Potluck on 8/8

Hello Litwits!
We'll meet at Chaska H.S. on Wednesday, August 8th to discuss our summer reading from 9-11 a.m. If you want to come a bit early to set out your food, please do so!
Leave a comment below about what food you plan to bring. Anything breakfast-y will do. I heard that Leslie will provide us with coffee.

See you soon!

PIC - There's a Hair in My Dirt: A Worm's Story by Gary Larson

Published 1999

Once upon a time in a place far away, lived a man named Gary Larson who used to draw cartoons. It was a cartoon that appeared for many years in daily newspapers and was loved by millions. (And was confusing to millions more.) But one day he stopped.
Gary went into hiding. He made a couple short films. He played his guitar. He threw sticks for his dogs. They threw some back.
Yet Gary was restless. He couldn't sleep nights. Something haunted him. (Besides Gramps.) Something that would return him to his roots in biology, drawing and dementia--a tale called There's a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm's Story.
It begins a few inches underground, when a young worm, during a typical family dinner, discovers there's a hair in his plate of dirt. He becomes rather upset, not just about his tainted meal but about his entire miserable, wormy life. This, in turn, spurs his father to tell him a story--a story to inspire the children of invertebrates everywhere.
And so Father Worm describes the saga of a fair young maiden and her adventuresome stroll through her favorite forest, a perambulator's paradise. It is a journey filled with mystery and magic. Or so she thinks.

Which is all we'll say for now.
What exactly does the maiden encounter?
Does Son Worm learn a lesson?
More important, does he eat his plate of fresh dirt?

Well, you'll have to read to find out, but let's just say the answers are right under your feet.
Written and illustrated in a children's storybook style, There's a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm's Story is a twisted take on the difference between our idealized view of Nature and the sometimes cold, hard reality of life for the birds and the bees and the worms (not to mention our own species).
Told with his trademark off-kilter humor, this first original non--Far Side book is the unique work of a comic master.
Now Larson can finally sleep at night. Question is, will you?

YA - Deadly by Julie Chibbaro

Published 2012

(subtitled in some places "How Do You Catch an Invisible Killer?"

Join the search for Typhoid Mary in this early twentieth-century CSI. Now in paperback!Prudence Galewski doesn’t belong in Mrs. Browning’s esteemed School for Girls. She doesn’t want an “appropriate” job that makes use of refinement and charm. Instead, she is fascinated by how the human body works—and why it fails.
Prudence is lucky to land a position in a laboratory, where she is swept into an investigation of a mysterious fever. From ritzy mansions to shady bars and rundown tenements, Prudence explores every potential cause of the disease to no avail—until the volatile Mary Mallon emerges. Dubbed “Typhoid Mary” by the press, Mary is an Irish immigrant who has worked as a cook in every home the fever has ravaged. But she’s never been sick a day in her life. Is the accusation against her an act of discrimination? Or is she the first clue in solving one of the greatest medical mysteries of the twentieth century?

PROF - Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America Shawn Lawrence Otto (local author)

published 2011

WINNER of the 2012 Minnesota Book Award for nonfiction

"One of the most important books published in America in the last decade."  - TV News Anchor and columnist Don Shelby

"Whenever the people are well informed," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "they can be trusted with their own government."

 

But what happens in a world dominated by complex science? Are the people still well-enough informed to be trusted with their own government? And with less than 2 percent of Congress with any professional background in science, how can our government be trusted to lead us in the right direction?

 

Will the media save us?  Don't count on it.  In early 2008, of the 2,975 questions asked the candidates for president just six mentioned the words "global warming" or "climate change," the greatest policy challenge facing America.  To put that in perspective, three questions mentioned UFOs.

 

Today the world's major unsolved challenges all revolve around science. By the 2012 election cycle, at a time when science is influencing every aspect of modern life, antiscience views from climate-change denial to creationism to vaccine refusal have become mainstream.

 

Faced with the daunting challenges of an environment under siege, an exploding population, a falling economy and an education system slipping behind, our elected leaders are hard at work ... passing resolutions that say climate change is not real and astrology can control the weather.

 

Shawn Lawrence Otto has written a behind-the-scenes look at how the government, our politics, and the media prevent us from finding the real solutions we need. Fool Me Twice is the clever, outraged, and frightening account of America's relationship with science--a relationship that is on the rocks at the very time we need it most.

YA - Shine, Coconut Moon

by Neesha Meminger, 2010

"Sixteen-year-old Samar—aka Sam—is an Indian American teenager whose mom has kept her away from her old-fashioned family. It’s never bothered Sam, who is busy with school, friends, and a demanding boyfriend. But things change after 9/11. A guy in a turban shows up at Sam’s house—and turns out to be her uncle. He wants to reconcile the family and teach Sam about her Sikh heritage. She is eager to learn, but when boys attack her uncle, shouting "Go home Osama!" Sam realizes she could be in danger—and just how dangerous ignorance is." (from Amazon.com)

NF - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope

by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, 2010

"William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger. But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of building one that would bring to his small village a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could enjoy: electricity and running water. His neighbors called him misala—crazy—but William refused to let go of his dreams. With a small pile of once-forgotten science textbooks; some scrap metal, tractor parts, and bicycle halves; and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to forge an unlikely contraption and small miracle that would change the lives around him.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a remarkable true story about human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity. It will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to change his community and better the lives of those around him." (from Amazon.com)

Fifty Shades of Grey

by E.L. James, 2012

"When literature student Anastasia Steele is drafted to interview the successful young entrepreneur Christian Grey for her campus magazine, she finds him attractive, enigmatic and intimidating. Convinced their meeting went badly, she tries to put Grey out of her mind - until he happens to turn up at the out-of-town hardware store where she works part-time. Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever." (from Amazon.com)

Jeanne's note: This doesn't fit any of our LitWits categories, but one person included it in their list. Whether or not you decide to read what is being referred to as "Mommy porn" or not, this should be interesting to discuss.

NF - Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter

by Frank Deford, 2012

"Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter is as unconventional and wide-ranging as Frank Deford’s remarkable career, in which he has chronicled the heroes and the characters of just about every sport in nearly every medium. Deford joined Sports Illustrated in 1962, fresh, and fresh out of Princeton. In 1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of The National Sports Daily, one of the most ambitious—and ill-fated—projects in the history of American print journalism. But then, he’s endured: writing ten novels, winning an Emmy (not to mention being a fabled Lite Beer All-Star), and last week he read something like his fourteen-hundredth commentary on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

From the Mad Men-like days of SI in the ‘60s, and the “bush” years of the early NBA, to Deford’s visit to apartheid South Africa with Arthur Ashe, and his friend’s brave and tragic death, Over Time is packed with intriguing people and stories. Interwoven through his personal history, Deford lovingly traces the entire arc of American sportswriting from the lurid early days of the Police Gazette, through Grantland Rice and Red Smith and on up to ESPN. This is a wonderful, inspired book—equal parts funny and touching—a treasure for sports fans. Just like Frank Deford." (from Amazon.com)

PROF - Developing Standards-Based Report Cards

by Thomas R. Guskey and Jane M. Bailey, 2009

"Providing a clear framework, this volume helps school leaders align assessment and reporting practices with standards-based education and develop more detailed reports of children’s learning and progress." (from Amazon.com)

YA - Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls

by Mary Downing Hahn, 2012

"Based on an actual crime in 1955, this YA novel is at once a mystery and a coming-of-age story. The brutal murder of two teenage girls on the last day of Nora Cunningham’s junior year in high school throws Nora into turmoil. Her certainties—friendships, religion, her prudence, her resolve to find a boyfriend taller than she is—are shaken or cast off altogether. Most people in Elmgrove, Maryland, share the comforting conviction that Buddy Novak, who had every reason to want his ex-girlfriend dead, is responsible for the killings. Nora agrees at first, then begins to doubt Buddy’s guilt, and finally comes to believe him innocent—the lone dissenting voice in Elmgrove. Told from several different perspectives, including that of the murderer, Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls is a suspenseful page-turner with a powerful human drama at its core." (from Amazon.com)