Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature. (And the book too!)
Guess it only works if you know there IS a book of that name, and furthermore, that I've just read it and loved it, despite the shameless willingness to use the title for my own self-centred purposes...
So. Older Daughter moved out on Tuesday, and in keeping with Ode* family traditions, we had one minor crisis after another (including dying computers eating her latest story-in-progress, usual agent/landlord nonsense, dead phone (mine) eating increasingly desperate texts from her and serious glitches getting money to the landlord) before she went. All eventually sorted and I would so have made it through her getting into the taxi without crying had she not got sad first. All right, admittedly she FIRST said 'I'm going to miss Bell so much - I'm not sure I want to go now!' (Bell being our hound, for newer readers - userpic in honour of this moment). But I could have lost it much worse, and was well touched by getting a text from her en route saying 'I love ya! So many emotions vying for precedence!' Never let Them convince you that mobile phones have left all Young People unable to write anything other than textese... And I've been to visit already, and that was fun, and they're all happy and I'm sure that the landlord will get heat in soon. Even though the house is to be razed in May...
So again. I must be evolving into a higher life-form, right? The kind of life-form that has pretty much handled one of life's challenging struggles. And handled it okay, on the whole.
With that anything-but-neat segue, I come to Robin Brande's book. Finally.
Behind a cut for the sake of anyone who's automatically uninterested in a YA novel about a girl brought up in a fundamentalist Christian family/Church struggling to find her own beliefs - about evolution, obviously, but also about what Christianity means to her. But you'll miss a wonderful book which treats this with subtlety, humour and intelligence.
I heard about this first when I'd just finished the 48 Hour Reading Challenge, and Bill (AKA FatherReader) reviewed it in such a way that I knew I was going to like it too. And was well annoyed at having to wait for it to be available to the non-favoured many who couldn't get hold of it pre-publication. Sometimes reading blogs seems to be a recipe for pure, undiluted frustration... The review says all I'd want to say about the openness and intelligence with which Brande treats what is for many, a very hot topic indeed.
Quick digression: I grew up quite sheltered, in some ways, as the combination of Anglicanism (mother and church-attendence) and Roman Catholicism (step-father and secondary school specifically plus Ireland up to the mid-70s in general) which saw me right through and beyond undergraduate - left me blithely unaware that anyone saw any possibility of conflict between the theory of evolution and Christianity. Still doesn't happen around here, for what it's worth.
I know the reality of the situation now, of course, but it (evolution) still seems such a preposterous thing to boggle over at this stage of human development that I'd have been a bit afraid a book dealing with the issue from the perspective of a high-school kid who has been rejected by (and ejected from!) her church would almost invariably hold all religious belief up to scorn. But, as Bill made clear in his review, this book doesn't do that. It would be rather sad if the only way to reject the fundamentalist bigotry of some Christians were to reject all Christians as bigoted. But in this book you'll find bigoted and even hate-filled (and certainly hateful) Christians, misguided-but-sincere ones, and open-minded, caring and highly intelligent ones. And you'll see that type of non-religious people too, of course.
To say it's all in subtle shades of grey would give entirely the wrong impression though, as it's anything but! (Unless of course, you like nothing better than a soft, rich grey with lively touches of whatever your other favourite colours might be.) It's certainly not just earnest and sincere preaching of a sane middle ground. It's got good, believable, never one-dimensional characters, one of those teachers who should be cloned and spread world-wide (if cloning were unproblematic itself), humour (yeah, I may have mentioned that before - but it's worth repeating) and real loss, - oh, and the dogs. The puppies! Essence of cute without cutsiness.
If you don't want to try the book, you can check out Robin Brande's blog - a great read. (Be warned though! I've ordered five books - only one available and ordered from the library - from just a few weeks' reading.) (You'll be hearing more about at least one of them shortly, now the Great Migration is mostly accomplished.)
*Younger Daughter invented this from among the many possible initials of her last name and middle name (which is my last name) and stuck it after her first name to create an email address, which I thought both elegant and poetic. So I've gakked it. Thanks C-ode!
So. Older Daughter moved out on Tuesday, and in keeping with Ode* family traditions, we had one minor crisis after another (including dying computers eating her latest story-in-progress, usual agent/landlord nonsense, dead phone (mine) eating increasingly desperate texts from her and serious glitches getting money to the landlord) before she went. All eventually sorted and I would so have made it through her getting into the taxi without crying had she not got sad first. All right, admittedly she FIRST said 'I'm going to miss Bell so much - I'm not sure I want to go now!' (Bell being our hound, for newer readers - userpic in honour of this moment). But I could have lost it much worse, and was well touched by getting a text from her en route saying 'I love ya! So many emotions vying for precedence!' Never let Them convince you that mobile phones have left all Young People unable to write anything other than textese... And I've been to visit already, and that was fun, and they're all happy and I'm sure that the landlord will get heat in soon. Even though the house is to be razed in May...
So again. I must be evolving into a higher life-form, right? The kind of life-form that has pretty much handled one of life's challenging struggles. And handled it okay, on the whole.
With that anything-but-neat segue, I come to Robin Brande's book. Finally.
Behind a cut for the sake of anyone who's automatically uninterested in a YA novel about a girl brought up in a fundamentalist Christian family/Church struggling to find her own beliefs - about evolution, obviously, but also about what Christianity means to her. But you'll miss a wonderful book which treats this with subtlety, humour and intelligence.
I heard about this first when I'd just finished the 48 Hour Reading Challenge, and Bill (AKA FatherReader) reviewed it in such a way that I knew I was going to like it too. And was well annoyed at having to wait for it to be available to the non-favoured many who couldn't get hold of it pre-publication. Sometimes reading blogs seems to be a recipe for pure, undiluted frustration... The review says all I'd want to say about the openness and intelligence with which Brande treats what is for many, a very hot topic indeed.
Quick digression: I grew up quite sheltered, in some ways, as the combination of Anglicanism (mother and church-attendence) and Roman Catholicism (step-father and secondary school specifically plus Ireland up to the mid-70s in general) which saw me right through and beyond undergraduate - left me blithely unaware that anyone saw any possibility of conflict between the theory of evolution and Christianity. Still doesn't happen around here, for what it's worth.
I know the reality of the situation now, of course, but it (evolution) still seems such a preposterous thing to boggle over at this stage of human development that I'd have been a bit afraid a book dealing with the issue from the perspective of a high-school kid who has been rejected by (and ejected from!) her church would almost invariably hold all religious belief up to scorn. But, as Bill made clear in his review, this book doesn't do that. It would be rather sad if the only way to reject the fundamentalist bigotry of some Christians were to reject all Christians as bigoted. But in this book you'll find bigoted and even hate-filled (and certainly hateful) Christians, misguided-but-sincere ones, and open-minded, caring and highly intelligent ones. And you'll see that type of non-religious people too, of course.
To say it's all in subtle shades of grey would give entirely the wrong impression though, as it's anything but! (Unless of course, you like nothing better than a soft, rich grey with lively touches of whatever your other favourite colours might be.) It's certainly not just earnest and sincere preaching of a sane middle ground. It's got good, believable, never one-dimensional characters, one of those teachers who should be cloned and spread world-wide (if cloning were unproblematic itself), humour (yeah, I may have mentioned that before - but it's worth repeating) and real loss, - oh, and the dogs. The puppies! Essence of cute without cutsiness.
If you don't want to try the book, you can check out Robin Brande's blog - a great read. (Be warned though! I've ordered five books - only one available and ordered from the library - from just a few weeks' reading.) (You'll be hearing more about at least one of them shortly, now the Great Migration is mostly accomplished.)
*Younger Daughter invented this from among the many possible initials of her last name and middle name (which is my last name) and stuck it after her first name to create an email address, which I thought both elegant and poetic. So I've gakked it. Thanks C-ode!