Innocence and ignorance opened the door to death. It is almost poetic that the same home, the same household, the same family even, would open and close the door to the worst cholera epidemic ever seen on England’s shores. How could the Lewis family have known?
On a blustery English morning in 1854, an infant girl was born to Thomas and Sarah Lewis. Baby Lewis was rosier, hardier, and—as her parents prayed—more determined to stay within the realm of the living. The previous year the Lewis’s suffered the loss of their infant baby boy. This baby girl showed promise.
In late August, healthy Baby Lewis developed diarrhea. During breaks in her daughter’s illness, Sarah dutifully cleaned her diapers in tepid water, and slung one bucket out the back window and the worst of it she took to the cellar and threw into the cesspool. Not an unusual practice in Victorian London’s Soho neighborhood.
On the 28th, after suffering three straight days, Baby Lewis began to show signs of improvement. Sarah thought to give her chap-lipped baby a little water from the refreshing pump just 10 feet from the Lewis’s front door on 40 Broad Street. Four hours later the baby’s symptoms violently returned. The doctor was called, but it was too late for Baby Lewis; her last diaper was filled with clear liquid and little pieces of rice.
In the late summer air of London’s Victorian streets, many professionals believed miasma to be the culprit. Dr. John Snow had his doubts. Snow had worked with gases, becoming the first professional anesthesiologist to use ether safely. He believed for a gas to be effective it must be delivered to the lungs in concentrated doses.
Before microbes were discovered, poisoned miasma was blamed for many a disease. For instance, the mosquito born malaria was thought to be caused by “bad air” for it derives its name from the Italian “mal aria.” It was the same year as England’s cholera plague that an Italian discovered the comma shaped microbe “Vibrio cholera.” Unfortunately, the Italian’s paper on the microscopic parasite went unnoticed.
Snow, along with another amateur sleuth, The Reverend Henry Whitehead, proved the disease to be waterborne. Both men went door-to-door during and after the tragedy ministering and asking the question. Did you drink water from the Broad Street pump?
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson will have you unraveling the mysteries of a Victorian enigma.
Note: Fifth book for Joy's Non-Fiction Five Challenge.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Ghost Map (copy)
Monday, July 21, 2008
Wrap It Up!
I'm currently in the Northern Woods; far, far away from the maddening heat and humidity of Mississippi. So, contact with my wonderful bloggy friends (you, you, and you) is limited.
I thought I would go ahead and place the wrap-up post and Mister Linky for those of you who ran through the challenge like hot butter.
Please, write a lovely post on how the books moved you, possibly made you sweat, or bored you to tears. Then leave the post specific URL on Mister Linky. And, as always,visit around!
Reminder! The Name Your Blues contest ends tonight at 12:00 am sharp!
Note: The first Holiday Inn opened in the Berclair area of Memphis in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Twinkie, Deconstructed (copy)
Have you seen the movie WALL-E yet? I will try not to tell you too much if you have not. WALL-E is a garbage robot left on planet Earth to clean mass amounts of debris while humans wait on spaceships for the all-clear to return. Seven hundred years have gone by since the human mass departure and WALL-E is practically the only robot still functioning.
He remains operational by removing parts from others of his kind, and has a little cockroach friend for companionship. Like curious humans, WALL-E is attracted to shiny small objects he finds in the trash heaps. In his small garbage truck he has quite the cache with jewelry, toys, plastic cutlery, etc..
Although WALL-E is solar powered, his little friend cockroach needs food. On this barren Earth, what is a roach to eat? Why a 700-year-old-Twinkie! WALL-E seems to have collected those, too.
I bet you are nodding your head and saying, “well, yeah,” right now. This urban legend is widely known, but Steve Ettlinger, author of Twinkie, Deconstructed, claims the soft sponge cake has a shelf-life of 25 days. Although, it is true, without preservatives it would not last past a day.
How does one man come to write 268 pages on the sweet all-American snack? It was a hot summer day and dad was enjoying the creamy delicious treat while his son stood nearby eating ice cream. As was Ettlinger’s habit, he flipped the package over to read the ingredients aloud. When he was finished his son innocently asked, “Daddy, what’s polysorbate 60?”
It was at this point Ettlinger realized he had a problem. He enjoyed fielding questions from his son, but this one stumped him. Did it come from the fruit of a sorbate tree? Was it a distant cousin of soy beans? Could it be a new vitamin on the market? For that matter, is polysorbate 60 in the ice cream his son was currently eating?
Ettlinger writes a chapter for each ingredient found in a Twinkie-like cake. The company, that makes Twinkies, refused him the full recipe and its trademarked name. They only work with writers “who are merely reminiscing about their sweet childhood memories.”
Follow along on Ettlinger’s quest as he dissects the ingredients to explain what is grown, made, and mined.
Note: Fourth book for Joy's Non-Fiction Five Challenge.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Name Your Blues Contest!
About four years ago a man named Porkchop moved to town. We didn't think anything of his name other than he didn't look like a porkchop. When pressed he would say, "that is just what they call me."
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Defining YA Fiction
What is your definition of young adult (YA) fiction? I define YA fiction as books written for ages 14 through 24 that might contain offensive language, sexual content, alcohol/drug abuse, and adult situations. Because 14-year-olds tend to be less mature readers than 23-year-olds, these books also vary as to the age within YA they market. For example, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson targets 12 to 16-year-olds while Feed by M.T. Anderson best serves 16 to 24-year-olds.
In Speak, Melinda Sordino commits the worst faux pas in all teenage history. She calls the cops at the last summer party just a week before school starts. Her freshman year is wrought with pain as friends abandon her, and the older high school students are mean. Adding to her misery, she has lost her voice and takes all the abuse quietly.
SPOILER! The reader learns Melinda is raped by a popular senior at the party and this is why she calls the cops. This realistic story contains language, sex, and substance abuse all hallmarks of the young adult category. By making the heroine 15, the author is attracting readers who are younger or the same age. It is unusual for a reader to gain interest in a main character that is younger than them. I call this the step into my shoes and walk around theory.
In Feed, Titus travels to the moon with his senior friends during Spring Break and finds the experience sucky. This is Violet's first visit to the moon, and she is in awe as she walks around observing other teens drink and be merry. Titus notices Violet's non-participation and he is intrigued. He follows her to the bar where she plays with a purple liquid in zero gravity, and he finds himself totally turned-on.
SPOILER! Titus and Violet fall in love, but are torn apart as Violet's feed begins to malfunction. The corporation refuses to fix her feed because she lacks purchasing power and thus her life slowly runs out. This science-fiction dystopia contains language, sex, substance abuse, and death. The author is marketing to a more cerebral young adult for there is a whole slang language readers will have to interpret in order to follow the story.
I use the word might in my definition of YA fiction because a book might also be free of any of the taboos. These taboo-frees are usually classics such as Little Woman and Moby Dick. They belong in the category because they contain polysyllable words and can be slightly harder to read and follow.
How do you define young adult fiction?
Friday, July 11, 2008
Friday Night Pizza and Winners!
Friday, June 27, I was sick.
Friday, July 4, I was lazy.
This Friday I have no excuse!
I owe you 3 new pecan winners!
Lena of Reading Obsession, IceDream of Reading in Appalachia, and UnfinishedPerson of Just a (Reading) Fool have won the weekly pecans!
Please, visit and congratulate them.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Mister Pip (copy)
We called him Pop Eye. Well, that was until he came to teach our class. Not that he paid us children any attention. His huge eyes sitting on his head, not within, were constantly probing over our heads at the trail beyond. It was only during especially sad occasions that he took notice of us and encouraged our participation.
During his sad days, Pop Eye would dress in his white linen suit and sport a ridiculously red clown’s nose on his already bulbous attachment. From the trail that came from his home, we saw him pull his wife, Grace, in a wagon. I avoided his sad eyes while entertaining Grace’s lively ones. She stood within the wagon, leaning on a little railing, and waving to us children. It was like a mini-parade and we kids were eager to follow along with the circus.
Like I began, we called him Pop Eye until he came to teach our class. The year was 1991, and war between the rebels and the redskins was waging on our little island. Most visiting islanders scurried atop boats or crammed into planes (the lucky ones, the rich ones, the white ones) fleeing for safety. After generators fail and electricity ceases, does the last of our teachers also join the departure.
It was normalcy our parents sought, as we were shooed to the school house in late November. Here, we were greeted by Pop Eye. He waited for us to find our seats and settle in before he spoke. I had never heard his voice and was pleasantly shocked to hear a gentle, calm sound—unlike all those white men that worked at the Copper mine.
“My name is Mr. Watts,” he said. “I know some of you call me Pop Eye. That’s okay, too. I like Pop Eye,” he said with a smile. We were shamed as Mr. Watts continued, “I will be honest with you. I have no wisdom, none at all. The truest thing I can tell you is that whatever we have between us is all we’ve got. Oh, and of course Mr. Dickens.”
Out of the less than 60 people who inhabit Bougainville, I have never met a Mr. Dickens. It is a white man’s name, and Mr. Watts is the only white man on the whole island. Who is this Mr. Dickens? We kids were eager to know and came early to school the next day.
Mr. Dickens is none other than author Charles Dickens, and the children are read a chapter a day from “Great Expectations” in Lloyd Jones’s novel “Mister Pip”. As seen through the eyes of 13-year-old Matilda, the narrator, we have front row seats to humanity.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
The Invention of Hugo Cabret (copy)
He stares at the old man through the five in the clock face. From his position above, the old man looks to be taking inventory. He knows it won’t be long before the old man begins to doze, but he wonders if the old man has started to notice things missing. Little things really, he doesn’t like stealing and only takes what he absolutely needs to finish his automaton.
Hugo is alone now. The automaton is all that is left of his previous life. His mother died when he was a wee boy, but he spent many happy days with his father. As museum mechanic, Hugo’s father made sure Hugo had a mind for gears, pulleys, and springs. If not in school, he brought Hugo along with him on all repairs.
Their favorite thing to work on together was the automaton. Someone had stored the lifelike man in the museum attic after it broke, and the father and son team took it on as a mission. Hugo’s father would draw its small pieces and parts in a notebook as he disassembled the work. From this notebook, he hoped to turn around and put it back together with clean pieces and parts and have a working machine.
The automaton was a little man sitting posed behind a desk with his arms raised above the desk. In his left hand resided an ink well and in his right a pen. If things worked correctly, after being wound the automaton would write something on a sheet of paper placed underneath the arms on the desk. Father and son dreamt of those words.
Ah, the old man was asleep. Hugo quickly climbed down from the attic, slipped into the alley, ran across the road, and shimmied into the cracked air grate. From there, he silently made his way to the toy booth, and his goal. He could see the old man still sleeping as he slowly moved the air vent cover.
His prize in reachable site, he outstretches his arm to grab the little blue mouse. The old man suddenly comes alive and grabs Hugo around his wrist and begins to yell for the station inspector. Hugo is doomed! If the station inspector discovers he is alone it will be straight to the orphanage and good-bye automaton. He must talk fast!
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is a 500 plus-page picture book that won the American Library Association’s prestigious Caldecott Medal for 2008. This is a must read-aloud amongst any and all fathers and sons, but mothers and daughters are welcome.
