other middle grade novel ever ends in this fashion; the last three chapters of The Avion My Uncle Flew are written completely in simple French. Readers will surprise themselves when they find that they can read it!"

Not Your Mother's Bookclub: A look at some recently revised classics

Fuse Number 8: Stoneflight by George McHarque: "It's only when she attempts to bring about a gathering of all the stone creatures in New York City that Janie discovers that sometimes being a soft malleable human with the ability to be hurt is a good thing."

lectitans: Gentle's Holler and Louisiana Song both by Kerry Madden
Chasing Ray: Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen

Interactive Reader: A Plague of Sorcerers by Mary Frances Zambreno
The YA YA YAs: Resurrection Men by TK Welsh
7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty edited by Ann Angel

He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jeweled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

The one thing I learned while getting a degree in history and then spending five years teaching it in college courses was that Americans know basically nothing about World War I. I never learned anything about that war when I was in school and even in college, even while getting a degree that focused on American military history, there was never a single course offered on WWI. I studied the hell out of WWII, the US Civil War and Vietnam, but getting anything other than a few weeks attention for WWI was rare. There just wasn't enough time to study everything (there never is) and most general history professors are far more interested in the obvious conflicts and WWI is....well, it's not obvious.

Here's a question my students always asked: Who were the good guys and bad guys in WWI? Can you answer that like you can for WWII? Heck, you can answer it easier for the American Revolution and Civil War than you can for WWI. And yet, even though it's not a good vs evil war (oh how we Americans love those wars), it is the most important conflict in the 20th century. That's because so many other conflicts come directly from what happened at the end of WWI. The Second World War was born in the Treaty of Versailles (and it gave birth to Korea and also, Vietnam). The communist movement in China gained in popularity due to the treaty and all the borders for the Middle East (with the exception of modern Iran which was formerly the existing country of Persia) were drawn after WWI. Iraq is not even 100 years old people - not as it exists today. And don't even get me started on Saudi Arabia or Jordan or Syria or Kuwait or Lebanon or the fun that is Palestine and Israel.

World War I - they all go back (one way or another) to World War I.

The problem with WWI is that it is so long ago, and so big and so bitterly, awfully sad, that it just doesn't get most people excited. It's also hard to wrap your head around the numbers: hundreds of thousands dead in one battle; tens of thousands dead in one day. It doesn't seem real. That's why a book like Geert Spillebeen's amazing Kipling's Choice is so important. It is the story of one soldier, John Kipling, and how he came to die for his country. It is also the story of his famous father, Rudyard Kipling, and why he urged his son to go off to war, and how much he suffered because of his naive ideas about glory.

Kipling's Choice is a story about a boy and through him, it is a story about a nation and a world and all the young men who died for nothing. As Rudyard Kipling later wrote in "Epitaphs of the War ": If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.

I first read Kipling's Choice last year. Here's a bit from my review:

The narrative form that Spillebeen has chosen to use is quite unorthodox, but it works brilliantly. In the opening pages John is engaged in what we later learn is the Battle of Loos. He is quickly and horribly injured and as he lies helpless in the mud, hoping to be saved and uncertain of his physical condition, his mind takes him through random moments in his life. These flashbacks provide the author with an opportunity to explain how John came to be in battle and what it was like for him to be the son of a world famous author, (at a time when that was like being the son of a movie and rock star combined.) As he suffers great pain and loneliness in the time before his death, John does not reflect philosophically upon his life or his loss of it. Mostly he cries for his parents and his home, and wonders what has happened, what will happen, to him. It is one of the more realistic and emotional portrayals of a death that I have read and shows far better than any movie just what dying in a war is all about. It is worth noting that in the Battle of Loos the British army sent their men out to be little more than cannon fodder. They marched them into German guns, hoping they would overwhelm their defenses; they were wrong.

Spillebeen does an excellent job of humanizing John Kipling, and through him, every soldier in the war. He is just as brave and bold and then scared and lonely as so many others before and after him. And his father was like so many other fathers; eager to send his son off to become a man, foolish enough to believe that war was a necessary step in growing up.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

I know that war is hard to read about - believe me, I know. But Kipling's Choice is not a hard book - it is a heartbreaking one. Rudyard Kipling had wanted to join the military when he was young but could not because of bad eyes; John had the same problem. But once the war started, it was possible to get John through, to get him off to the front lines where Rudyard was convinced John would become a better man. He thought - he really and completely believed - that he was doing a good thing for his son by getting him in the Army (Something many many others believed then and now). Spillebeen writes about the father and son so well that it becomes clear early on that as much as this book is about a soldier in the field, even more so it is about a father and a son; it is about a father who loved his son so much he sent him off to war.

It is one of the saddest books I have ever read.

If you are a fan at all of Rudyard Kipling then you must - you must - read Kipling's Choice. It is here that you will discover how he went from being one of the greatest supporters of empire to a voice bitterly opposed to war. It is in the life and death of John that Rudyard learned his harshest lesson and lost all desire to write more of the adventure stories he was famous for. In 1917 he joined the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and became the official author of inscriptions on many war monuments. On one of them he wrote, "Their Name Liveth Forever More." The words were for his son and all the others; for all the boys who went away to fight because their fathers told them so.

Kipling's Choice has a beauty like few books I have read; a sad kind of beauty that burns your very heart.

Now he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and how late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?

[Post title from "Grostesque" by Frederic Manning. Excerpts all from "Disabled" by Wilfred Owen. First picture of Lt John Kipling, second of the Battle of the Somme, last picture of Rudyard and Carrie Kipling, visiting the cemetery at Loos, France. You can read about their long search for news of John, here. John was 18 years old when he died.]

I first heard about Pamela Dean's Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary after reading her wonderful modern retelling of the Scottish ballad, Tam Lin. (More on that book, which was recently reissued as a tpb, in my September column). Like Tam Lin, Juniper is a deep rich story full of family and friends that offers hints along the way to something fantastical and strange. It is only in the book's final pages that we learn just what may have been going on all along, and the dangers presented by a young man who insinuated himself into the lives of three sisters.

But that's the end, and this book is really all about the journey.

Juniper is 16, Gentian 13 and Rosemary is 11. They are the most typical of sisters, fighting and consoling as the situation warrants. Gentian is the story's main character and Dean has done a great job of creating a most appealing female protagonist. First off, she is an astronomer - not "wants to be an astronomer" or "plans to be an astronomer", she is one and everyone in her family (and all of her friends) accept that. She has an attic bedroom in her family's rambling Victorian and due to an earlier resident, access to a dome for sky watching. Her telescope is of paramount importance to her, as she is downright geeky about all things star gazy. She is also a rabid bibliophile (like her best friend Becky, a poet). Here's just a taste of Gentian, from a passage about packing to spend the night at Becky's:

Toothbrush, hairbrush. the biography of Maria Mitchell. Her current notebook. Pride and Prejudice, Julius Caeser, Owl in Love, The Princess and Curdie, the last four issues of Sky and Telescope, Carl Sagan's Comet, and the The Space Child's Mother Goose. Several pens, a protractor, a stylus. The binoculars in their case. Her ephermis. Her father's CD of Laurie Anderson's "Strange Angels." Her own CD of Holst's "The Planets." Some stray chocolate-chip cookies from Junie's last batch. The suitcase was full. Gentian considered it and crammed a set of astronomical postcards into one side pocket. This late in the year, there was a danger of being snowed in. There had been Halloween blizzards before.

Okay, I love her - how can you not love her? She is so certain of who she is and who she plans to be, it's absolutely awesome. Of course that's what makes the story so compelling as her new neighbor Dominic slowly unravels all that certainty and it takes everything Gentian has to fight back - and to stay true to what matters.

I couldn't help but think that if she was a girl who everyone patted on the head about her astronomy interests and was told that was something grown-ups did that she might not have been able to stand up to Dominic when it mattered. In other words, she might not have had any idea that she was losing so much to him if she wasn't already certain of how much she had to lose.

Now there's a lesson we all could stand to learn.

On top of her very cool family, Gentian also has a group of friends, the "Giant Ants" who have been together forever and are struggling to stay that way in their teenage years. Their determination to stay loyal is critical to the story and makes me wonder just how unusual that sort of commitment really is. Even though their interests are changing (astronomy, poetry, fashion, sports, boys, etc) they still seek common ground. The Giant Ants know something is going wrong with Gentian because they know she would never just drop them - they don't do that to each other. On that level, the book is very much about the power of friendship and a textbook for how to be a good (and still solidly individual) friend.

Juniper unfolds at a leisurely pace as we meet the sisters and their tolerant and smart parents, and are first introduced to the mystery of Dominic who's family builds a house and moves in apparently in days (although everyone else forgets this, Gentian remembers). There is much talk of Shakespeare and Maria Mitchell, sexism and poetry, sewing and gender identity. Cookies and brownies are baked and Halloween costumes created. And through all of the talk of friends and boys and school there is the specter of Dominic who speaks only in quotes and tells the sisters he wants their help to build a time machine. They offer their empty attic as a lab and get to work, although soon it is only Gentian that is involved. And then the book takes its dark turn and we see just who or what Dominic might be and what his designs are on the sisters.

I will drop a hint, that Dean based Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary on Child Ballad #1, "Riddles Wisely Expounded," which will give a bit of the plot away, but only a bit, and the joy here is in the reading anyway. Here is more from the text:

"Tell me what you've been reading," said Gentian.
Erin had been reading The Origin of Species, Rock 'n' Roll Summer, Weetzie Bat, The Night Gift, The Giver, The Wonderful Flight of the Mushroom Planet and Morphogenesis.
Gentian inquired respectfully after all the ones she had not read. Before she became an astronomer, she too had read as copiously and voraciously as Erin. She had even looked in astronomical catalogs for the special filter that, according to the Mushroom Planet books, would allow her to see Basidium through a telescope. She should remember how much there was to read, the next time she was balked by the weather.

These are smart girls - brilliantly, joyfully, smart and creative girls - and reading about their adventures was purely joy. I have read some reviewers who felt the ending was rushed or too ambiguous, but I think the ballad gives enough clues and the story does the rest. It's not all wrapped up with the a bow but the point is not really Dominic anyway - the point was always Gentian and her friends and family. And that is why I simply love this book.

[Post title, lyric from Laurie Anderson's as quoted in JG&R, pictures of Maria Mitchell, first female professor of astronomy in the US and astronomy picture from Linda Hall Library of Science & Engineering.]

Here's your Radar Recommendations links for Thursday:

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: Friends for Life and Life Without Friends both by Ellen Emerson White
Shaken & Stirred: The Changeover and Catalogue of the Universe, both by Margaret Mahy

Big A, little a: A interview with Helen Dunmore: "The coastline is wild and rocky, the sea is often stormy and unpredictable, especially in the part of Cornwall where the books are set. There are high cliffs, rocky coves, and wide sandy beaches for surfing. There are seals, dolphins, basking sharks and countless sea-birds. It is a coast where shipwrecks are common, and many lives are owed to the life-boat service."

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Treasures of Weatherby by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Bildungsroman: Swollen by Melissa Lion

Finding Wonderland: Lucy the Giant by Sherry L. Smith: "What was a whimsical choice in my 'lightning round' at the library turned out to be one of my very favorite books of all time, ever ever."

Miss Erin: A discussion of Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye and an interview with author Kaza Kingsley

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast: An interview with Nancy Crocker, author of Billie Standish Was Here: "I’d like to be Czar of Names; all U.S. birth certificates would have to be approved by me and I’d have the authority to tell people, “No, you are not going to name your baby that silly-assed crap, you are going to give them a proper name. Now.”

Fuse Number 8: The Noisy Counting Book by Susan Schade

Chasing Ray: Juniper, Genetian and Rosemary by Pamela Dean

lectitans: Who Pppplugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf
Writing and Ruminating: Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown

And Semicolon jumps in too with a look at some overlooked Christian fiction.

It is oddly coincidental to me that just as I was wrestling with my long ago fascination with Joan of Arc, the famous "Maid of Orleans", that I would be involved in a deep literary conversation about Jane Mendelsohn's Innocence. In the midst of discussion of the "Final Girl" theory and how it applies to the story and comparisons between the book's protagonist, Beckett, and other lost innocent girls of literature, I was drawn again and again to the images of innocence and violence that permeate the story. There are real acts of violence, but the imagery outweighs the actions. The imagery carries more power - somehow - than the action.

In dreams I open my mouth and butterflies come pouring out. But what happened wasn't a dream. What happened was real. I opened my eyes and the shadows took shape. The folded into origami wings. I opened my eyes and I began to see.

I opened my eyes and out flew bats.

Here is the second part of a discussion of Innocence where talk is about pink and red, innocence and blood. See Bildungsoman for Part I .

CM: I found out about Innocence from the short Endicott review
> and I find the cover comment from Dennis Cooper kind of interesting - that it is "a kind of Rosemary's Baby channeled through JD Salinger".

Okay, I didn't get that at all. I think the Rosemary's Baby comparison was too obvious and Beckett did not seem at all smart mouthy like Salinger's boy wonder. I think this book goes much further back than mid-20th century teen angst or devil stories. To me it is completely a throw back to the old fairy tales - the OLD tales.

KH: Definitely. I think, too, that it has elements of something more primal even than those to it. The significance of blood, the nature of the suicide pacts, all of these suggest to me something ancient, tied up in very traditional pagan rites. [I worry that by using that there, I will offend pagans. But this story conjures up Druidic imagery in my mind, so there that is.] The importance of Beckett being a virgin plays into that, I think.

CM: Blood is a huge part of this story. The menstrual blood, the bloody way the suicide girls kill themselves - yes, it seemed to show a definite tie between this story and older stories. That fits with the true nature of the stepmother on the one hand, but really the girls did not have to kill themselves that way. They could have taken pills instead of using that "pink razor blade". Blood is everywhere constantly and it is always part of life or death; of change in general.

I saw my bloodied face, and behind that my new, beautiful face, and behind that the face I used to wear, my lonely face. I saw them merge together into a face I had never seen. A face that looked back at
itself, a face that was not a mask. - Page 193

CM: I just finished reading Lily Archer's much lighter The Poison Apples but it is also about how step parents always, to a certain degree, destroy your life. I mean that in the most complete way - even if your new life is better than your old, the old life is still destroyed - it's over. Archer tackled that with some seriousness and fun but Mendelsohn clearly was reaching back to Snow White and Cinderella, etc. with Innocence; she goes back to when bad things could happen and still be believed and makes that part of a story about a modern blended family.

The stepmother came and changed everything in this story, as she always does. But Beckett is wary of that change, as she should be: But the Final Girl knows for hours, maybe days that she is going to die. She feels death coming. She hears it. She sees it.

Isn't death the ultimate life change?

LW: In a word: yes. Life is ultimately death. Wow. Now I am depressed.

KH: Very true, with ultimate in its most literal meaning. And on this subject, [again I am tempted to censor myself but it's not an honest conversation about the book if I do] I think - especially to a girl living without a mother - the onset of menstruation is about as scary as death. To bleed without a wound... It's very chilling.

I got out of bed slowly. I sat up, looked at the picture of my mother on the bedside table, and pulled back the covers. In my hand the comforter was white and the top sheet was white, but underneath me the sheet was red. Underneath me, a rough liquid feeling of wet cotton rubbed against my skin because the sheet was soaked with blood.

CM: I love your quote here "to bleed without a wound". So for a girl to become a woman, she must suffer mysteriously, which in a way means that Beckett and her stepmother are in a bit on the same blood secret; something her stepmother exploits to gain her trust.

Peter Pan saw death as the ultimate adventure - not as something to be afraid of. How do you feel about the pink and red imagery throughout the book? Is it all about death or life or innocence?

KH: I love it. There isn't a more powerful combination than pink, which is a very lively but sort of innocent and gentle color, and red, more vibrant but also scarier, the color of power and blood, which is life itself but when spilled always makes us think of death.

CM: Is it all about death or life or innocence?

KH: Yes, yes, it is. I think it's about the loss of innocence, or the value of innocence. It reminds me of Elizabeth Bathory, who -according to folklore from many years after she died- bathed in the blood of virgins to keep her youthful beauty.

It's about how a part of you dies when you aren't innocent anymore, but how at the same time you have a richer life, too. I feel like the haze I keep talking about really clears for Beckett at the end of the book.

CM: And right from the first page, with that pink razor blade and the red massacre of a sunset, Mendelsohn gives us those two colors; she gives us both innocence and death. She demands that we see both of them, side by side; that we see the sides from the very beginning. And it is as if Beckett must choose what kind of girl she will be. I thought it was really interesting (and surprising) that Mendelsohn has her make a choice for sex and not even in a romantic, making love, kind of invitation but in the most direct and non-innocent way possible. She says to Tobey, "Fuck me". So much for little girls in pink dresses.

LW: I think it is also of note that it is the first actual line of dialogue in the book. In any event, or if nothing else, it tells you that Beckett is control of her choices right then and there. She is not the victim, nor is she attempting to be masculine. She is trying to control her own destiny.

It factors into the Final Girl theory as well.

CM: Interesting that she makes that choice to control her own destiny, or rather that Mendelsohn presents sex as the choice Beckett has to make to live. But if we look at the other girls Mendelsohn alludes to in the book, at Alice rebelling at the croquet match and Dorothy throwing the bucket of water at the witch, etc., it seems there is a moment when the heroine must refuse to be controlled if she wishes to be free. Just in this case, the refusal meant no longer being a virgin.

How often does a teenage girl have to choose sex in a novel in order to be free?

LW: I think it is also a nod towards the definition and connotation of innocence...

CM: Yes - that's it exactly.

And that, really, is the biggest message I got from this book - the ambiguous nature of the word innocent. So much of the story is about Beckett knowing she is in trouble, that her stepmother is serious trouble, but she is not believed. How often are teenage girls not believed. Consider date rape - did she really say no? Or how about, she was asking for it by the way she dressed/acted/talked. The girl is the temptress as we have most graphically seen recently in the
murder of Du’a Khalil Aswad in Northern Iraq. She had to die to preserve the mere notion of innocence.

And again with the red blood - her face, as Joss Whedon so eloquently and angrily put it, was nothing but red.

It doesn't matter whether something is real. What matters is whether it's true.

We still debate if Joan of Arc's claims were real - even the church that made her a saint does not know whether to embrace her or remain cynical. But we can not deny what Du’a Khalil Aswad died for. She was, simply put, not innocent enough. Who gets to decide is what I want to know; who gets to make the rules for innocence?

Part III is over at lectitans.........

[Post title from Innocence. Pictures from: Red Lense, Dark Horse Comics and the Iraq War.]

Here's your Radar Recommendations links for Wednesday:

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: The President's Daughter series by Ellen Emerson White
Big A, little a: The Tide Knot by Helen Dunmore
Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Green Sky trilogy
Bildungsroman: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 1

Chasing Ray: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 2

lectitans: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 3
Finding Wonderland: The House on Hound Hill by Maggie Prince
Miss Erin: The Reb & Redcoats and Enemy Brothers, both by Constance Savery
Bookshelves of Doom: Harry Sue by Sue Stauffacher
Interactive Reader: Shake Down the Stars by Frances Donnelly

Chicken Spaghetti: Pooja Makhijani guest blogs with Romina's Rangoli by Malathi Michelle Iyengar: "When Miss McMahan asks her class to "create something [for the school's open house] that represents your ancestors, your family, and where you come from... something that represents your heritage," half-Indian American and half-Mexican American Romina feels conflicted. Since both her parents would be coming to the open house; she couldn't envision a project that left one of them out."

Writing & Ruminating: Dear Mr. Rosenwald by Carole Weatherford
Shaken & Stirred: Elizabeth Knox and the Dreamhunter Duet

Here's the list of all the Radar Recommendations for today:

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: A discussion of author Ellen Emerson White and why she is "under the radar"
Big A, little a: Ingo by Helen Dunmore
Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Changeling and The Velvet Room both by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Bildungsroman: Girl in a Box by Ouida Sebestyen

Finding Wonderland: A Door Near Here by Heather Quarles: "When faced with silence and despair, are we losing our grip when we find that we want to believe in Narnia? Is there something wrong with trying to find it wherever we are? Aren't we all still looking for A Door Near Here?"

Miss Erin: Girl With a Pen and Princess of Orange, both by Elisabeth Kyle
Fuse Number 8: The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry
Bookshelves of Doom: The Olivia Kidney series by Ellen Potter

Chicken Spaghetti: Natural History of Uncas Metcalf by Betsy Osborne: "A melancholic air that reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and an unexpected plot twist combine for an emotionally resonant ending. If reserve extracts a price, surely Uncas pays it."

Writing and Ruminating: Jazz ABC by Wynton Marsalis
The YA YA YAs: Massive by Julia Bell

As the blogosphere went a bit haywire last week over reports that Todd McFarlane was planning a "revisionist take on the Wizard of Oz", everyone was peeking at his design of an S&M Dorothy toy from awhile back as a sign of just what McFarlane might be thinking. ("McFarlane has a vision of Oz that is a dark, edgy and muscular PG-13, without a singing Munchkin in sight.") I kept waiting for someone to link to the Illusive Arts comic Dorothy of Oz and point out that a modern Dorothy was already out there and available in tpb even and while Mr. McFarlane's interest is fine for him, those of us looking for a great story already have one, thank you very much.

Not a single word anywhere on Dorothy of Oz, however. Not one single word.

I first wrote about Dorothy a year and a half ago in a review at Bookslut (and mentioned it again in a feature I wrote later on revisiting the classics). I've been a fan of the Dorothy character in particular for a very long time. She's one of the classic "lost girls" of literature, someone who is looking for herself and has caused countless millions to dream about what might lie at the "end of the rainbow". But what Mark Masterson, Greg Mannino and the rest of the Illusive Arts crew do with this story is more than just rehash it for the 21st century. They go deep into who Dorothy is and even more significantly, just what Oz is all about. This really comes home in the 4th issue when it is revealed that the reason the Scarecrow has no brain is because something awful was done to him and that something awful is the result of who he was before, a man who believed the pen was mightier than the sword:

And the things he wrote! Oh monster!
You will hardly credit how hateful they were.
Full of his arrogance and ignorance.
Full of lies about the way of the world.
Full of ludicrous claims about the fallen fairies of Oz.
Just nonsense.
Hurtful nonsense.
And when the wars were over, he still printed his lies.
Only now they attacked the powerful lady in the west who had done so much to bring peace. Who had sacrificed so much of herself to bring peace.
And when the lady, from her rightful western throne, declared at long last an alliance between the munchkinder and the warriors of Winkie country, when she achieved the dream and the people rose up and demanded with one voice that she be crowned Queen of all Oz, still the fool wrote terrible and bitter things.
Things that could no longer be ignored.
Things that might encourage others to question their new queen.
And so the fool got the response he deserved.

I'll give you one guess who the "lady in the west" is.

This Scarecrow is a much deeper, more devastatingly real and significant character than he has ever been in the past. He is someone we, in our own modern age of confusing patriotism, can certainly identify with. Along with a literal Tinman caught and abandoned in a tragic love triangle and a "cowardly lion" bred in a lab as a weapon of war, Dorothy finds herself surrounded by other lost souls, all of whom join her quest out of desperation, as a chance to no longer be alone. They are all looking for hope and purpose in a barren and destroyed landscape; they are all victims and she, by dint of being the one who will not give up, has somehow become their leader.

Not bad for a girl who got caught in a tornado after stealing her uncle's truck.

By the seventh issue, where the beast joins the group, Dorothy is becoming someone who doesn't want to ignore her new sense of responsibility. "You can't plan for the last time. You can't keep running off, leaving people behind. You just gotta go with your gut." Now she is a runaway no longer and it is the fractured souls who have gathered around her who have given her a new purpose. They are the catalyst for her ongoing transformation from the bored and frustrated girl from Kansas. Dorothy is finding herself in Oz, something that seemed impossible back home.

She is still missing, but lost no more, and that's a very big difference.

Beyond the story though, it is the way in which the Illusive Arts group puts Dorothy together that really knocks it out of the ballpark. Here's the gist from my interview in 2006:

We describe Dorothy as a comic created with live-action photography, computer graphics, 3-D and practical models. To break that down -- we use humans to portray some, but not all of the characters such as Catie Fisher as Dorothy and Greg Mannino as the Scarecrow [before]. We also use some physical models as well, such as TO-2, which Greg built. 3D models, such as the scarecrow doll, and scenery are added and then all are compiled together via computer. Our artists use programs such as Photoshop, 3D Max and Lightwave to enhance and alter the photographs, build "sets" and create other characters, such as the serpent.

Just a quick look at the comic's site will show you how much the pictures jump off the page and a "real" Dorothy makes it all that much more powerful. This has to be one of the more beautiful books I've come across and is impossible to ignore. For teens in particular it is certainly a title that will appeal to boys and girls alike, if not initially for the story, then most certainly for the art (and then the story will grab them and never let them go.)

So here's my big push: I adore this comic book. It's beautiful to look at, gripping to read and it tells a story that is both mature and heartfelt. Everyone will identify with Dorothy's frustrations and desire for something more out of life. They will be transfixed by her struggles to figure out where she is and how she can get back home once she arrives in Oz. And finally the larger political story here, the recognizable and all too familiar evil of those who dominate and control Oz as well as the efforts of those who try to oppose them, places this fictional land firmly in our national conversation. No, we are not in Kansas anymore but the more I read Dorothy of Oz, the more it somehow looks like home.

It doesn't get much better than this folks, I promise you.

Here's the list of all the Radar Recommendations for today:

Finding Wonderland: The Curved Saber: The Adventure of Khlit the Cossack by Harold Lamb
Bildungsroman: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series
Interactive Reader: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series as well
Not Your Mother's Bookclub: An interview with Robert Sharenow, author of My Mother the Cheerleader
lectitans: The Angel of the Opera: Sherlock Meets the Phantom of the Opera by Sam Siciliano
Bookshelves of Doom: The God Beneathe the Sea, Black Jack & Jack Holburn all by Leon Garfield
Writing and Ruminating: An interview with Tony Mitton and a review of his book, Plum
The YA YA YAs: I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson
Chicken Spaghetti: The Illustrator's Notebook by Mohieddin Ellabad
I'm all about Dorothy of Oz here at Chasing Ray

And a late inclusion from SemiColon, Sherry is talking picture books that should not be missed!

I’ve just come back from one month in Brazil (where I was, unexpectedly, pretty much incommunicado) to find that I missed the Australian stop of the multi-blog event One Shot World Tour, organized by the same group that put together the Summer Blog Blast Tour and this week’s Recommendations from Under the Radar. Some of the dishes served up at the several-course (Vegemite and all) Australian meal were: interviews with Margo Lanagan and Queenie Chan at 7 Imp Things and the YA YA YAs, respectively, and an exploration of John Marsden’s Tomorrow Series at Jen Robinson’s Page (see full OSWT schedule here).

I’d like to add my contribution, late as it may be, by pointing folks to award-winning Australian writer Susanne Gervay’s latest ya book, That’s Why I Wrote This Song, a cutting edge story set against the rock music scene, about sixteen year old girls connected through music as they search for identity. In a recent article contributed to PaperTigers, Gervay tells us: “[The book] embraces other mediums and technologies, in a collaborative work with my songwriter and musician daughter, Tory, who wrote the lyrics and rock music that are integral to the story (…). The story also has the dimension of film, as a young producer translated Tory’s song ‘Psycho Dad’ into a film clip.” The song and the video are available for downloading from the author’s website.

For more Aussie kidlit talents, check out the following: interview with Hazel Edwards, ‘personal views’ article by Chris Cheng, and Caroline Magerl and Shaun Tan online galleries.

Here it is, your full "Recommendations From Under the Radar" schedule. Check each participating site during the week for daily links to other posts.

MONDAY

Finding Wonderland: The Curved Saber: The Adventure of Khlit the Cossack by Harold Lamb
Chasing Ray: Dorothy of Oz from Illusive Arts Entertainment (the Dorothy comic you should all be reading!)
Bildungsroman: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series
Interactive Reader: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series as well
Not Your Mother's Bookclub: An interview with Robert Sharenow, author of My Mother the Cheerleader
lectitans: The Angel of the Opera: Sherlock Meets the Phantom of the Opera by Sam Siciliano
Bookshelves of Doom: The God Beneathe the Sea, Black Jack & Jack Holburn all by Leon Garfield
Writing and Ruminating: An interview with Tony Mitton and a review of his book, Plum
The YA YA YAs: I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson
Chicken Spaghetti: The Illustrator's Notebook by Mohieddin Ellabad

TUESDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: A discussion of author Ellen Emerson White and why she is "under
the radar"
Big A, little a: Ingo by Helen Dunmore
Jen's Book Page: The Changeling

WEDNESDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: The President's Daughter series by Ellen Emerson White
Big A, little a: The Tide Knot by Helen Dunsmore
Jen's Book Page: The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Green Sky trilogy
Bildungsroman: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 1
Chasing Ray: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 2
lectitans: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 3
Finding Wonderland: The House on Hound Hill by Maggie Prince
Miss Erin: The Reb & Redcoats and Enemy Brothers, both by Constance Savery
Bookshelves of Doom: Harry Sue by Sue Stauffacher
Interactive Reader: Shake Down the Stars by Frances Donnelly
Chicken Spaghetti: Pooja Makhijani guest blogs with Romina's Rangoli by Malathi Michelle Iyengar
Writing & Ruminating: Dear Mr. Rosenwald by Carole Weatherford
Shaken & Stirred: Elizabeth Knox and the Dreamhunter Duet

THURSDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: Friends for Life and Life Without Friends both by Ellen Emerson White
Shaken & Stirred: The Changeover and Catalog of the Universe, both by Margaret Mahy
Big A, little a: A interview with Helen Dunsmore
Jen's Book Page: The Treasures of Weatherby by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Bildungsroman: Swollen by Melissa Lion
Finding Wonderland: Lucy the Giant by Sherry L. Smith
Miss Erin: Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye by Kaza Kingsley
7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker
Fuse Number 8: The Noisy Counting Book by Susan Schade
Chasing Ray: Juniper, Genetian and Rosemary by Pamela Dean
lectitans: Who Pppplugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf
Writing and Ruminating: Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown

FRIDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: The Vietnam books by Ellen Emerson White
Big A, little a: The Deep by Helen Dunsmore
Bildungsroman: The May Bird Trilogy by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Finding Wonderland: The Avion My Uncle Flew by Cyrus Fisher
Not Your Mother's Bookclub: A look at some recently revised classics
Fuse Number 8: Stoneflight by George McHarque
lectitans: Gentle's Holler and Louisiana Song both by Kerry Madden
Chasing Ray: Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen
Interactive Reader: A Plague of Sorcerers by Mary Frances Zambreno
The YA YA YAs: Resurrection Men by TK Welsh
7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty edited by Ann Angel

[Post pic from Thomas Allen, an artist who truly loves books.]

Next week the same group that brought the Summer Blog Blast Tour and recent One Shot World Tour of Australia to life will be posting about books we all individually feel have been overlooked. Some of them might have been award winners in the distant past, and some are even out of print, but all of them are books that each of us have enjoyed and want to tell more people about. We're calling the event "Recommendations From Under the Radar" (or Radar Books for short) and we really hope you guys will check us out and, more importantly, track down some of these great books as well.

Just as our other multiblog events have worked in the past, we will be providing links each day to all of the other Radar Book posts on our sites. So no worries about trying to track us all down - visit the sites you normally hit and we will kindly send you in the direction of more Radar posts. Just in case you want to see the full schedule though, I will have all sites listed by day, including the books to be discussed at each, in a post on Friday. (It's a big list- we will be talking about more than fifty books through the course of the week.)

We're doing this because so much coverage is given to new books or even worse - the same new books over and over and over again - and we think that is a rather short sighted way for the book buying (or borrowing) public to learn about books. In all this whining about book reviewing (and yes, I do think alot of it has been no more than whining) no one has chimed in with an explanation for why a book like The Road really needed to be reviewed to death. (Did a single major city newspaper in the Western world not review that book?) It's not that McCarthy didn't deserve the coverage it's that I don't think any single book needs that much coverage - especially when it comes at the price of so very many other good reads.

So, since we are all about doing what we can to change our corner of the literary world, we decided to get together and write about books we want other readers to know about. You've got all kinds of genres here, and although we do certainly write more to the audience of kids books (the kidlitosphere just loves to do the multiblog thing...) there will be some author interviews and discussions of classic authors who might have fallen out of vogue and other general interesting bookishness.

In other words, plenty to keep folks interested regardless of age and interest.

Our next group effort will be in October with a second One Shot celebrating "Bradbury Season" and then the first week in November we will be unleashing the Winter Blog Book Tour on the lit blogosphere. That will rock hugely - trust me.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. I look forward to hearing what you guys think of our efforts.

[Post pic is from Dorothy of Oz, a comic book (available as tpb) that I truly adore. I'll be writing about it Monday.]