Let Them Eat Dog Treats!

Looking for some indoor, anytime fun that you can do with the kids?  Make your own dog treats.  There are several beautiful things about this project and the recipe shared below.  First, it's an age-diversity-friendly project; both Batman (age eleven) and Robin (age four) love being part of all the steps of baking something. Second, it's incredibly easy.  Third, it's dog treats.  If they sneeze on the dough or lick the peanut butter off the spoon they're still using to stir, who cares?  Not the dog.  If the shapes are lopsided, or the limbs of the cookie-dogs get left behind on the counter, who cares?  (In fact, Robin was really proud of his headless, tail-less dog cookie.  Batman said it looked like a table.)  It is such a lovely feeling to let go of any attempt at cookie perfection and just let them have fun.

Here is my favorite dog treat recipe:

Simple Simon's Birthday Bones

2 cups whole-wheat flour 
1 tablespoon baking powder 
1 cup natural peanut butter 
1 cup skim milk

Cooking Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl, combine flour and baking powder. In another bowl, mix peanut butter and milk. Add wet mixture to dry, and mix well. Turn out dough on a lightly floured surface and knead. Roll out to 1/4-inch thick and cut out shapes. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake 20 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool on a rack then store in an airtight container. Makes 30 large bones

From the Three Dog Bakery Cookbook (more on this below)

I can't speak to it making 30 large bones, because we usually double the recipe and use a variety of cookie cutters.  If you double the recipe, you can just use an entire jar of peanut butter and don't have to measure it out (yuck).  We use cookie cutters in all kind of shapes: bones, dogs, gingerbread men, partial gingerbread men . . .

And if you (or your offspring) get tired of cutting out shapes, which is pretty likely if you make a double batch, then it works just as well if you slice the dough into little squares and throw them on the cookie sheet.

The final thing I love about this recipe is that it tastes good.  Yep, we've been eating dog treats.  Well look at the ingredients.  Pretty healthy, right?  (The sneeze germs were burned up in the oven.  Really.)  It doesn't have anything weird like bone marrow or pigs' ears. Robin is a really, really picky eater.  He won't eat peanut butter.  But he loves eating these "cookies" and would happily eat a couple dozen at one sitting.  It does drive the dog crazy, though, seeing the people wandering around munching the dog treats.  She knows they're dog treats.  Don't ask me how.  She just does.

Speaking of dogs, as promised above, I wanted to mention a little something about Three Dog Bakery.  If you haven't heard of or read Amazing Gracie by Dan Dye and Mark Beckloff, you should.  It's a great dog/people story along the lines of Marley and Me, and it's about how Three Dog Bakery got started.  It is sad--I don't think I ever read the end, because you see it coming, like you do the end of Marley and Me--but it's a great book.  And that's another reason I like this recipe, because it's connected to a great book, a great business, and great people.  

So . . . Eat dog biscuits.  Be quiet.

Fabulous Trailer!

Check out this awesome trailer from the uber-talented Maggie Stiefvater.  She made this out of paper cutouts and wrote the music, and she's a great writer, too!

Shut up, Editor Brain!

I've just spent two wonderful days at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts mini-teacher institute learning about all sorts of American art from incredibly knowledgeable people.  As with every good teacher workshop, there were several hands-on activities that we could take back to our students.  Now, I've gotta tell you, I'd rather just have a lecture than get involved in a "turn to your neighbor and discuss" type of thing.  But VMFA and their awesome education director always do a great job with unusual activities that work in a variety of different curriculums, so I try to keep an open mind.

Today, though, they wanted me to paint a landscape!  First, we had a brilliant lecture and slideshow on American Landscape Photography.  High brow professional sorts of things were discussed such as composition, the golden mean, how the artist's choices influence the work, and where the artist is in the work.  

"Now you're going to use what you learned and go outside and paint your own landscape!" said the cheerful instructor.  She started explaining about paint and the paint boards and how we might want to start with a sepia wash and choose our land horizon.

The woman next to me looked at me with wide eyes.  "I teach special ed," she whispered.  

"English," I whispered back.  We nodded our heads in commiseration and horror.

"Those of you who aren't painters are so lucky!" enthused the instructor.  "You don't have anything to worry about!"  

Somehow this wasn't comforting.  My stomach knotted itself smaller.  I could hear the "editor brain" start to muster the list of reasons this activity was going to be BAD.  The list went something like this: I can't paint; the last time I took art was in high school; I can't do perspective; I don't think I was listening during the slide show; I don't know what my point of view for a painting will be; I can't paint; what if it's horrible; it will be horrible; I can't paint.

I made no great rush to get to the head of the line for paints.  In fact, it seemed that those of us lingering toward the end had many of the same reservations.  One very art-oriented woman gave us bits and pieces of advice.  "You'll want to sketch in the things in the background first." (Huh, wouldn't have thought of that--probably would have just picked the closest thing to me and had at it.)  "Get a round brush and a flat brush."  (I still don't know why.)  "You don't need too much paint."  (Well that's for sure.)  The getting the paint process was sort of fun.  All those colors.  For a little bit I forgot about the fact that I'd actually be using them.

Out we went.  Helpful, happy interns gave us cups of water and paper towels.  The outside was huge.  And bright.  And full of things that could go in a painting.  And full of diligent people finding spots and getting to work.

"Now I'm all nervous again," I said aloud, though nervous didn't quite cover the squished stomach and noisy brain.

"Oh just have fun!" said the happy person.

Fun?  I wandered down the walk.  How was this going to be fun?

I found a building I liked.  And some trees.  And a spot in the shade I could sit in.  I sat down.  I wondered if that sort of yellowish brown would make a sepia wash if I added some water to it.  Editor brain yammered on about my deficiencies.  Look, I told it, there is not one single person in this entire world who cares if I screw this up.  I felt a little better.  I tentatively put some lines in.  The instructor came by.  I resisted the urge to tell her she couldn't see.

"Oh, look at you!" she said.  "You're doing great!"

"I am?"

"You've got it sketched in, your perspective is right, and even though you've got something in the center, you've balanced it out!"

(Huh.  Things in center=bad?)

The perspective wasn't really quite right, and I didn't have enough white, and I had completely lost the ability (which I swear I had in high school) of mixing colors.  I told editor brain that I didn't care if the roof was pink, I was just giving this a try, and I also wanted to try the shadows and the trees, and I wasn't going to get to that if it didn't shut up about the pink roof.  Eventually editor brain calmed down and tried to eavesdrop on the conversation of the people nearby.

Before I knew it, it was time to go in, and I didn't want to.  I wanted to stay and paint more.

Going in, editor brain began fidgeting.  It didn't want me to put the painting out and share. It had all sorts of reasons.  I put it out anyway and looked around.

Every painting was different.  Some were very painterly, and some weren't.  Some looked unfinished, and some looked overdone.  But we all tried.  No one hid in the restroom (the thought occurred to me), or simply refused to participate, or painted a few lines and quit.   I know from other comments I overheard that I wasn't the only "nervous" one, and even some of the painterly people weren't entirely comfortable.  But we all managed to shut the editor brain up long enough to give it a go.

Lego Lunacy

There are a lot of Legos in my house.  Elder Son (let's call him Batman) falls in love with complicated, multi-hundred-piece sets, receives said sets for gifts, puts them together, plays with them for a week straight, and then deconstructs them so that they become part of the great Lego continuum, which can turn up anywhere from the dryer to my bowl of cereal. 

Younger Son (let's call him Robin) wants to be exactly like Batman in every way (except, much like the "real" Robin, with three times as much energy and endless not-particularly-comprehensible commentary).  Needless to say, Robin would like to amass just as much Lego as Batman currently has, and if the Lego pieces could all be exactly identical, that would be even better.

Batman recently acquired Lego set 8016, the Star Wars Hyena Droid Bomber, complete with three droid mini-figures.  (Let's leave for another blog a discussion of why, a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, they have something named after hyenas.)  Robin immediately became the temporary owner of one of the mini-droids, resulting in the following conversation. I am saving it for documentation in case I need therapy or prescription drugs in the near future.

Squabbling along the lines of "I did not!"  "You did too!" gradually wears down my attempts to ignore it, and I summon Batman and Robin to my presence.

"What's going on?"

"Robin took my droid."

"I did not!"

"You did too!"

"I did not!  This is my droid!"

"It is not!  Mom!  I put my droid down in a very particular place, and Robin took it!"

"I did not!"

"Wait," I say.  "Wait."  I repeat this several more times until the "did not" "did too" chorus again subsides.  "Isn't there another droid?"

"Yes, but that one's mine, and he took it!"

"Did not!"

"Hang on, hang on," I say.  "I mean isn't there another droid.  In the house?  Right now?"

"Yes, but--"

(me, interrupting) "So go find that one, and then you'll both have one."

"No," Batman explains in exasperation, "we have two, but Robin has mine.  I put it down in a very particular spot, and Robin took it."

"Wait," I say.  "You have two droids?"

"Yes."  They both open their hands to reveal two seemingly-identical little, brown droid guys.  

"But Robin has mine."

"Is there some difference between them?" I ask, waiting to be told that the blaster or jet packs or whatever are entirely unique.

"No."

"No?" I ask.  "No??"  They shake their heads.  "Give them to me."  I juggle the droid figures around in my open palms as they watch.  "Here."  I give one droid to Batman and one completely and totally identical droid to Robin.  "You're both nutcases," I tell them.  They laugh and run off to lose the droid guys in a Lego pile not so far away.

Our Crazy Connectedness

At the risk of sounding hopelessly ancient, I just want to write for a moment about the amazing connectedness the internet allows us. Not too long after we graduated from college, my former roommates and I decided that every month we would each write a newsy letter about our lives, mail it to one designated person, and that person would make copies and mail them out to everyone. We even had a system for making postage fair. I remember feeling a little sad when we decided we could just email each other our letters. It seemed less personal, and I feared we would be less likely to follow through with writing when there wasn't someone specifically waiting for a letter to include in a packet.

And we have lost that.  I no longer get newsy letters in the mailbox from anyone, and I do miss them.  Really, I get hardly anything in my mailbox at all.  Instead I have the world of blogs, and live journal, and facebook, and it's completely different.  With facebook I can keep up with my high school friend who moved to France.  Without facebook, she'd be lost to me.  With facebook, I know a little more about what is going on with my brother.  He only lives fifteen minutes away, but we're all crazy busy people, and (nonsensically) checking in with family seems like something you can always do tomorrow.   With facebook, I get to follow little pieces of the lives of people I knew and cared about in college, people who were more than acquaintances but not quite dear friends, people I'd be delighted to run into or see at a reunion, but people I wouldn't otherwise be thinking about.  With facebook, live journal, and blogs, I get to keep up with some of the writers I've met through James River Writers over the past year.  I feel fairly confident that I would not have had the courage, or made the time, to continue to forge connections with them if all I'd had was snail mail.  

With blogs, I get to find out what all sorts of people are thinking about all sorts of different things.  I get to peruse the thought-provoking musings of my friends the EDG and Bemused Writer.  I can read Demon Baby and Me or Mothers of Brothers and be comforted that I am not the only one with a wild man four-year-old, strange parenting stories, and a take on motherhood that is a bit on the sardonic side.  I can get a dose of humor from my friend Wildcat or from The Blog of Unnecessary Quotes (which you may have to be an English major to appreciate; no one else I've inflicted it on so far has been amused).  And I can get a supply of information on teaching, reading, and writing that is so close to limitless that it sometimes makes me feel small in the same way that looking at a black sky of endless stars can.

It's different, this connectedness.  In some ways, it's incredible.  I can find out so much, about so many people, and so many things, so easily.  And it can lead to better relationships and deeper understandings, great conversations, and new friendships.  Or it can overwhelm with the trivial and mundane, providing a sense of connecting without any actual effort or relationship-building.  For every well-written, thought-provoking blog, there's a silly quiz I feel compelled to take.  For every scintillating tidbit about someone's life, there's another person telling me what he or she is watching on tv.  Good and not so good.  Silver lining and cloud.  

Connectedness.  Use it responsibly.

Great author!

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater... debuts August 1. Preorder today!

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf--her wolf--is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

Don't Judge a Book . . .

We've all heard that one, right?  But we do it anyway.  And although the recent phenomenal and surprising success of Susan Boyle offers a great opportunity to write about the ways we take each other for granted, I really meant it in a much more literal (and literary) sense.

Authors don't get to choose their cover art, which should come as no surprise to any reader who has ever scratched her head over a cover that seemed to have nothing to do with the novel inside.  It always comes as a surprise to my middle schoolers, who often describe characters based on the cover and not the writing in the book.

Still, you'd think a publisher would want the most successful, eye-catching cover affordable, right?  That's why books are constantly being reissued with updated covers.

Which of these two books would you be more likely to pick up, for instance?  

The first image is the newer edition, so Penguin is hoping you picked door number one.  Personally, I'm partial to the blue copy because that's the one I own.  And because, if you look very carefully, you can see the shadow of the sea monster rising between the two pillars of rock.  The sea  monster is very, very important.  (The Changeling Sea by Patricia McKillip: great short fantasy.  One of my favorites.)

How about these two?  

The one on the left or the one on the right?  They're both copies of the fabulous Lament by Maggie Stiefvater.  The left-hand one is the more recent of the two (thank goodness) and definitely the one I would have bought.  This time it's not a case of liking something because I own it.  Much as I love this book, since I own the right-hand cover copy, I pretty much always keep it face down.  (Sorry, Maggie.  But I know you like the left-hand one better, too.  And I've noticed the first image disappearing rather quickly off of websites!  In fact, when I came back to this entry a few weeks after I posted it, both images were of the latter cover!  Ha!  I had to go recopy from library thing.)

Here's another puzzler for you.  If a particular artist is well-known for providing the cover art of a particular author, is it cheating for a publishing company to have that artist do almost the same sort of thing for a different (but similar) author?

Here's a cover for one of Patricia McKillip's books, done by the inimitable Kinuko Y. Craft.  Kinuko Craft has done most of McKillip's recent covers (probably the new one of The Changeling Sea, though it's hard to tell).  This graphic doesn't really do it justice.  The colors are much richer "in person," more like a medieval tapestry.  (See the back of this cover, in better detail,  at the end of the blog.) 

Next is the cover of Juliet Marillier's very enjoyable Wildwood Dancing.  You may be able to tell that it, too, is by Craft.  I certainly could, because when I saw it in the library I immediately snatched it up, thinking I'd somehow missed news of the latest McKillip.  After the shock of discovering that a Craft painting contained the novel of a different author, I thought the novel might have a bit of an uphill battle with me.  However, Marillier's own style and unique take on the tale of the twelve dancing princesses drew me right in.  

Not Patricia McKillip, but I'd be happy to read Marillier any time I'm waiting in between McKillips.  

But the question is, do you think the publisher (Knopf publised Wildwood and Ace usually publishes McKillip) chose Craft to illustrate Marillier's book because her style is somewhat similar to McKillip's and they figured the crossover would be good for sales?  Or was it all a big accident?

Here are a few more of my favorite covers.

This cover totally rocks.  It's from Spirits That Walk in Shadow by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, whom I love.  Gotta say on this one, though I liked it enough to read it twice, I don't think the book rocks quite as much as the cover. 

   This book rocks absolutely just as much as its cover.

 (Savvy by Ingrid Law.)

And, just so you can really appreciate Kinuko Y. Craft . . .

We know we're not supposed to judge by the cover.  But a great cover really gets you off to the right start!

Savvy by Ingrid Law

Oh my gosh, I adore this book!  I'm not a gushy person by nature, but the book is just as fantastic as the cover art.  (And, yes, I do judge books by their covers, which is unfair and probably worth its own blog.)

The premise was one of the most original I'd come across in a long time, which is saying something, because "Thirteen-year-old comes into magic powers" doesn't seem all that original.  Oh, but it is.  Mibbs Beaumont is part of a family who each develop their own particular "savvy" at age thirteen.  Her older brothers' powers disrupt electricity and the weather.  Since she is just a few days from her birthday, Mibbs is awaiting the arrival of her savvy with great anticipation.  But then her father is in a horrible accident, and everyone's priorities shift.  An unlikely cast of characters joins together as Mibbs embarks on a crazy journey to help her beloved Pappa.

Every character in the book is written with authenticity, originality, humor, love, and individuality.  Mibbs' voice is 100% believable, and her assessment of the people around her is focused and insightful. Though there are definitely lessons learned, they're learned from Mibbs' thirteen-year-old perspective.  At no point do you feel that they are the author's lessons being preached through Mibbs' mouth.

I wish I could make this the required summer reading book, but it's probably a little too girl-focused for some of my manly-middleschool-men.  Plus it doesn't have anything to do with the curriculum.  And it would just crush me to hear my students complaining about it in any way.  Still, I wish I could require people to go out and read it.  

(G: no violence, no sex, no language.  I could read it to my four-year-old, but he wouldn't get it.)

The Black Book of Secrets by F. E. Higgins

Here's another selection from the Virginia Readers' Choice list.  The cover is intriguing, though hard to see in my small graphic.  The first sentence, if you don't count the "Note from the Author" is awesome: "When I opened my eyes I knew that nothing in my miserable life prior to that moment could possibly be as bad as what was about to happen."

And the premise is engaging: a mysterious "secret pawnbroker" and his assistant buy people's deepest, darkest secrets and write them down in (of course) The Black Book of Secrets.  It's a fast, engaging read, and it held my interest throughout.

All that said, this just didn't quite make it to the level of London Calling or Savvy (which I haven't yet blogged about).   First, I think the "I found this mysterious manuscript" bit is somewhat overdone. Though I couldn't, of course, at the moment name even one other author who does it.  (Dragonology?  Help me out here.)  Second, I think the mystery about the frog is probably not going to be a mystery to most middle school boys.  (In the book's defense, it's not critical that it be a mystery, but it would be more suspenseful if it were.) Third, the ending feels as though it ought to be satisfying, but I was disappointed.  I'm not going to go into too much about it here, because I think the ending will be quite satisfying to many.  Maybe it's just that I've read a lot (a lot a lot) of fantasy, and it just wasn't that surprising.  

Still, there have been plenty of times when I've read a book and thought "Ehh" (how do you spell that sound that goes with a shoulder shrug), and my middle schoolers have loved the book.  So I hope this is one of those times.

(PG-12: References to some nasty, intriguing things like body snatching and teeth pulling.)

Swallowing Darkness by Laurell K. Hamilton

I thought I'd take some time out from all the YA reading I've been doing and check in with the Meredith Gentry series.  This is the seventh, and I've read the previous six (which surprises me; I didn't think there'd been that many). 

I think I like this series better than the Anita Blake series, or at least better than what the Anita Blake series has become.  There is a lot (A LOT) of sex and violence in this series as well, but the sex seems less pointless.  Meredith is part human and part fairy, descended from a fertility goddess. So, basically, she is bringing the magic back to fairy through sex.  There are things I like and things that bug me about this book, but overall it was fun.

I like most of the characters in the book, and I do like seeing what magical power Merry and her men are going to awaken next.  Also I am a total and complete sucker for the Wild Hunt, which plays a big role in this book, so I was sold there.  (I've been enamored of the Wild Hunt since I read and reread The Dark Is Rising as a child.  Look for it to appear in my own writing.)  I thought the Hunt scenes were intriguing and very well done.  In fact, the research on the entire fairy aspect appears thorough.  I'm by no means an expert, but the few things I know are authentically represented in this series.  Finally, despite the fact that the Anita Blake series has degenerated into almost entirely pointless porn, there is one thing both Merry and Anita have in common.  They are so very much not rescue bait.  If there is something difficult that must be done (killing, dismembering, whatever), they saddle up and get it done.

That said, there are a few nagging points.  First, I repeatedly get the sense, both in the Anita Blake series and in this one, that Laurell K. Hamilton is not big on mapping out everything ahead of time.  (I could be wrong, in which case I deeply apologize.)  However, it seems like every time a protagonist is in a tight spot, the solution is, "Hey, what if she develops this magical/sex-related ability?"  Or . . . what if the goddess gives her (or someone, um, "near" her) a new magical/sex-related ability?  As much as I like the fact that the goddess goes to bat for Merry, it seems a little too deus ex machina a little too often. Finally, Merry has been whining for six books now (six, really?) about how her poor little mortal self is so fragile and killable. But she's got the Hand of Blood, and the Hand of Flesh, and the goddess on her side.  And now she has an additional important artifact.  Plus, she's surrounded by all the best fairy fighters, many of whom are getting their god-like powers back.  And, apparently, no matter how magical or immortal, the fairies can all be killed by bullets.  Let's stop the whining, shall we?

Still, that said: fun read.  (Rated X: sex, gore . . . but, really, less than usual)

Summer Reading

It's March; that means it's time to pick out middle school summer reading.  So I'm doing two things, searching for the one required summer reading book for rising seventh graders, and reading two selections from the Virginia Readers' Choice 2009-2010 list.  We (the language arts teachers) are hoping to simplify our lives this year by being able to say, "Read this one required book and then choose one other book from this great list."

I started off looking for a required book that had something to do with myths, since that's our first, short unit in the fall.  It had to be as good as Percy Jackson, but not Percy Jackson, since our elementary teachers have now stolen that book from us and are reading it at the 4th and 5th grade level.  (For those uninitiated who haven't read previous posts, start with The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.)  So, I Googled "if you liked Percy Jackson," and I came up with some interesting choices, one of which was Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B. Cooney.

I had read and enjoyed Ransom of Mercy Carter and know many students who have read and enjoyed The Face on the Milk Carton by the same author, so I had high hopes.  Of course, the book was originally published in 2002, which is practically ancient to a middle schooler (almost two thirds of their life ago!), but on the plus side that means it's out in paperback.

The book is about the adventures of Anaxandra, a girl who is taken hostage from her tiny Mediterranean island home early in the book and continues through a variety of adventures that end up involving Menelaus, Helen, Paris, and the city of Troy.  It's well-written and has enough excitement, intrigue and battles to soothe the injured sensibilities of boys required to read a book with a female protagonist.  Meanwhile, the strong, self-sufficient heroine is bound to appeal to the girls.  (No rescue bait, here, thank you very much!)  In all, I thought it was excellent.  I wish there were a sequel instead of the author's note at the end.  It's a strong contender for the "required" book, but I haven't 100% made up my mind.  It's such a lot of pressure to be asked to choose the book people are required to read.  And, sadly, the cover flap gives away over half of the book.  

(PG-13 for some of those battle scenes, and some hinted at adult situations that don't happen at all or don't happen "on screen.")

London Calling by Edward Bloor is off the Virginia Readers' Choice list, and I'm so glad that I got to read it!  I chose it as one of the two books I'm previewing because, from the blurb I read about it, it seemed to have some fantasy elements (I'm "the one who likes fantasy" on our team).  Also, I really enjoyed Bloor's Tangerine, which has been on the sixth grade summer

 reading list for several summers, usually garnering enthusiastic responses.  

Anyway, other than being well-written, engaging, and authentic, London Calling is completely different.  It's about a seventh grade boy who is aimlessly sleeping his life away, living a solitary existence in his basement, and really at loose ends.  Despite how it sounds, he's not whiny or self-pitying, and it's easy to like him and identify with his fears and foibles.  Martin inherits a mysterious radio from his grandmother that seems to allow him to travel back in time (in very vivid, realistic scenes) to WWII.  Or is he dreaming?  And if he's dreaming, why is he dreaming about things he himself has never heard of ?   This book has a strong (but not at all preachy) religious element to it that I thought worked beautifully within the story.  I also particularly appreciated the supporting cast, since so many YA books have the main character acting alone against the world.  It was interesting to see who Martin chose to tell his secrets to, and how that worked out for him.  I'm not really doing it justice here because I don't want to give away any of the mystery or angst or the well-drawn, annoying, heart-breaking, and uplifting relationships between the characters, but I highly recommend this book.  There are so many different levels to appreciate.

(PG-13 . . . or PG-12 since it's on the middle school list.  Some adult situations and battle scenes.)

Silks by Dick Francis and Felix Francis

So here's the danger of allowing me to browse the "New Fiction" section in my local library.  I end up ignoring my work, the beautiful weather, a perfectly decent literary novel loaned to me by a coworker, the laundry, the insidious layer of god-knows-what creeping through my house and taking over every horizontal surface (papers? Legos? junk mail?), and I spend the weekend reading Dick Francis.

I love Dick Francis books.  I've loved them since I was in high school and my dad got me started on them.  (My dad, by the way, has read everything.)  They're very similar to each other, so it's difficult to remember the plots, though they all have something that stands out. My dad and I will discuss them as, "The one that started with the guy standing in the fountain," or "The one that ended with the main character chained to the steering wheel."  It's always interesting to me to see what exactly my brain chooses to remember from books I've read.  But that's another blog entirely.

A very smart and savvy author, Dianne Mott Davidson, who was here last year for the James River Writers conference, told me that Dick Francis did not actually write his books, that his wife did.  From what little I've read, it's true (or they, at the very least, collaborated), so it would make sense then that, since his wife's death, he is now writing with his son Felix.  I was interested to see if I could tell a difference. The last Dick Francis I read was Under Orders, a Sid Halley book I was disappointed in.  I loved the first three Sid Halley books, but the fourth just wasn't as good.  Maybe it needed help it didn't get from Mary Francis.

Anyway, on to Silks.  It was pretty good.  Good enough to devour in a 36 hour period, anyway. The main character is a barrister (British lawyer), and it was somewhat interesting to see the workings of the British legal system, though they were, I thought, over-explained. (Perhaps that was Felix?)  I was much more interested in the part about why race horses get nose bleeds and how their lungs work, but maybe that's what's left of my horse-crazy younger years showing.  

The characters were reasonably compelling and engaging.  The pace moved along well (except the over-explained law bits).  No one really did anything out of character or especially stupid.  Good, quick Dick Francis read.  And Felix.  Maybe it will be "the one with the guy with the baseball bat."

(Rated R: violence, language, sex)