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Sunday, January 14, 2024

The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne

 


For the ninth year in a row, I started off my new year of reading with a Jules Verne novel. I began reading his Extraordinary Voyages series in order last year after making my way through his most famous works. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is the second book in the series, right after Five Weeks in a Balloon, which I read as my first book of 2023. I didn't have any idea what the story was about before I got started, but I was ready to kick of 2024 with a new adventure. As such, I got nice and cozy with a cup of coffee and got started.

**This review will contain spoilers for the whole story - it's very hard to discuss the plot without them!** 

The Adventures of Captain Hatters is composed of two parts. Part One is about Captain Hatteras' dangerous and daring 1861 expedition to the North Pole. He believes that the Pole will be surrounded by an open ocean and will stop at nothing to be the first to discover it and bring glory to England. This won't be his first try at the voyage, however. His past attempts were unsuccessful and ended in the loss of all of his crew. As a results, people aren't exactly rushing to sign up for his latest trip. To solve this problem, he disguises himself and prepares for the trip under a pseudonym. He engages the services of a Commander Shandon to act in his stead, passes him orders by letter, and then joins his own crew as a deckhand when everything is ready. He reveals himself only when it is too late for the ship to turn back and formally takes on his role as captain. The crew is understandably angry about this, but he is temporarily able to maintain his authority with the promise of a big payday for everyone once the North Pole is reached. He does have a few men on the ship that are loyal to him, including the brilliant Dr. Clawbonny, who is both the ship's doctor and resident scientific expert, but most of the voyage is extremely tense, with the crew frequently considering mutiny. 

Things do not go smoothly on the voyage. The ship is constantly in danger of being trapped or crushed by icebergs, the temperature is continually dropping, and the storms are violent and dangerous. All these problems increase in intensity as the winter approaches. There are many times where turning around or finding a safe place to stop for the winter would have been the safest course, but Hatteras is unwilling to stop exploring for any reason and continues forward. He does not listen to the concerns of his crew and burns through the ship's supply of coal at a speed most consider to be imprudent. Eventually, his supplies run out and the icebergs hem him along a frozen coast. He is forced to stop for the winter. With the need for coal becoming urgent, he is forced to mount a small trip over the ice to try finding an old supply cache left along these shores by previous explorers. He sets out with a few men, but is unable to find anything useful. When he returns, he discovers that the crew he left behind have finally mutinied. They have taken the smaller boat they were carrying and are attempting to go back to England. They burned the remains of Hatteras' ship in anger, leaving him and his four remaining loyal men with nothing.

Part Two is about Captain Hatteras and his few remaining friends trying to survive alone in the Arctic. Luckily for him, Dr. Clawbonny is among the group, and his intelligence helps the men establish a dwelling the spend the winter in. They run into trouble with bears, cold, and supplies, but after finding an old shipwreck to salvage supplies from, they are able to get along comfortably enough until winter ends and the seas start to open up again. Incredibly, Hatteras still wants to continue his journey to the North Pole and is able to get the rest of his very small crew to agree. They build a boat out of the old shipwreck and continue northwards. Eventually, they do reach their destination and find that the North Pole is situated in the middle of an active volcano sitting in the middle of an open ocean. Hatteras, mad with the desire to plant his English boot on the exact location of the North Pole, breaks away from the group, runs up the volcano, and throws himself into it. He somehow survives this, but is driven insane by the experience and never speaks another word. His friends recover his body, manage to make it home to England, and place him in an asylum where he spends the rest of his days always attempting to walk to the north.

This book was wild, and pretty different from the other Jules Verne books I have read so far. There was still a grand adventure, of course, and lots of scientific information from the time period. It was the characters that were a bit unusual for me, especially Captain Hatteras. I'm used to Jules Verne protagonists being generally faultless. They are smart, brave, and the kinds of leaders that men follow to the ends of the earth. Hatteras was...not that. He was obsessive, deceptive, and quite careless with human life. Most of his crew was mad at him for the duration of part one of the story, and for very good reasons. However, their mutiny was portrayed negatively, and it is eventually revealed that they fail in their mission to return to England and end up cannibalizing each other. So, as a reader, as I supposed to feel like they should have continued following Hatteras, even though he was clearly completely unconcerned with their welfare? The characters that stick by him, including the smartest character, Doctor Clawbonny, view him as an admirable leader and the way he is written in the story makes it clear that I am supposed to view him similarly, but I had a hard time doing that. Much like Commander Shandon, I never got over his initial deception of the crew. I suppose there is something grand and dignified in the way he never gave up on his goal, but that goal led him to jump into an active volcano and then drove him insane. I'm not sure that's a win.

However, the fact that Hatteras was an unusual character kept me very engaged in the story. I honestly had no idea what this man would do next and I kept turning the pages to find out. Both the sailing and survival sections of the novel were interesting, with lots of dangers for the characters to overcome. Some of this was somewhat realistic and some was not. My favorite unrealistic bit was when a group of polar bears teamed up to try and deliberately suffocate Hatteras and his buddies by piling snow all over their shelter. Dr. Clawbonny eventually figures out a way to blow up the bears using some gunpowder. The whole sequence was amazing. Of course, being a Jules Verne novel, there were several sections of scientific and historical information that dragged on a bit too long, but those parts weren't bad to get through and didn't take away from the story too much. The pacing was actually better than a lot of other Verne novels I've read in the past. The accuracy was not great, but as usual, it was correct for its time. The writing itself was nice as well. This was a book set in the Arctic and it felt cold. It was the perfect read for winter.  

Overall, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras was a pretty good time. It wasn't my favorite Verne novel, but it was a fun (and strange) one. I would place it solidly in the middle of the pack out of what I have read from him so far. It was most definitely a grand adventure and a great way to start off what will hopefully be a productive year of reading.

2024 Reading Challenges Tally:
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 1/30
Clear the Shelves 2024: 0





Monday, January 1, 2024

Clear the Shelves 2024

 


Once again, I'm setting the modest goal of trying to read from my own shelves throughout 2024. I still have several hundred books on my TBR pile that I want to be able to read and donate. There's not an official number of books I'm trying to get through this year, but I would like to do better than I did in 2023, which would mean reading at least 14. I will keep track of the titles I finish here on this post.

1.

Reading Resolutions: 2024

 


Much like last year, 2024 is not destined to be a productive reading year for me. I just have too much going on with graduate school. However, I do want to aim a little higher than last year. Having a year without a lot of reading has made me miss it terribly. It really is something I need to make more time for, in spite of my busy schedule. 

I'm still going to keep my goals modest, because I want to be realistic. Once again, I will just focus on reading a few books a month and reading mostly from my own shelves.



My Goodreads goal for this year will be 30 books. That's six more than I managed in 2023, so it's just a small increase. Hopefully this will be achievable for me.



Once again, my other reading goal will be to read books primarily from my own shelves. I barely made a dent in my TBR pile last year, so I still have a long way to go when it comes to clearing my backlog of books. I'm not going to attach a specific number to this challenge, but I would like to do better than 13 books, which is what I read in 2023. I will keep track of my progress here.

And that's it for my 2024! This will still be a very busy year for me, but I'm really hoping to start incorporating a little more reading back in between all of my classes and assignments.

Friday, December 29, 2023

Reading Reflection: 2023

 


The end of 2023 has arrived, so it's time for another yearly reflection. As I predicted at the end of last year, I was not able to read very much at all. The combination of graduate school and my regular instructional coaching job took up most of my time and napping took up the remainder of it. I did still manage to read a little bit though. Here is the breakdown:




My goal was to read 24 books in total and I did read 24. It feels like a very small victory compared to reading 101 books last year, but considering the different demands on my time, I'll take it. You can view my year in reading here.




I was hoping to read 24 books from my own shelves this year, but I ended up getting distracted by books at my school and fell short. I ended up reading a total of 13. I'm hoping to do a little better with this next year. You can see the list of what I read from my shelves here.


Overall, I would not say that I am particularly happy with my reading this year. I did read some really enjoyable things, but the stresses in my life made it difficult to enjoy them like I usually do. I feel like I gained some perspective though, and am getting more used to my busy schedule. I still have another year of graduate school to go, but I'm hoping to relax a little more in 2024 and get a little more reading done. 

Posted by John David Anderson

 


Posted by John David Anderson is another one of the books my school purchased for our middle school book clubs this year. The cover definitely grabbed my attention and I felt like the summary on the back would be intriguing to a lot of kids, so I figured I'd give it a try myself. I read this partially on my lunch break in bits and pieces and then finished it off in a few sittings over winter break. I admit that it had a bit of a slow start, but I ended up being really glad I picked this one.

The story follows an eighth grader named Frost. He's a bit of a geeky kid that likes writing poetry. He has a small group of similarly geeky friends named Deedee, Wolf, and Bench. They've been a tight knit group for years and do everything together. Their comfortable group dynamic begins to shift, however, when two big changes happen at their school. First, after some inappropriate online activity, the school enacts  a complete cell phone ban. Without the ability to sneakily text each other during class, students turn to leaving sticky notes on each other's lockers. The anonymous nature of this leads to a lot of bullying and truly mean comments being flung around, some of which are directed towards Frost and his friends. 

The second change is the arrival of Rose Holland, a new student to their school. Rose's stocky frame and eccentric personality immediately draws a lot of negative attention from the other students. She takes a liking to Frost and his friends though, and inserts herself into their group. Without meaning to, she causes a divide between the boys that leads to a lot of complicated feelings on all sides. Frost is caught in the middle of the divide. He doesn't want anything to change, but he also doesn't mind Rose being around. Eventually the mean sticky notes and the situation with Rose work together to cause problems that can't be easily solved and Frost has to come to terms with the changing nature of people and relationships.

I ended up really liking this novel because everything in it felt very true. The characters acted like real middle schoolers, the conflicts between the boys were realistic, and the resolution wasn't neat and tidy. The main themes of the story centered around the power of words and how they can be used to hurt and to heal. There was a strong anti-bullying message as well, which are all ideas you would expect to find in middle grades fiction. What I thought was unique though was that a good chunk of the story concerned how friendships don't always last. In general, people don't keep their middle school friends for life. People drift apart for a variety of reasons and that's just a normal part of growing up. That happens here, with one of the friends in the group moving onto a different social circle. While there was some drama attached to his exit, he ultimately just didn't fit in with the group anymore and wanted to hang out with other people. It was sad, but it was also understandable. I liked that this was included because it's so relatable. I can imagine having some very interesting class discussions about this since so many kids will have experience with changing friendships to draw on. It's a life lesson that's not clichéd or cheesy to talk about. 

Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised by Posted. It was realistic in a way I wasn't expecting. I will definitely be recommending this to students this year. This will be my last book read in 2023 and it was a nice book to end on. It was about a lot of things that are difficult, but it contained a lot of hope as well. While the world can be a mean place, the relationships we build with those who move in and out of our lives will sustain us and make us strong.

2023 Reading Challenges Tally:
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 24/24 - Complete!
Clear the Shelves 2023: 13/24




The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

 


I've had The Mists of Avalon on my shelf for a seriously long time. My husband bought it for me back when we were first dating, which was over  twenty years ago at this point. It's been sitting on my shelf all that time, waiting for me to finally pick it up. To put things further in perspective, when I finally did pick it up a few months ago, an old Blockbuster receipt fell out of the back. I rented Heavyweights in 2002. That movie is still iconic. 

Anyway, the reason it has taken me so long to get to it is its length. This is a 876 page tome with small print. I have so many other books I want to read that I tend to shy away from picking up long ones that will take a few months to get through. I must have been feeling ambitious back in November though, because I decided to finally give this epic fantasy a try.

The Mists of Avalon is a sprawling fantasy epic that retells the legend of King Arthur from the perspective of the women involved in the story. The point of view shifts between several women throughout the text, but the main character is Morgaine, more commonly known to us as the enchantress Morgan le Fay. The novel follows her from childhood to her old age as she works to preserve the holy island of Avalon in the face of different threats, including the invasion of the Saxons and the spread of Christianity. At first, protecting young Arthur and ensuring he takes the throne are her main priorities. He has sworn an oath to always defend Avalon. However, as time goes on his support of Avalon wavers and Morgaine's mission turns to removing him from power. Her journey is an emotional one, fraught with many struggles, betrayals, and losses along the way. She must eventually learn to make peace with the path her Goddess has dealt her and come to terms with her changing world.

This was a really phenomenal novel. I read it slowly and it took me a long time to make my way through it, but it was well worth the time. When I finished reading it, I felt like I had experienced something special; The Mists of Avalon is more than a book--it's an achievement. Telling the story from the viewpoints of the female characters gave the well-worn legend a fresh and interesting face with new layers of depth. This is not exactly a page turner. Instead, it is a story meant to be savored and considered from the many different perspectives running through its pages. 

The world-building was excellent. Bradley truly made the famous places from Arthurian legend come to life. The mysterious Avalon and the regal Camelot we rendered in loving detail. Similarly, the characters were developed beautifully. Each were different with distinct personalities, opinions, and goals, and each changed over the course of the novel. Each one was interesting to read about, and I never felt that there was a weak or boring perspective presented. The overall themes of loyalty versus compromise, men versus women, Christianity versus other religions, and old versus new continually asked interesting questions and presented compelling situations for the characters to grapple with. I enjoyed every aspect of it. 

Reading The Mists of Avalon is certainly a commitment, but it is one that is worth making for any fantasy fans that haven't given it a try yet. It may have taken me over twenty years to pick it up off my shelf, but I am very glad that I finally did. The beauty, complexity, and emotion of this one will stay with me for a while. I consider it a new favorite.   


2023 Reading Challenges Tally:
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 23/24
Clear the Shelves 2023: 13/24





Monday, December 11, 2023

100-Word Stories by Kim Culbertson



I am a serial buyer of teacher books, even though I rarely have time to read them. These slick, crisp volumes with their pages full of ideas represent endless promise. Maybe this book will be the one that solves all our problems and motivates kids to learn! Maybe this will be the perfect set of ideas to build the kind of classroom where kids are engaged and excited to do their work! Of course, those are wild fantasies, but it certainly doesn't stop me from dreaming...and scouring the Heinemann website every few months. I picked up 100-Word Stories from there a few weeks ago. I was initially intrigued by its idea of using short pieces of text to teach an array of literary concepts and its inclusion of lots of sample 100-word stories to use in the classroom. When the book arrived, I was both surprised and pleased by how short it was (it makes sense when you think about it). This, finally, was a teacher book I could sit and read in a few sittings. I got started hoping to find some ideas to bring to my school.

100-Word Stories begins with an explanation of how Kim Culbertson found success using 100-word chunks of text in her language arts classroom when teaching various concepts. She describes how she was able to get more student participation and engagement when the stories were very short. Not only were students better able to maintain their focus with these texts, but they also allowed her to explore many different concepts quickly. After that short introduction, she moves onto a series of chapters each focusing on a different story element. Each concept contains two 100-word stories, discussion questions for students to grapple with, and suggested writing activities for students to try. The book contains a total of 25 short chapters covering everything from basic story elements to revision strategies, making this a wide-ranging resource for reading and writing teachers.

Overall I did like this book. The idea of using short texts is a good one, as I can personally attest to the fact that students struggle with paying attention to longer pieces. These lessons offer quick and interesting ways to see different literary elements in action and provide good examples for students to try the techniques out by writing their own short stories. The discussion questions are thoughtful and encourage deeper thinking and the suggested writing activities incorporate a lot of student choice. This book contains some solid strategies and advice.

One element that was a bit of a disappointment for me were the 100-word sample texts. There is a little note at the start of the book warning that some of these might not be appropriate for all ages, but that an effort was made to have at least one story per chapter that was appropriate for grades 5-12. I did not always find that to be the case. Some of the stories included content that was inappropriate for younger readers, some of the stories had vocabulary that would be very difficult for struggling readers, and some of the stories required more inferencing skills than your average 5th-8th grade reader would have. Most of the samples are written by students too, which is fine, but I was hoping for pieces by well-known writers that I could use as a bridge to encouraging students to read their longer works. I work with 7th and 8th graders. If I was going to use these lessons, I would frequently find myself needing to source other texts or write the samples myself. This book is more user-friendly for high school teachers. As the sample 100-word stories were what I was looking forward to the most, this was a bit of a disappointment.

In spite of that, however, I did still enjoy the book and think that it is a good addition to my professional library. I agree with the logic behind using short texts and I think these lessons are a nice way to change up writing instruction and increase student engagement. Is this the magical teacher book with all the answers? No, but it certainly does have some answers that will help teachers improve their writing instruction.


2023 Reading Challenges Tally:
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 22/24
Clear the Shelves 2023: 12/24