poetry

Ada Twist, Scientist – Andrea Beaty (author), David Roberts (illustrator)

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Ada Twist CoverFirst Published: 6th September, 2016
Genre: Children’s Contemporary Fiction / Picture Book
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

Ada Marie Twist loves to explore things and ask questions. It might just be that she’s a scientist.

The story is in rhyming verse and broadly splits into two parts. The opening has Ada as a baby growing up. Her family notice that she loves to explore things, along with the chaos this causes. Once she starts talking, she has endless questions about the world. This introduces the general idea of the things that make a good scientist.

I liked that Ada doesn’t speak until she’s a toddler. Children don’t follow an exact timeline of development, and it’s treated as something to not worry about. However, the text does assume she will speak eventually. This could hit the wrong way for children who are non-verbal, in presenting speech as something that will happen for everyone.

This thread wouldn’t have sustained the whole book, but it then switches to the second part. Ada notices a really terrible smell, and decides to investigate what’s causing it. She doesn’t find the solution, but the evidence is there in the pictures and the answer can be guessed. This shows science doesn’t have all the answers and encourages readers to come up with the answer. However, it does mean the plot trails off rather than having a firm resolution. This may not work for some readers.

The artwork is done with watercolour, pen and ink. Graph paper and pencil elements are used for the backgrounds. The characters have great expressions. I especially like Ada’s sibling, who is often shown pointing at Ada when she’s made a mess.

This book is in a series of similar books about children with science and technology interests. There’s some reference to that, as they all go to the same school, but it isn’t needed to read the others before this one. It is very clear that it’s an American school, as Ada’s class is referred to by grade, so it could cause some confusion for children in other countries.

My biggest reservation happens outside the story, because there is an author’s note at the end. Ada’s namesakes are introduced: Ada Lovelace and Marie Curie. There’s also a comment that women have always been involved in science. This is true, but the book shows Ada as a black girl. The two named examples are not. I’d have liked to see at least one black woman named, even if she wasn’t Ada’s namesake. The obstacles Ada (and readers like her) will face are not only going to be about gender.

In general, I thought it was a cute book with a positive message about young girls interested in science. The way the plot ends is likely to work for some readers and not for others, so that’s worth keeping in mind. The family cat does face some peril at points in the story, but it’s stopped before the cat comes to any harm.

Spelling the Hours – Rose Lemberg (editor)

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Spelling the Hours CoverFull Title: Spelling the Hours: Poetry Celebrating the Forgotten Others of Science and Technology
First Published: 18th July, 2016
Genre: Science Poetry / Poetry Collection
Poets: Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas; Mary Alexandra Agner; Michele Bannister; Lisa M. Bradley; Sofia Samatar; Sonya Taaffe; Bogi Takács; A.J. Odasso; Lev Mirov; Mari Ness; na’amen
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

This poetry collection contains twelve poems about marginalised people in science and technology. Each poem also has notes about the scientists featured in the poem, to provide some context.

“noble, nobel” (na’amen) and “Augur Effect” (A.J. Odasso) are an interesting contrast, as they cover the same three women (Lise Meiter, Chien-Shiung Wu and Jocelyn Bell Burnell). The former poem is longer and considers the specific work of each involved. I liked the shifting rhythms as it goes from areas with short lines to longer passages. The latter poem takes a more personal approach, linking the poet’s overlooked contributions to those of others, and how the poet was also part of erasing the names (however unknowingly) when writing about science. I do like that both poems were included, rather than trying to stick to one poem per scientist, as they provide very different approaches.

My favourite poem was “Madrepore” (Mari Ness). Aquarium ecology interests me as a fishkeeper, but I also liked the connections back and forth between Anna Thynne’s work and her family. Science doesn’t happen in isolation from the rest of life.

Another strong poem was “Never Cease” (Bogi Takács), which focuses on Rózsa Péter. This also handles how science interacts with life, but on a wider political scale. Rózsa was barred from her profession due to being Jewish. This is a bilingual poem in English and Hungarian.

One of the most interesting structures was “Girl Hours” (Sofia Samatar), as it’s like a scientific report in reverse. This one doesn’t have addition notes at the end, as the notes come first as part of the poem. It wasn’t my favourite in the collection, but I did like the choice of arrangement.

Some of the poems focus on named individuals. Other poems focus on anonymous contributions, such as the women employed as computers and the Nahua artists who illustrated the Florentine Codex. People included as central figures in the poems are Alan Turing, Christopher Morcom, Priscilla Fairfield Bok, Bart Bok, Anna Thynne, Agnes Pockels, Paris Pişmiş, Lise Meiter, Chien-Shiung Wu, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, James Barry, Axiothea of Phlios, Rózsa Péter and Henrietta Swan Leavitt. The cover features Mary Alice McWhinnie.

The introduction by editor Rose Lemberg comments that the poets tended to write about people they already knew about, and had some meaning for them, rather than finding out about the people they didn’t know. This did produce a range of responses, though I’d also be interested in who we might find by wandering in search of stories we didn’t know existed. An area that didn’t surface in the poems, despite some set during older history, were the accomplishments outside Europe before the impact of colonialism.

It’s a strong collection which will appeal to those who enjoy poetry with scientific themes. It delivered on its promise of highlighting marginalised people in science and technology, including a few who were new to me.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

Sea Foam and Silence – Lynn E. O’Connacht

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Sea Foam CoverFirst Published: 9th June, 2016
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy / Verse Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

A little mermaid watches the tall-crabs and starts to think they might be people too, but heading to land to find out will come with a cost.

This is a retelling of The Little Mermaid written in free verse. It’s hard to judge length with long poetry, but the book is around novel length. Fewer words on each page means it’s a relatively quick read.

The mermaid is set the deadline of a year to find love or be turned into sea foam. There are three main sections, with the first covering her life at sea, the second the time up to the deadline, and the third the time after. I liked that it didn’t only focus on the time on land looking for love. It allowed the contrast between life as a mermaid and life on land to be clear, as well as considering new challenges once the initial situation is resolved.

The mermaids were distinctly mermaids, rather than feeling like the author wanted to write humans with a few references to having a tail (which is unfortunately what too many mermaid stories end up doing). They live in a group of sisters, though it’s noted some become fathers during mating time. Among mermaid culture, it’s not considered odd that some don’t take direct part in mating. It’s only on encountering human culture that things start to get complicated, with human concepts of love, marriage and gender. Hunting humans for food is a stable part of their lives, which the little mermaid starts to challenge, but it isn’t portrayed in a binary good and evil way. The same goes for the witch who makes the bargain that gives the mermaid legs. The witch obviously has an agenda of some sort, but what that might be is ambiguous. It’s not a story with a villain, but one that deals with the more everyday difficulties of finding a place in the world.

The goal of finding love is difficult as the mermaid is confused about what that means. There are conflicting messages between all love being love and romantic love being the only one that counts. The narrative falls on the side of love being love in any form. There are also differences between human cultures in how things are viewed, rather than making this only a mermaid versus human issue.

Though it’s clear that the mermaid is asexual, I was less certain about how she viewed romantic attraction. It’s debatable where she falls on the romantic / demiromantic /grey-romantic lines, but she did appear to only potentially consider people that way after knowing them. There is also an aromantic asexual character and a lesbian, along with a polyamorous queerplatonic relationship being shown.

Every step she takes on land causes pain, so she has a fantastical chronic pain condition. At first, this means it’s difficult to walk, but she slowly adapts to the pain. It was good that there’s no magic cure here, though I would have liked to see her having bad pain days when she couldn’t do everything she wants to do. It’s not that it’s unrealistic to adapt to a certain level of pain or to find some things distract from the pain, but even the best pain management scheme will have times when it doesn’t work out.

She is mute and learns sign language to communicate. There’s one instance where someone expresses frustration at her not being able to speak verbally. This is in part because her early sign language is fairly crude and that makes communication difficult, but it’s still a moment I found jarring. I did generally like the sign language though, as well as the use of emoticons in places to convey facial expressions.

There’s a reference to people having different skin tones, but the main characters appear to be white. The mermaid doesn’t have much of a concept of race, so most descriptions are vague.

This is an enjoyable book with a focus on the issues of finding a place to belong. The free verse style works well to portray how the mermaid thinks and her confusion as she tries to figure things out. The chronic pain aspect is where I think it could have used a bit more exploration. The asexual and aromantic aspects were the strongest. Overall, this is worth a read for anyone who loves mermaids and verse novels.

Poem in GUD Magazine

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GUD Issue 7 CoverI have a poem in the new issue of GUD (Greatest Uncommon Denominator) Magazine. It’s called “Monkey Bait”, and is inspired by the story of how the jellyfish lost its bones.

This is an odd announcement for me, as I stopped writing poetry years ago. There were a lot of delays with the magazine, which is why this poem is surfacing now. Some might recognise that it was also in my collection, as the exclusivity part of the contract with GUD was waived some time back.

I’ve always liked poetry, but never really in the way the current market likes poetry. I like writing poems about ideas I find neat. They might be serious sometimes, but they’re not linked to serious issues in the real world. Neat idea poetry tends to get flatly rejected (sometimes with strained “this isn’t the direction we’re going in” messages). So there’s always that pressure to be more meaningful and make it relate somehow to a real world issue, even if it’s a poem about robots.

Added to that, poems don’t have space to clarify what they’re about. That’s much more of an issue when it is about a real world thing. It’s more likely to hurt someone, which is exactly what happened when I tried to write poetry that was better suited to the market. That poem was a science fiction scenario with some things based on my own experiences, but there wasn’t really space to make that clear, so that wasn’t how the poem was taken.

That “Monkey Bait” is my last published one is fitting in a way, as it wasn’t a market-pleaser. There isn’t a hidden metaphor here for anything else. Just a different take on the theme of the original tale. I won’t say I’ll never write another poem, but it’s not something I have plans to do. In the meantime, I hope GUD readers enjoy my take on the story.

If I Had a Gryphon – Vikki VanSickle (author), Cale Atkinson (illustrator)

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If I Had a Gryphon CoverFirst Published: 9th February, 2016
Genre: Children’s Fantasy / Picture Book
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

When a girl gets a new pet hamster, she finds him boring. Instead, she wishes for various mythical creatures as pets… but all pets come with downsides.

This is a cute story told in rhymes. The pets considered include a dragon, gryphon, kirin and kraken. Their downsides are shown in a real world context, like the hippogriff scaring everyone at the dog park, and the unicorn hiding under the bed. The artwork is colourful and funny, helping to bring to life the problems with each pet. The story is bound to appeal to young fantasy lovers (and people with pet hamsters).

Also notable is the protagonist is a non-white girl who wears glasses. It’s nice to see a wider range of children getting to have adventures.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]