Dread Detention (juvenile chiller)

"There aren't many many worse things than being in school, but being in school on a Saturday is one of them."

     Angelo, narrator of Jennifer Killick's Dread Detention, has no clue how horrific this Saturday detention is going to get. Breakfast Club meets Goosebumps in this truly Stine worthy chiller for younger readers.

     The four rule breakers who have been commanded to attend a Saturday Back on Track session (a consequence, not a punishment) are not exactly compatible companions. Angelo is disengaged, attending classes only often enough to keep the school from calling home. Even with his parents working all the time, needing him to care for his brother, the family is destitute. With college not an option, why bother? Naira, on the other hand, is a perfectionist over achiever willing to do whatever it takes to achieve her goals. Impulsive Gus, who seems immune to larger society's rules, is "unpredictable as a dog in a field of squirrels. Like walking chaos." Hallie is an angry social justice activist "There are unauthorized pins on her sweatshirt declaring her pride in being vegetarian, an LGBTQ+ ally, and a welcomer of refugees."

     Things quickly go downhill. Just as the supervising teacher has zipped their phones into his fanny pack they hear a scream. Looking for it's source, they discover that one of the five school pigs is missing. It's not long before Mr. C. is also missing. The groundskeeper's wife is doing bizarre things to a chicken while humming The Itsy Bitsy Spider. 

     And when they see Mr. C. He's being dragged underground by an malevolent unseen being. 

     So now our protagonists are locked on the campus with malevolent beings seen and unseen seemingly hunting them, no access to a phone to call for help, and nobody likely to miss them for hours. It will take real cooperation for them to get out alive...

     ...But given their personalities, not so likely to happen.  

     R. L. Stine fans of all ages will relish Dread Detention. 

On a purrrsonal note, last night was Black Bear Mutual Aid Fund's monthly cook & clean at the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter. Taylor is always the head chef and planner. He has the ability to create beautiful wholesome meals out of inexpensive ingredients. He plans for these meals with the same care he would plan a family reunion. These meals not only fill bellies, but affirm worth and dignity. I was unhoused for a short time in my much younger years. The only thing the shelter served up was a bologna sandwich on white bread and a cup of coffee. Yes, even for breakfast. Anyway last night we served up a pasta and veggies Alfredo 😋 entree and apple crisp from scratch. People's faces really lit up when they saw the dessert. Today we're in the calm before the storm. We've been warned that we are about to be slammed by an epic blizzard. UMaine is shutting down at 11:00. I'm staying home in my pajamas with precious Tobago. 

A great big shout out goes out to Taylor (whom I wish I could get elected president) and my BBMAF family (who would make a Great Supreme Court).

Jules Hathaway 

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Winter carnival

The horses were very gentle. They seemed to enjoy the attention. 

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Winter carnival

The horse drawn wagon was the big hit of winter carnival. It was so much fun! 

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The Nantucket Inn (adult fiction)

     Pamela Kelley's The Nantucket Inn is the third and last of the books I won in the summer reading challenge. Like the others it's one I never would have picked on my own but really enjoyed. Those sneaky librarians--always trying to expand our reading genres. Don't tell them this--but it worked. I'm still much more interested in YA fiction. But I won't be as quick to skip over adult offerings. 

     Lisa, Kelley's protagonist, is experiencing a life crisis of the worst kind. 

     "They'd been married for just over thirty-three years when Brian learned he had stage four colon cancer. Six months later, he was gone. That was almost a year and a half ago and when she'd finally been able to push aside her grief long enough to look at the bills, she'd been shocked at the state of their account."

     It turns out that Brian's gambling addiction was much worse than anyone knew. Before his death he stopped paying insurance premiums and drained the retirement savings account. There's very little in the savings account. Lisa lacks the job experience and skills to land anything that would pay enough to stay in Nantucket. She's reluctantly deciding to move off island...

     ...until a friend suggests that she turn her beautiful seaside home into a B & B. Her carpenter son, Chase, is willing to do the necessary renovations...

     ...only Lisa doesn't know the first thing about creating and running a B & B--not even if her neighborhood is zoned to allow one...

     ...Meanwhile her three daughters are experiencing crises of their own. Kate, a Boston based writer and the only one to leave the island, returns home after getting fired and catching her fiance in their bed with another woman the same day. Kristen, Kate's twin, kicks out her lover when she realizes he is not going to divorce his wife. And Abby, the youngest, leaves her workaholic husband, only to discover that she's pregnant with the baby they had tried so hard to conceive. 

     Although The Nantucket Inn is a good read as a stand alone, this slightly older book is the first in a series. The newer books will be real treats for fans of the Hodges family who want to know what happens next.

On a purrrsonal note, we've had yet another snow ❄️ storm. Eugene was called out to plow about midnight. He's still out there. It could have been worse. If it had hit earlier it could have really messed up the UMaine Winter Carnival, one of the BIG events of the semester. I'm sure I'm not the only one who breathed a sigh of relief at the optimal weather. My favorite part was riding around in a wagon drawn by two fine horses. There were also bumper cars, bonfires, and so much more. The free shirts were the 🐈's pajamas. I was paparazzi for that and a healthy snacks 😋 indoor event. Catherine gave me a ride home. We finally dropped off the huge card for the bus drivers. The guy we handed it to loved and said the drivers will too. Just goes to show how special Operation Valentine is. 

A great big shout out goes out to winter carnival participants, Eugene and the other blizzard battlers, and the Bangor area's awesome bus 🚌 drivers. 

Jules Hathaway 

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Archie

This handsome feline fellow is Katie and Jacob's rescue ❤️ 🐈. He's every bit as sweet natured and loveable as he is handsome. Also very smart. He has very thick soft fur. And he's the star of a modern day love ❤️ story. When he was in a shelter down south he got shipped to Maine to ease the overcrowding. There he got adopted by my younger daughter and her boyfriend. He's been living his best life ever since. There are a lot of loveable companion animals like precious Archie and my sweet Tobago in shelters all across this nation. Could one of them be your purrrfect new best friend?

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A Danger To The Minds Of Young Girls (adult nonfiction)

     "Our youth are in danger...Vile books and papers are branding-irons heated in the fires of hell, and used by Satan to sear the highest life of the soul. " Anthony Comstock. 

    It is very fitting that Adam Morgan's A Danger To The Minds Of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, And The Fight To Modernize Literature was published in 2025. Although about a century separate the events Morgan wrote about and today it seems sadly that in some ways not all that much has changed. 

     "Margaret Caroline Anderson wasn't proud of her origin story. 'I came from nowhere, out of nothing, into nothing,' she liked to think, as if she had sprouted--full-grown and motherless--from the forehead of Zeus like Athena. In reality, Margaret was born on November 24, 1886, in a city she would resent for the rest of her life." 

     Anderson was a rebel from the start. She was constantly locking horns with her proper bourgeois middle class housewife mother who was trying to raise her three daughters to follow in her footsteps. She found an escape in reading. As soon as she could she escaped to Chicago where she pursued a colorful and unconventional lifestyle...

     ...and started a magazine, the Little Review, which would bring her into escalating conflict with the patriarchy and its tools...

     ...in the form of the New York Society for Suppression of Vice, founded by Anthony Comstock who passed on the torch [literally--the bros were into book burning] to Anderson's nemesis, John Saxton Sumner...

     ...who would put her on trial in 1921--portraying her as a danger to the minds of young girls--for her serial publication of James Joyce's Ulysses. 

     Morgan brings the time, the players, and the events and issues vividly to life. A Danger To The Minds Of Young Girls is an excellent read for feminist scholars and for those like myself who see chilling echoes of this not too distant past in today's wave of censorship purportedly to protect the minds and psyches of young white children. 

On a purrrsonal note, today in an online newsletter I was reading about people being arrested and being put in solitary confinement for being in possession of writings considered dangerous by those in power. Despite our nation's enshrinement of free speech, its history is riddled with periods of censorship, and not just in wartime. While the 1920s are popularly seen as the era of flappers, bootleg gin, speakeasies, and gangsters, the bigger picture was one of widespread fundamentalism, white supremecy (the KKK went mainstream), and massive censorship. It was followed by the McCarthy Era when people were encouraged to spy on each other and possessing the wrong reading matter ruined careers and lives. In this century following 9/11 we had the government trying to get librarians to turn over patron reading lists. Given the current political climate I'm pretty sure that our rights to write and read what we want and need are in increasing jeopardy. We can't just take them for granted. 

A great big shout out goes out to our courageous librarians who refused to turn over those reading lists. In large and small ways they defend our rights to read controversial books even as they are targeted by  book censors, banners, and burners. We owe them our loyalty, support, and heart felt gratitude. 

Jules Hathaway 

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Snow ❄️ Girl

Well I can put her out on the next porch to brighten things up until the next storm. 

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