Daily Archives: November 14, 2024

SES hosts book fair

Last month, the Saratoga Elementary School (SES) Library became a miniature book store, thanks to SES librarian Luke Spiering, and Scholastics Book Fair.The students were able to shop for books they were interested in without leaving the area.Since there are not any bookstores in Saratoga, this gave students an opportunity to browse through books and toys related to books to see if they want to purchase them.The book fair was open during the school’s parent/teacher conference.The book fair helps to raise funds for the school library, Spiering said.On a table in the library, a teacher’s wish list was displayed where parents or donors can pick up a slip of paper that lists a book they would like to have in the classroom. The book is purchased and given to the teacher.Little cash registers were set up which allowed the school to take credit cards for the purchase of books.The Scholastics Book Fair was established in 1981 according to its website.

Winners of the 2024 National Outdoor Book Awards Announced

Finding one’s way in the depths of the Grand Canyon, teaching kids how to identify birds, working with researchers as they unlock the secrets of plants.  These topics and many more are among the winners of the 2024 National Outdoor Book Awards.A total of fifteen books were chosen as winners in this year’s program which is now in its twenty-eighth year.  Sponsors of the program include the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Idaho State University and the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education.Awards are presented in ten categories ranging from outdoor literature to children’s books.  This was an intensely competitive year, and in several of the categories, the judges assigned two winners.
Below are some winners’ highlights.  (For brevity, subtitles have been left out.  Full titles can be found in the summary at the end.)Outdoor Literature Category
The winner of the Outdoor Literature category is “A Walk in the Park” by Kevin Fedarko.  Fedarko and a good friend attempt to hike the length of the Grand Canyon while staying under the rim.  They quickly learn, however, that it’s no walk in the park.  Less than a week after getting started, they hobble out of the canyon, barely surviving the ordeal.  They try again and after a few more missteps, they start making progress.  More than a story of a hike, Fedarko paints a powerful portrait of the canyon: the river that carved it, its geology, and the cultural and human history imprinted on it.Receiving the silver medal in the Outdoor Literature category is “Sailing Alone” by Richard J. King.  Included in the book are stories of some of the most famous solo ocean journeys.  What King does to heighten interest is to gradually recount the experiences of his own solo passage across the Atlantic. By blending these two aspects of the story—historic and personal—he creates an indelible portrait of what it is like when sailing solo across the vast wilderness of the sea.Journeys CategoryTwo books were chosen as winners in the Journeys category.  The first is “Where the Falcon Flies” by Adam Shoalts.  Shoalts undertakes a canoe journey which begins near his home in Lake Erie and ends 2,000 miles to the north in the Arctic.  All of his wilderness experiences come to play in this journey as he paddles through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River and finally through northern wilderness. The other winner is “Arctic Traverse,” a story by Michael Engelhard of hiking and paddling 1,000 miles across the Brooks Range of Alaska.  Engelhard is a splendid writer and captures the beauty of the Arctic and his day-to-day experiences with penetrating and moving prose.History/Biography CategoryThe History Biography category has two winners.  One is “Survival is Not Assured,” a biography about the climber Jim Donini.  Written by Geoff Powter, it recounts Donini’s impressive climbs in Patagonia, Alaska, Pakistan and elsewhere, but what makes Powter’s narrative shine is that we come to know this complex man, and the peaks and valleys of his life, apart from his time in the climbing world. “Alpine Rising” by Bernadette McDonald is the other winner in the History/Biography category.  In this historical work on the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, McDonald turns her attention to the Sherpas of Nepal, the Baltis of northern Pakistan and other local climbers.  Based on interviews and solid research, McDonald ably tells their side of the story, covering key personages and notable ascents from the early 1900s to the present. Natural History Literature CategoryThis is another two-winner category and includes “The Light Eaters” by Zoë Schlanger.  Schlanger brings us up to date on past and current research on plant behavior and intelligence.  She travels far and wide, introducing us to researchers and their work.  Those she visits are serious researchers, doing serious scientific work.  What she discovers, and shares with us in the book, is nothing short of astonishing.

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Also receiving top honors is “With Every Great Breath” by Rick Bass.  This is a collection of essays by Bass covering a wide variety of natural history topics ranging from whales to larch trees to an environmental disaster close to his home.  If you’ve never read anything by Bass, this is an excellent place to start.Classic Award“Minus 148” was chosen as the winner of the Classic Award.  Written by Art Davidson and first published in 1969, it tells the story of eight men attempting the first winter ascent of Denali.  Three members of the team managed to reach the summit but were engulfed in a ferocious storm at 18,000 feet.  The winds exceeded 150 miles per hour and the temperature dropped to 50 below.  Faced with an unimaginable wind chill of 148 degrees below zero, they found themselves trapped. Children’s CategoryThe winner of the Children’s Category is “Kids Field Guide to Birds” by Daisy Yuhas.  This new identification book is a great starter book for young naturalists in the 8 to 12 year old range.  A bit larger than a typical adult guide, it provides ample room on the pages for identification hints, illustrations, and fun facts.  Moreover, it doesn’t overwhelm by taking on too many birds. Receiving the silver medal in the Children’s Category is “Let’s Learn to Fish” by Dan Armitage.  Armitage runs the popular Kids Fishing Fun programs at outdoor equipment shows and stores across the United States and knows what works with kids.  Chock-full of illustrations, the book covers all aspects of fishing, perfect for eager youngsters who can’t wait to get started.Complete reviews of these and the other 2024 winners may be found at the National Outdoor Book Awards website at:  www.noba-web.org.Here is a complete list of winners. Outdoor Literature.  Winner.  “A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon.”  By Kevin Fedarko.  Scribner, New York.  ISBN 9781501183058.Outdoor Literature.  Silver Medalist.  “Sailing Alone: A Surprising History of Isolation and Survival at Sea.”  By Richard J. King.  Viking, New York.  ISBN 9780593656044.Journeys.  Winner.  “Where the Falcon Flies:  A 3,400 Kilometre Odyssey from my Doorstep to the Arctic.”  By Adam Shoalts.  Allen Lane/Penguin Canada, Toronto.  ISBN 9780735241015.Journeys.  Winner.  “Arctic Traverse:  A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range.”  By Michael Engelhard.  Mountaineers Books.  Seattle.  ISBN  9781680516784.History/Biography.  Winner.  “Survival is Not Assured: The Life of Climber Jim Donini.”  By Geoff Powter.  Mountaineers Books, Seattle.  ISBN 9781680515374.History/Biography.  Winner.  “Alpine Rising: Sherpas, Baltis, and the Triumph of Local Climbers in the Greater Ranges.”  By Bernadette McDonald.  Mountaineers Books, Seattle.  ISBN 9781680515787.Natural History Literature.  Winner.  “The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth.”  By Zoë Schlanger.  HarperCollins Publisher, New York.  ISBN 9870063073852.Natural History Literature.  Winner.  “With Every Great Breath: New and Selected Essays 1995-2023.”  By Rick Bass.  Counterpoint, Berkeley, CA.  ISBN 9781640096301.Design and Artistic Merit.  Winner. “The Colorado River: Chasing Water.”  By Pete McBride.  Rizzoli, New York.  ISBN 9780847899746.Classic. Winner.  “Minus 148: First Winter Ascent of Mount McKinley.”  By Art Davidson.  Mountaineers Books, Seattle.  ISBN  9781594857553.Nature and the Environment.  Winner.  “The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession.”  By Amy Stewart.  Random House, New York.  ISBN 9780593446850.Children’s Category.  Winner.  “Kids Field Guide to Birds.”  By Daisy Yuhas.  Cool Springs Press, Beverly, MA.  ISBN 9780760385616.Children’s Category.  Silver Medalist.  “Let’s Learn to Fish, Everything You Need to Know to Start Freshwater Fishing.”  By Dan Armitage.  Storey Publishing, North Adams, MA.  ISBN 9781635865820.Nature Guides.  Winner.  “Connecticut River:  From New Hampshire to Long Island Sound.”  By Patrick J. Lynch.  Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.  ISBN 9780300264203.Outdoor Adventure Guides.  Winner.  “The Avalanche Factor: Understanding and Avoiding Avalanches.”  By Joe Stock.  Stock Alpine LLC, Anchorage, AK.  ISBN  9798218142254Outdoor Adventure Guides.  Winner.  “A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range.”  By Renny Jackson and Leigh N Ortenburger.  Photographs by Greg Winston.  Mountaineers Books, Seattle.  ISBN 9781680511970.

Ayelet Tsabari’s latest book, Songs for the Brokenhearted, is the novel she was always meant to write

Open this photo in gallery:Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel and moved to Vancouver when she was 25. She began early work on Songs for the Brokenhearted during her master’s degree of fine arts in creative writing at the University of Guelph.Elsin Davidi/SuppliedSongs for the Brokenhearted is the novel Ayelet Tsabari was born to write. Inspired by her own Yemeni Jewish background, Tsabari – who is Israeli-Canadian – has created a multigenerational love story set around events that shaped Israel’s history: in 1950, during the immediate aftermath of the founding of the State of Israel; and 1995, when the Oslo Accords brought about hope for peace in the Middle East – and then the death of that hope, with the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.It is a book about othering and identity, about personal loss amid political turmoil, with universal themes in a very specific slice of Israeli history. It is a great Yemeni novel, heavily researched over 15 years – exposing the racism her people have experienced in Israel. As the novel explains, “Yemini” in its female form became synonymous with the word “maid.”Books we’re reading and loving in NovemberHer third book and first novel is intended to be a love story for the author’s community, especially the women. “It feels like my life’s work,” says Tsabari, noting at 51, she may be too young to say that. “But it does feel like that.”Timing, however, can be everything in publishing. Putting a novel like this out into the world as war rages in Gaza, killing tens of thousands, and Israel has become a pariah – in cultural circles too – can have consequences. Even a book that is critical of Israel – and it is – can get short shrift in a moment that has many in the literary community shunning the country as a whole – not just its government – including its culture. More than 1,000 writers and others including Sally Rooney, Rachel Kushner and Canadians Rupi Kaur, Miriam Toews and Dionne Brand have signed a letter pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions that “are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.”Open this photo in gallery:Songs for the Brokenhearted is a sweeping novel told from three perspectives, set around events that shaped Israel’s history.SuppliedTsabari notes that she was invited to only one writers’ festival this year – Vancouver’s, where we spoke – and that media coverage has been sparse. The book has received less attention than her debut collection of short stories, even after the kudos and awards for that book and her second, the memoir The Art of Leaving.“It’s not great and it’s disappointing. There were certain expectations for writing a book that is, like I said, my life’s work, and a book the publishers really thought would go places. I actually apologized to my editor the other day and she’s like, please don’t apologize for world events,” she told me.“It is disappointing to write something you worked on for years and had hoped … it would be received more widely. But there’s also perspective,” she continues. “Some people have lost everything. And children continue to die in Gaza. And the hostages are still there, including girls that are 18, 19. And babies.”She knows she can’t definitively attribute the lack of attention and invitations to the political situation and the fact she was born in Israel and lives there, but it’s an easy conclusion to arrive at.As for the boycott calls, Tsabari says she understands the thinking – and has herself avoided products from the settlements – but struggles to understand how a cultural boycott benefits anyone. It hurts Israeli authors, many of whom are fighting for change, and Israeli readers, who need global perspectives more than ever.“My sense is that silencing writers is always counterproductive.”Songs for the Brokenhearted deserves attention. It is a sweeping novel told from three perspectives. Its central character is Zohara, a Yemeni woman in her 20s who returns to Israel in 1995 after a death in the family. In the same timeline, her nephew Yoni, also grieving, becomes targeted by the Israeli far right and radicalized. In 1950, at an immigrant camp, Yaqub, a Yemeni immigrant, falls in love with a singing woman. But the woman, also Yemeni, is married.It is one of the crowded immigrant transit camps where thousands of Yemeni Jews lived in terrible conditions at the time. The chaos was such that there were allegations that babies were abducted from the camp and given to Ashkenazi couples – Eastern European Jews, often Holocaust survivors who were unable to conceive. The parents were told that their children had died. This is known in Israel as the Yemenite Children Affair.“The way they were told of their children’s death was often very callous. Just like: ‘You’ll have other kids, you’re still young.’ It was a real dehumanization,” says Tsabari. In the novel, the disappearances are compared to Canada’s Sixties Scoop targeting Indigenous children.In Israel, there were inquiries, which dismissed the allegations. But younger generations are doing detective work of their own. “Most people will never know, but obviously there has been a terrible injustice that happened to these families because they were not shown bodies, they were not shown graves,” she says.There’s a story from her own family: an aunt whose parents were told that she had died after she had been taken to the hospital for a common cold. “Her father would not hear of it. He just tore the hospital down and found her,” Tsabari explains.It’s one of the echoes from her own life that appears in the novel – although it is not autobiographical. Her grandmother was a polygamous second wife; in the acknowledgments, she thanks her for demonstrating “what feminism could look like in a traditional, patriarchal society.” Tsabari also sings traditional Yemeni songs, like the women in the book.Zohara, the novel’s central character, joins the army feeling enthusiastic and patriotic, but loses her zeal and develops strong political views, in part as she awakens to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.A friend recalls playing as a child on the ruins adjacent to her elementary school; nobody told the children that it had been an Arabic village. Zohara reads an essay, “Reflections of an Arab Jew,” which contributes to her awakening.The book captures the hopefulness of the Oslo Accords, when the characters feel there is finally a chance for peace. And then, the dissolution of that, the disillusion. “This country is finished,” someone says in the wake of Rabin’s assassination.Tsabari herself was an ethicist from a young age, she says, and attended left-wing protests from the age of 17. “It was a slow thing that happened over time. But the idea that the occupation was wrong, I think that was very early for me.”She hated being in the army, which is mandatory in Israel, where she had an office job. “I was a miserable soldier.”The novel is not starry eyed about the founding of her country. “Our textbooks described that time as this magical coming together of Jews from around the world, skipped over the hardships, the hunger, the losses, the discrimination,” she writes. “And of course, there was little mention of the Palestinian tragedy. The Arabs, the story went, fled en masse. A sad but uncomplicated history, palatable for children.”The author has received some backlash in the past for airing dirty laundry when Israel has enough reputational problems of its own. She has been called a self-hating Jew; accused of selling her soul, her Israeli identity, for fame.Tsabari was born in Israel and moved to Vancouver when she was 25. Here, she formed attachments with Arab friends, leading to her own reawakening of identity.After 11 years in Vancouver, where she attended the Writers’ Studio at Simon Fraser University, she relocated to Toronto, and did her master’s degree of fine arts in creative writing at the University of Guelph. There, she began early work on Songs for the Brokenhearted. In 2019, Tsabari moved back to Israel to be closer to her family. She writes in English and teaches at Nova Scotia’s University of King’s College MFA program in creative non-fiction.On her arm she has tattooed a line of poetry written by her father, in his original handwriting. “I’ll join forgotten words into verse, unravel the tangle.” She got the tattoo to mark her 50th birthday.Since the Oct. 7 attacks and the war in Gaza, Tsabari is brokenhearted for her own country and feels shunned by some in her larger community. Why have writer friends blocked or unfriended her? “I’ve always been critical of Israel, but I’m not anti-Israel. And I’m pro-Palestinian. And the pain that I feel about my country, what’s happening in Israel, is immense.” She is devastated by the deaths in Gaza, and doesn’t think the war makes her safer.“I am still traumatized. And I’m dealing with a traumatized child.” Her daughter is 11.She shows me an app on her phone, with shelling alerts in northern Israel one hour earlier, two hours, four hours, five hours. “This is what life has been in the north since October 8.”Wanting to help, Tsabari volunteered to work on homes at a kibbutz that was attacked on Oct. 7, 2023. “We clean whatever we can, we fix whatever we can – like broken glass, bullet holes everywhere.” Working in a child’s bedroom, her friend worried: How to clean the Lego sets, pieced together, without destroying them?Tsabari feels there is an expectation that she cannot write with love about her homeland, even if it’s a country she has plenty of criticism for – which is apparent in the novel. That she’s not entitled to that love.“Can’t I be on the side of humanity? And can’t I grieve for what happened to my people?”