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I loved the funeral. "Sesame Street" was the perfect music to play. I wish that there was some way that Kate could help Teri, but she really needs too much help herself for that to be very likely. Both girls need serious help and I have no idea where or how they are going to get it. I'm worried about the characters in this book. I have no idea how this could possibly turn out well. I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

The essay on Hans Christian Andersen was interesting, but Lurie's reading of "The Little Mermaid" bothered me. She sees the Disney version with an unhappy ending when there is really much more there. The key part of the story that she (and numerous others) seems to have missed is that the little sea maid's real goal is not the love of a prince at all. In fact, the story never even says that she is in love with him. The real goal she has in mind when she trades in her voice and fins for legs and pain is an immortal soul (which mer-people don't have). She wants the prince's heart only because her only way of achieving a soul (as far as we know at this point in the story) is to be married to a human and thus become one. The story has little to do with love from the mermaid's standpoint. It could be argued that the story shows how cruel powerful people can be by having the prince keep the mermaid as a pretty pet, but deny her the one thing that she doesn't have (and he does have), the one thing that matters, a soul. The story isn't about acquiring temporary happiness on Earth (and all earthly happiness is necessarily temporary), but eternal happiness in Heaven. From a certain point of view (ostensibly the one every good Christian should have), giving up comfort and expression for pain and relative obscurity is a reasonable thing to do if your reward for doing so is a chance at eternal happiness in Heaven with God if before making the trade you had no such chance at all. I can't say the religious element of the story ever really spoke to me, but I can certainly see the logic and beauty in it. I can certainly admire it - such a bargain takes serious courage and dedication. I love the story for it's complexity and the very fact that it is not a love story like most princess tales are. There's a lot more going on and I greatly admire that. Love doesn't always have to be an end onto itself, sometimes it's merely a small piece of a much more precious whole. And I will always find inspiration in the mermaid for giving up everything not for the love of a man, but for herself. It's a very powerful and even feminist idea.

I'm not sure what to make of Teri following Kate around at school all day (after insisting that they go in the first place). Obviously she's grieving, but where does wandering around after Kate at school fall in the stages of grief? Denial maybe? Probably not, it's too out of the ordinary for her. And what about Kate's grieving? And Mitch? How does one even begin to cope with something like that? The whole thing is completely heartbreaking. And Teri's life has already been more than difficult enough, this is horrible to contemplate. How could you ever deal with everything that she has dealt with and is dealing with? I can't even imagine how that would feel! And what happens next? Where do you go from there? Is there anywhere to go? There must be. People do survive things like this. How? How can anyone survive an experience like that? It's mind-boggling.

I like the author of this book so far. She is amusing and interesting, tending to pull out slightly unusual examples rather than relying entirely on the obvious ones. I am curious to read the essays, particularly the Oz one, since I believe that I was at the Oz convention that she attended and am interested in what she has to say. Perhaps if this book is particularly good I will pick up her previous book on children's literature.

Why when something unimaginably horrible happens in a book do I always see it coming? It's bad enough to see the train crash, but it's worse when you know beforehand that it's going to crash. Somehow this is so much worse than the horrible things in most books. Mikey was so sweet. Too sweet, really. Damn, damn, damn! I need to read something fluffy and happy after this! Damn it!

Spufford did a wonderful job of discussing the teenage fascination with genre fiction (and usually the worst as well as the best members of whatever category is favored), of which he focused on Science Fiction. He also discussed quite interestingly the academic fascination with metafiction that many college aged people go through and the ambivalent relationship many have with literary (as opposed to pictographic) porn.

I found this book both interesting and satisfying. I could completely identify with many aspects of what he said, but also found parts to be completely different from my experiences. I very much enjoyed the entire experience.

At least Mikey seems to be helping Kate cope for the moment. He provides some much needed humor in the book and gives Kate something else to focus on. Betty, the crazy neighbor who believes that Jesus lives in her television set and talks to her is the other constant source of humor. I'm glad the humor is there because it breaks the dark misery of the rest of the book a bit.

The political and social discussions framed within this book are fascinating. I love how humorous it is too. I don't think I'm likely to ever read another scholarly work again where the "why can't Superman and Lois Lane have sex" joke is referenced. Spufford's childhood ideas about America are incredibly funny and vastly amusing. I just love how funny and entertaining this book is!

Teri is an odd character. She's rough and sharp, but also tender with her little brother and angry on behalf of her mom. She's interesting. In many ways she is very much like numerous other teen-lit secondary characters (I can't think of any main characters like her though), but she is definitely not a stereotype-made-flesh like most such characters are. It's especially hard to figure her out given that we only get to see her through Kate's very biased and preoccupied eyes. Hopefully we will get to know her better as the book continues, but I don't want to count on it.

It was incredibly powerful for me reading about Spufford's experiences with Narnia because I completely identified with them. The magic of Narnia was always powerfully seductive to me. The Narnia books weren't always my favourite books (nine times out of ten I would have said Prydain was), but Lucy has always been my favourite character in all of literature and the one that I most identified with. I'm not sure that Lucy was really any more like me than any number of other literary characters were, but I always identified with her anyway. The interesting thing is that I still do - both with her as a child pushing through the fur coats into the snowy forest and as a vibrant grown-up woman heading a troupe of archers into battle, bow at the ready. Just thinking about it makes me want to run out to the living room and dive into Narnia again! As much as I adore Eilonwy and Dorothy and Trot, none of them are anywhere near what Lucy is to me, even if their worlds are sometimes more vibrant in my imagination.

I loved Spufford's mention of word pronunciations - I have a number of words like that!

Wow, this book is just one this after another! And Kate is painfully underequiped to deal with any of it at the moment. It would be kind of interesting to hear what some of the other characters have to say about what's going on, but that would dramatically alter the power of the book. Anderson uses point of view incredibly well. I've been very impressed with that in both this book and Speak.

This is such an interesting, thought provoking book. Spufford discusses language and stories in terms of Piaget and Bettelheim as well as through his own memories. He has clearly done thorough research for this book, but just as clearly failed to be wooed to one school of thought or another. Every discussion, not matter how theoretical or intellectual, is brought at one point or another to a very real personal level for the author himself. This means that we hear what Spufford himself felt on reading "Bluebeard" as well as how Bettelheim read it. The result is a fascinating tour of the world of child psychology and fiction with a deeply personal twist.

I'm totally envious of Spufford's experience looking for Piglet in the woods as a child! I hope that I can provide my children with magical experiences like that!

Kate just met the protagonist from Speak. It was cute. I don't really know how to feel about Kate's predicament. I mean, not applying to any "safety" schools was kind of dumb, but while under pressure like that would failure with a fallback plan have really been any better than failure without one? Either way she was going to beat herself up and be absolutely miserable. I guess that I'm inclined to sympathize with her. The whole situation really sucks and no back-up plan could have made it any better.

This book is incredibly enjoyable to read thus far. It is part memoir and part literary analysis. I love the way that Spufford describes the act and result of reading. Of particular interest is his evocative description of reading as a silent, complicated and very personal type of data transfer. The image of someone holding a sensitive microphone up to the head of a reader to attempt to hear the data actually being transferred and processed into memory is just so delightfully silly that it's hard to resist! I really like that he gets how important reading can be, especially to a child. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this book.

Kate is most definitely not handling things well. The strange pulled muscle is the first problem. Obsessing about silly things is another. Getting lost during the running match is certainly not a good sign. I really wonder how things are going to turn out for her. Waiting is not good, but it's even worse if you obsess and let it take over your life like Kate is clearly doing.

Tannen's afterward was interesting. Not only did she clarify and amend some of what she had said in the book, but she also addressed some of her own frustrations with responses to the book that she received. I found her response to the question "do these patterns arise through nature or nurture?" particularly interesting. It is a popular question and most of the people who ask the question believe that they already know the answer. Tannen's response is that it doesn't matter. What matters is that we see that patterns and work to understand them. Where they come from is irrelevant. What matters is that they exist.

The images in this book are really evocative. I just love the way that Anderson uses language. There's almost something magical about it. You don't just see what happens, you also feel the tension and the emotional impact of what's going on. Even little things, like Kate's opinion of glazed donuts, are great and add a lot to the experience of the book.

Tannen is right that people need to work to understand each other better, but that is much easier said than done. Most people believe that their way is the obvious, natural way but I am increasingly convinced that there is no such thing. I do think that a better understanding of other ways would help a lot.

Kate is an interesting character. She is scarily efficient. I find her atheism and beliefs interesting, especially given that her father is a minister. She says that she is allergic to "the G-word", but has discussed religion and explained her beliefs more clearly in just a few chapters than most teenage book characters ever do. She is very practical and quite attentive to what needs doing, but she clearly isn't taking care of herself very well. I wonder about the chest pain - that really isn't good.