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https://jackielaubooks.com/ The Ultimate Pi Day Party is currently free, and the Nashville Public Library has some of her titles.
1. The settings include small-town and urban Canada, and coping with a wide variety of parents, siblings, and friends . . .
2. . . . some of them refreshingly and hilariously down-to-earth, and others exasperatingly "why can't you be more like _____," which is a dynamic I totally feel from multiple angles. I have cried with relief when people step up for protagonists who disappoint their parents by not having a "real" job.
3. That said, there are a quite a few scientists and CEOs in the mix. They're often driven and/or grumpy. I can relate to that too. (One geologistwears a has a "Schist Happens" shirt mug.)
4. Abortion is discussed as the right choice for characters who had them. More on that by Emmalita. #RomanceForRoe
5. There's a lot of good food. Including mooncake ice cream.
6. There are brutally honest little girls (often nieces) who know what they want. One five-year-old is a food snob who "has a better chance of enjoying blue cheese and Kalamata olives than pepperoni pizza" and delightedly samples (and critiques) "the green tea-strawberry, the passionfruit, the black sesame, [and] the matcha cheesecake" flavors at the shop her anti-ice cream uncle takes her to (observing that the place looks like a unicorn threw up in it) but also names a unicorn "Havarti Sparkles." Another corrects her uncle on the pronunciation of dinosaur names. Another really digs venomous spiders, which her uncle can't stand . . .
7. Several protagonists don't speak Mandarin/Cantonese well, if at all. I feel seen, both in terms of the awkward situations they find themselves in and the recurring frustration of being expected to be good at / comfortable with something one has zero natural facility for. (Not incidentally, I tested out of a half-dozen levels of Spanish Duolingo last night, but my next super-basic, hint-heavy Mandarin lesson may require a full glass of verdejo for me to chill out enough to get on with it.)
8. Love doesn't magically cure clinical depression or other chronic/recurring conditions, and it was horrible-great when one of the heroines starts yelling about how infuriating is when people insist or imply you haven't tried hard enough or spent enough on finding a solution while knowing fuck-all about every last exhausting potential treatment you've already tried or considered.
9. There's plenty of humor and sass, from friends and siblings (and sometimes parents) who take the heroine or hero's goals seriously but not their taste in clothing or pizza or beer.
[My previous mention of Jackie Lau's books.]
In addition to reading Lau's two most recent books, I also binged on some picture and chapter books this week, including:
Most of the Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and LeUyen Pham
Real Cowboys by Kate Hoefler, which will be featured trilingually (English, Spanish, ASL) later this year as a storytime video produced by my colleagues.
Jules vs. the Ocean by Jesse Sima
1. The settings include small-town and urban Canada, and coping with a wide variety of parents, siblings, and friends . . .
2. . . . some of them refreshingly and hilariously down-to-earth, and others exasperatingly "why can't you be more like _____," which is a dynamic I totally feel from multiple angles. I have cried with relief when people step up for protagonists who disappoint their parents by not having a "real" job.
3. That said, there are a quite a few scientists and CEOs in the mix. They're often driven and/or grumpy. I can relate to that too. (One geologist
4. Abortion is discussed as the right choice for characters who had them. More on that by Emmalita. #RomanceForRoe
5. There's a lot of good food. Including mooncake ice cream.
6. There are brutally honest little girls (often nieces) who know what they want. One five-year-old is a food snob who "has a better chance of enjoying blue cheese and Kalamata olives than pepperoni pizza" and delightedly samples (and critiques) "the green tea-strawberry, the passionfruit, the black sesame, [and] the matcha cheesecake" flavors at the shop her anti-ice cream uncle takes her to (observing that the place looks like a unicorn threw up in it) but also names a unicorn "Havarti Sparkles." Another corrects her uncle on the pronunciation of dinosaur names. Another really digs venomous spiders, which her uncle can't stand . . .
7. Several protagonists don't speak Mandarin/Cantonese well, if at all. I feel seen, both in terms of the awkward situations they find themselves in and the recurring frustration of being expected to be good at / comfortable with something one has zero natural facility for. (Not incidentally, I tested out of a half-dozen levels of Spanish Duolingo last night, but my next super-basic, hint-heavy Mandarin lesson may require a full glass of verdejo for me to chill out enough to get on with it.)
8. Love doesn't magically cure clinical depression or other chronic/recurring conditions, and it was horrible-great when one of the heroines starts yelling about how infuriating is when people insist or imply you haven't tried hard enough or spent enough on finding a solution while knowing fuck-all about every last exhausting potential treatment you've already tried or considered.
9. There's plenty of humor and sass, from friends and siblings (and sometimes parents) who take the heroine or hero's goals seriously but not their taste in clothing or pizza or beer.
[My previous mention of Jackie Lau's books.]
In addition to reading Lau's two most recent books, I also binged on some picture and chapter books this week, including:
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Date: 2021-01-27 07:06 pm (UTC)From: