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On this episode, we discuss the third prompt in the Books and Bites 2022 Reading Challenge, books recommended by young people. Reference Librarian Mycah Sylvain kindly fills in for Michael, who is busy welcoming a new young person into his family.
Books and Bites
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
3_22 Books and Bites
[00:00:00] Carrie: Welcome to the Books and Bites podcast. Each month we bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them. I'm Carrie Green and I'm here with today's co-host and guest Mycah Sylvain.
[00:00:14] Mycah: Hello!
[00:00:16] Carrie: Mycah kindly agreed to fill in for Michael who has just welcomed a new baby into his family.
So we're all very excited for that, but we're also glad to have Micah here with us today. Adam is out sick today during our recording. So we're hoping that he'll be able to join us a little bit later. But for today it's just Micah and I. So, Mycah, do you want to tell listeners a little bit about yourself?
[00:00:48] Mycah: Sure. So I work at the Ask a Librarian Desk. I am the part-time reference librarian here at JCPL. My favorite genres of books that I read the most are usually fantasy. Sometimes I like contemporary literary, but I lean like to read a lot of, a lot of fantasy, lots of science fiction.
[00:01:07] Carrie: And you are also the leader, current leader of the JCPL book club.
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
[00:01:17] Mycah: Sure. So this month's book club we are discussing The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy. The book is about Sasha Marcus, who is a former social media influencer, who essentially has to go into hiding after a confrontation with an online troll goes horribly. Her best friend Dyson convinces her to help him start a camp for troubled men called the atmosphere where the goal is to help men address their toxic masculinity and become better fathers, husbands, and citizens.
This debut novel talks about issues with self image, authenticity and gender expectations. And the discussion will take place on Thursday, March 31st at 6:00 PM.
[00:01:58] Carrie: Okay. So that is one that fits into the Books and Bites challenge, right?
The debut author?
[00:02:05] Mycah: Yes. And Alex McElroy is a non-binary author. So I think that would probably check a box for a marginalized person.
[00:02:13] Carrie: So yeah, so people can. Go to the book club and have a good discussion about a book and participate in the Books and Bites Challenge at the same time.
[00:02:23] Mycah: Yep.
[00:02:24] Carrie: Today we're talking about books recommended by young people. You know, young people is very subjective. How did you define young people for today's challenge?
[00:02:40] Mycah: So I don't know a lot of young people. The youngest, the only young person in my life is two years old. So she can't exactly recommend a book to me. So mine came from a younger version of myself. So this was a book I was actually reminded about recently that I re-read. Because it was one of my favorites growing up and it was kind of nostalgic.
[00:03:03] Carrie: Okay. Well that certainly works. My book that I am talking about today is recommended by my eight year old niece. So I will, I don't want to spoil the fine, but that's what I'll be talking about today. I know that, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be a child. I think most of us would still consider a college age person, a young person. Unless you're eight, then maybe, maybe you wouldn't consider that a young person.
So we are as ever, we are, we're quite free on our, on our challenge requirements.
My just-turned-8-years-old niece recommended this graphic novel to me because, and I quote, "the frog kids make their own comics. And they show how they drew stuff."
And really, I should probably stop my review there, because WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW? And I've already informed you that it's by Dav Pilkey of Captain Underpants fame, so you also may already know that there's a good chance this book features some potty humor. AND YOU WOULD BE RIGHT!
However, this is Books and Bites, and you must also know that, however tempted I may be, I cannot end my comments there.
As Rebecca pointed out, the frog kids do indeed make their own comics in a club headed up by L'il Petey, a cat, and his vice-president, Molly, a tadpole. The frog kids are a little less excited about making comics than L'il Petey and Molly, mostly because they're worried about failing. So L'il Petey gives them the assignment "to make a comic that is TERRIBLE!!!"
That command frees up the kids from their inner critics enough for them to make comics that are kind of terrible but also kind of great. Reading the kids' comics is a big part of this graphic novel's appeal. Most are drawn in a style that suggests an actual kid drew them. Some of the titles include, "Dennis the Toothbrush Who Wanted to Be a Dinosaur Lawyer," "Supa Fail," and "The Cute, Little, Fluffy Cloud of Death." There's also one called "My Dog" about a dog who "poops BIG POOPS"--poops so big, they scare away the ninjas.
Step by step drawing instructions are included after some of the comics. At the end of "My Dog," for example, there are instructions for "how to draw my dog's poops," including poops with personality, such as Ninja poop and Winnie the Poop.
And just when you start to think it's all getting too scatalogical, the frog kids' dad, Flippy the fish--the interspecies relationships between characters are never explained--swoops in to declare that "from now on, everyone's comics "must be wholesome and uplifting with good values and morals!!!"
But with a little outside help, Flippy realizes that he shouldn't make demands on the kids' creativity, and they all write new, improved comics.
One of my personal pet peeves about contemporary children's literature is that so much of it comes packaged with lessons. And while Cat Kid Comic Club follows that trope, the lessons are ones that both kids and adults often need. Besides, the book's humor helps those lessons go down easy.
At the end of the book, the kids have a party to celebrate the clubs' first week, and they all bring food inspired by their comics. My personal favorite? Dog poo brownies. "They're just regular brownies," Pedro explains. "But I rolled them into little balls then squeezed them together." We regularly consume brownies from a mix in my house, but if you don't have any on hand, you might try Katharine Hepburn's brownie recipe. They come out really gooey, which would make for the perfect "disgustingly delicious" brownies. We'll link to the recipe on our blog. https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/katharine-hepburn-brownie-recipe/
And I hope Katharine Hepburn's not turning over in her grave about dog poo brownies.
[00:08:31] Mycah: My recommendation was my favorite book when I was about 12 years old and it's called Ella Enchanted. Ella Enchanted is a middle grade fantasy about a girl who is blessed with the gift of obedience at birth by a well-meaning, but foolish fairy named Lucinda. Ella has to obey every command that she's given.
And she has to find ways to assert her independence around the bounds of the spell and eventually find a way to break it. When Ella's mother dies, her often absent father sends her off to finishing school where Ella rebels as much as she can against the order she's given to sit up straight, make perfect stitches and dance gracefully.
For instance, when the music instructor tells Ella to not sing so loudly, she'll sing so quietly that she can't be heard. Then her teacher will tell her to sing louder and Ella will sing almost as loud as before, and they'll go back and forth until they find the sweet spot. Ella finds out that her father is going to a wedding and leaves finishing school on her own to try to find Lucinda and get her to revoke the gift. Along the way she meets elves, who give her shelter and supplies, and then is captured by ogres, whom can magically persuade their prey to be eaten and is rescued by Prince Charmant, who she had struck up a friendship with earlier in the book.
Lucinda refuses to revoke her gift. So Ella returns home and her father remarries. Ella's new stepsisters and stepmother figure out that she has to do everything that she's told. So they command her to be their servant alongside the families. Long-time cook and Ellis fairy godmother, Mandy, while Ella's father is away.
Prince Charmant declares his love for ELA, but she rejects him because she fears his, her gift will put him in danger. Ella has to find a way to get out from under her step family's control, break the spell and get the prince. Ella is a fun, funny, smart and resourceful heroine and the fantasy setting full of magic gnomes, elves fairies, giants, and ogres is delightful with a twist on the Cinderella story.
This book means a lot to me because Ella was the exact type of protagonist I loved as a girl, noticing that most books were about boys. It's an action packed book with endearing characters and a charming fantasy setting that I'd recommend to any fantasy lover. And I think that this book would pair really well with ramen, because at the beginning of the book, the fairy godmother
gives Ella and her mother a curing soup with unicorn hairs in it. And we don't have unicorn hairs, but noodles are the next best thing. So I recommend the cookbook Let's Make Ramen: A Comic Book Cookbook, and this is available on the shelf in the cooking section.
[00:11:18] Carrie: I mean, it's hard to go wrong with ramen. Noodles are always the next well or, or the best thing.
Not necessarily the next
[00:11:29] Mycah: They're much more appealing than unicorn hairs too. I think.
[00:11:32] Carrie: Yes, now is that, I know I've seen that book in the library. Was there a movie or anything?
[00:11:40] Mycah: Yes. There was a movie that came out. I think early oughts and I watched it a lot as a kid. It's very different from the book. Both are delightful, but they're very different.
So if you read the book, don't expect the same thing from the movie, but yeah.
[00:11:59] Carrie: Well, I mean the book is
[00:12:02] Mycah: yeah,
[00:12:02] Carrie: usually, always better.
[00:12:05] Mycah: For the most part.
[00:12:06] Carrie: Well Thank you, Micah for sharing your book from your younger self.
[00:12:14] Mycah: Thank you for having me.
[00:12:24] Carrie: So I have just a few other recommendations from my niece, Rebecca. She also really enjoys the Ivy and Bean series. And she said she liked them "because they go on adventures." I've read most of that series with her, and I can say that the humor appeals to both kids and adults. This beginning chapter book series is the story of two unlikely friends.
She also loves the Princess in Black series so much that she dressed up as the Princess in Black for Halloween this past year. So I consider that a pretty big, since I'm the one that got her started on the Princess in Black series, I'm pretty excited about that. She also, when I first gave her a book from, you know, the first book from that series, and was kind of explaining the plot to her.
It's about a princess who, you know, also goes out and fights monsters and stuff like that dressed, dressed in black. It's a very empowering you know, if you're trying to get somebody away from the Disney princess stories, this is a great option. But when I was telling her about it she was probably
five years old. She said, Aunt Carrie, I just like regular princess books about princesses doing regular princess stuff. But anyway, I, as you can tell, as soon as she started reading it she changed her mind
[00:14:02] Mycah: that reminds me of The Princess Bride, but Princess Buttercup and Wesley are the same character.
[00:14:11] Carrie: Yeah, it is.
It is kind of like that. Yeah. Also one of those books that have you, have you read that book or?
[00:14:20] Mycah: Yeah,
[00:14:20] Carrie: I've just watched the movie like a million times and always like, thought about reading the book. How does the book measure up to
the book?
[00:14:32] Mycah: It's a little bit different. It's, it's pretty close, but it goes into more of the backstory with Inigo and Fezzik.
[00:14:39] Carrie: Okay.
[00:14:39] Mycah: So it kind of talks more about how they got to teaming up with Vicini. And there's a pretty interesting gimmick where it's written as if the author didn't write it. Like it's an old book by S. Morganstern, but S. Morganstern, isn't a real person. So it's like written as if it's like being translated.
It's pretty fun.
[00:15:04] Carrie: Yeah. Yeah. One of these days I'll have to, I'll have to have to make up a Books and Bites challenge just so I can read The Princess Bride. And then the final series I wanted to mention. We are also big fans of the Bink and Gollie series by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee. And that's another series about two unlikely friends who go on adventures.
When I visit my family in Florida, we often read together on our drives to the beach. And this particular series always has Rebecca, my mom and me cracking up the whole way. So it appeals to a wide range of ages. So I think, you know, you don't have to be a child to enjoy children's literature. It's definitely especially the way things are these days.
It's a nice, can be a nice escape.
Yeah.
[00:16:19] Adam: Hi folks. So we are recording this separately cause I have been under the weather for a few days with these seasonal allergies. So if this sounds a little bit different, that's why. Anyway so for this month, literally the only suggestions I got from young people because the theme this month is books suggested by a young person.
They were all manga. So I can't be upset that I chose manga again. And the fact that I asked for suggestions during teen manga club is completely irrelevant,
[00:16:56] Carrie: Very convenient.
[00:16:57] Adam: It was it's completely out of my hands. I did what I could. Shojo divine comedy, "Kamisama Kiss"by Julietta Suzuki, sees high school student, Nanami Momozono, tricked into becoming a local deity after her father skips town to avoid loan sharks, making Nanami homeless in the process.
There's no shortage of romantic comedy manga featuring humans dropped into the spiritual realm. While I do find romantic tension between teens and immortal entities a bit of a red flag in literature, it's nonetheless a very common theme-- after all, one of the most popular YA paranormal romance series features a teen building a relationship with an immortal vampire who, for some reason, continues to attend a rural high school of his own volition. Let me hop off my soapbox before I go on a rant, though.
Fact is, I've heard so many teens recommend Kamisama Kiss that it feels like time I gave it some attention. It really is an entertaining and culturally educational read including some introduction to Shinto terms and Japanese honorifics. Though, I'd advise doing supplemental research on Shinto if you're interested in the facts, it's not a romantic comedy's job to be a 100% accurate representation.
We start off with an intro to Nanami's home life, barely scraping by due to her father's debts. She comes home to find a note saying "I'm going on a trip. Sorry. Don't look for me. Dad" followed by a court-ordered eviction from their home. In a nearby park, Nanami ruminates on what to do next but it is interrupted by the sound of a strange chased up a tree by a dog and yelling for help. Not being afraid of dogs herself, she steps in to help and is rewarded with a too-good-to-be-true promise of a new home and sent off with a surprise kiss on the forehead along with directions.
She's not expecting a lot but is frustrated to find the promised home is in fact a shrine, and that the shrine is inhabited by Mononoke (supernatural entities) including a precocious fox spirit and two onibi-warashi. After a good scare from the residents who mistake her for the shrine's missing deity, they deduce the previous Tochigami (deity of a specific area) blessed her as the new shrine deity when he kissed her on the forehead. That's right, the weird dude at the park was a local god who wanted to skip out on the job, and now Nanami is stuck with it. The first volume follows Nanami deciding whether or not to stay, including a sojourn with the onibi-warashi into the other side, the world of the Mononoke, to visit the fox spirit who served the last Tochigami of the shrine.
While it sounds like a really heavy story, it's done in a very light way with lots of awkward moments, funny asides, and tongue-in-cheek moments. There's even a little action and suspense peppered in which, in addition to the easy-going comedic feel, makes the story appealing even to readers who are averse to romance-laden plotlines.
Last thing I'll mention, which calls back to my point in the beginning about the book being a good introduction to Shinto terminology and Japanese honorifics, is that the title is actually very descriptive of the story's beginning if we break it down. According to the volume's glossary, Kami are "Shinto deities or spirits" and Sama is a "Japanese honorific used with people of a much higher rank." So, the catalyst for the story was when Nanami was kissed on the forehead by a shrine's most high-ranking spirit. It was just a cute little aha moment for me when I realized! "Kamisama Kiss" by Julietta Suzuki is available in hard copy at JCPL.
Why not accompany Kamisama Kiss with some tasty mochi? The romantic antagonist's favorite snack is Sasamochi, sticky rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaves, but there's other kinds of mochi available in grocery stores and Asian markets; or you could make some yourself with a recipe from"Mochi Magic"by Kaori Becker, available with a JCPL card through Hoopla Digital.
[00:21:44] Carrie: So I'm curious, did the teens who recommended it, tell you why they liked it?
[00:21:51] Adam: So a lot of what I hear is that they like that it's got a little bit of romance in it, but it's not really heavy. Like they want just a little touch of romance. Cause they're getting used to the concept and when it gets really like soppy, it's not appealing to them anymore.
So it's good to have little breaks for comedy and for a little bit of action and not just have like slop on all over each other kissing, you know?
[00:22:20] Carrie: Yeah. I mean, I mean, that makes sense to me. Like I would agree with them on, on that preference.
[00:22:28] Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet, saccharine romance is there for some people, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.
So and this one, you know, I think it's, it's a really light read. It feels kind of like a slice of life story. Like some of these storylines that involve deities just trying to live their daily lives. It's kind of fun. And I did say romantic antagonists earlier, that's the best terminology I can come up with for the romantic fixation in this, because they really don't get along with each other.
They hate each other's guts in the beginning, at least. This is, it's like a love, hate kind of thing. Like they like each other, but they hate each other
[00:23:08] Carrie: That always makes for good tension in like a romantic comedy kind of movie or TV or whatever.
[00:23:17] Adam: Yeah. Yeah.
There's a little bit of fight for it.
There's a little bit of each of them kind of weighing the pros and cons instead of just going right for it. And then that's the story. Yeah. It it's, it's a really good basis for some good comedy too.
[00:23:32] Carrie: Yeah. All right. Well we're glad you're feeling better and thanks for coming in and, uh,
[00:23:39] Adam: that's all right.
Yeah. Thanks for working me in. Yeah, we gotta, we got it worked out.
[00:23:51] Carrie: Thanks for listening to the Books & Bites podcast. To learn more about the Books & Bites Challenge, visit our website at jesspublib.org/books-bites. Our theme song is "The Breakers" by Scott Whiddon, from his album In Close Quarters With the Enemy. To learn more about Scott and his music visit his website adoorforadesk.com.