Twelve is actually a sequel to the book Eleven (bien sur) which introduces us to Winifred “Winnie” Perry, your typical suburban American pre-teenager. Winnie is fairly average: she’s pretty, not wildly intelligent, but smart enough to do well in school (though the academic aspect of her life is barely mentioned). She is, however, incredibly insightful and self-aware for a 12 year old. She analyzes her relationships with her various friends, her family, and her body like a pro, although sometimes she is extremely embarrassed by all three. You can also tell that despite the embarrassment factor, Winnie truly loves and enjoys her family. Her parents are down-to-earth and supportive, and her equally self-aware older sister Sandra is a teen, yes, but a good role model for Winnie. Who, in turn, is a wonderful big sister to 6 year old Ty. She even lets him try on her bras!

From Winnie’s narration at the beginning of the book, if we haven’t read Eleven (and we didn’t), we can assume that during the past year, her best friend, Amanda, has jilted her for the more popular, fashion and girly Gail. Through this social turmoil Winnie struck up a friendship with Dinah, who seems less mature and more fragile than Amanda, but is kinder and a more devoted friend to Winnie. During the course of Twelve, Winnie develops breasts, graduates from sixth grade, gets her ears pierced, attends sleepover summer camp, goes skinny-dipping, starts her period, learns to use tampons, enters the world of junior high school and *gasp* meets a guy! Changing personalities, evolving friendships, developing bodies, and how to be a good person while worrying what the world thinks of you all figure prominently in this novel, as they do in most lives at that age. Sometimes I thought “This is Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret for the digital native age!” but it’s sweet and funny in its own right. Looking back at my own life at that age, (and the sometime trauma it caused me), I was at times very touched by Winnie’s successes, failures and commentary. For a reader who is the same age as Winnie, her experiences will also serve to normalize the sometimes difficult, humiliating, and joyous process of growing up for tweens.

The flow of the book takes the reader from Winnie’s twelfth to thirteenth birthdays. Since Winnie’s birthday is in March, the natural storyline of the book goes from the end of one year of school through the summer and up until the spring of the next year at school. The story itself is not quite a story, it’s more of an internal monologue that can jump hours or days at a time, analyzing all the new life experiences that Winnie’s 12th year has brought her. The novel seems like it’s more of a stream of consciousness or a bulleted list of events than an actual plot.

The setting also tends to change quite a bit and so do the people. There are a lot of characters in this novel, some of which are permanent, some fleeting, some are prevalent in some chapters  of her life (harhar) and completely absent in others. A few provide interesting information about Winnie as a character, but most just seem to be window dressing for the scene. For instance, Winnie meets a whole cabin of girls at Camp Winding Gap, but we as readers hardly ever get to know them and they disappear with in the span of a few pages.  While reading, I was put-off by this laundry list of places and people, each with their own little crisis or situation. When were any of these things going to become really consequential? Amanda, Winnie’s former best friend, returns for a summer of friendship at camp, then all but disappears when Winnie starts school in the fall, only to re-emerge as a goth in the sequel, Thirteen (shhhh!). Except for perfunctory comparisons to Dinah, Amanda is essentially dead to us as readers. Meanwhile, she’s seamlessly replaced by a girl named Cinnamon, who then becomes a friend-fixture in the rest of the novel and the sequel. Perhaps my initially adverse reaction was personal: I like follow-up. I like plot. But, looking back on my own years, I realized that perhaps this is how the book mimics life. The year that bridges elementary and middle or junior high school is one of changing peer groups, schools, and general upheaval. People come and go, we’re introduced to new characters every day, and while there might be story arcs like camp, finding partners, school… it’s just illustrative of a time of great change in our lives. A staggering work of literary genius, perhaps it’s not. But it is a lovely alternative recommendation for the pre-gossip girl in your life.

Whelp, first thing, the premise really isn’t anything like the book (by Judi and Ron Barrett). BUT given the sort of anecdotal slow start to the book (after a flying pancake incident, Grandpa tells a tall bedtime tale), despite my die-hard love of the picture book… I sort of understand. Not everything translates to the big screen.

Instead we get the story of Flint Lockwood, an imaginative inventor (with spray-on shoes) who, when faced with the collapse of the local sardine industry, and the surplus of sardines this creates, decides to make a machine that mutates water into food.

This is working for me b/c it involves the basic kids’ movie character formula:

• Goofy dreamer hero who thinks bigger and has high hopes for improving the world he lives in.
• Cute funny animal sidekick with hilarious sounding vocoder. Or excuse me “monkey thought translator.”
• Father who doesn’t quite get where he’s coming from, and tends to make fishing metaphors. And an encouraging, understanding, sweet, yet deceased mother for added sympathy.
• Evil politician (voiced by the illustrious Bruce Campbell)
• Super spunky intelligent female meteorologist/weather girl hopeful!

And we have more or less than our cast of characters! Other noteworthy characters are Baby Brent, former mascot of Baby Brent sardines, who is still living large off of his sardine fame and the overly buff, under-shorted cop voiced by Mr. T. Oh! Looked at imdb and apparently the talking monkey is voiced by… Neil Patrick Harris?!?!

Well. They find out the food machines finally works and there’s a delightful “Sunshine, Lollipops” montage. But there remains the chance that … the FOOD MIGHT OVER-MUTATE! The mayor, who has been trying to find a way to pull the town out of the sardine-slump it has been in, decides to make the city into a food theme-park. Unfortunately the food machine is sort of at odds with his father’s connection to the fishing industry (he owns a tackle store), and without his mother to mediate the father and son dynamic, misunderstandings arise.

Fortunately they kept one of my favourite food descriptions from the book: A Jell-O setting in the west. This time it’s used as a backdrop to a hilarious date with Flint and Sam. She admits she used to be a nerd and they almost kiss… then his cellphone rings. Awww.

What’s this? A little bit of environmental allegory! The more food they ask the machine to create, the more the microwave mutation process corrupts! This is actually a better plot structure than the book, since there’s really no rhyme or reason presented in the book about how or why the food starts to grow bigger. Flint realizes this, but is pushed by the mayor to keep on producing so he’ll make money, and never having been accepted in the town before, Flint is reluctant to stop making the food.

Fortunately, Sam (the weather woman) is much more proactive than Flint and realizes what’s going on and tries to warn everyone. Unfortunately, Flint doesn’t listen to her Post spaghetti twister, Flint is devastated by the destruction his invention has caused and throws himself away. Fortunately, his father brings him his lab coat again and encourages him to do his best and fix things. Father son conflict solved!!!

Okay, now the plot starts to happen in earnest, so the following are just my reactions to what’s going on on the screen. I haven’t quite figured out this “live-blogging” thing after all, haha:

• And another one of my favourite illustrations form the book! Noodle on a guy’s head! And pancake on the school!
• Sam and Flint (and Brent and Steve the monkey) go to shut down the machine with the kill code. They find that the machine is actually inside a meatball (ohboy) and has genetically mutated the food into SUPER food, so it tries to attack them. I raise an eyebrow at that one, but …
• Hahaha… Flint loses the kill code in a sight gag and has to call his father for help. His father was all “What do I have to do?” and Flint says “Just go into my computer and email a file to my cell phone” “……… all right.” Oh, the digital native generation and their parents.
• Ooh! A Foodnami! Oh. Right. “Foodvalanche.” Hm. I prefer “foodnami” but whatever.
• Creepy mutated man-eating chickens! This is kind of like Food Inc. for kids.
• [Montage of giant food hitting the world's most famous landmarks. Fortune cookie on the Great Wall of China says "You are about to be crushed by a giant corn." Hey guys, EAR of corn.]
• Did that anchor man just say “What the what?” a Liz Lemon-ism amidst large amounts of food! How … appropriate.
• Gummi-bears that are giant, evil and animated are terrifying. Fortunately, the monkey loves gummi bears.
• “Sorry friend, the kitchen’s closed.”<sigh>
• OMG INTERNET MEME JOKE! His dad emailed him a LOLcat instead of the kill code. Truly, a sign of the times. But wait – how will he save the day?
• Ah. His spray-on shoes, formerly an invention of shame! Food mutator machine killer! Woo-hoo!
• Everyone think’s Flint is dead, but he’s saved by a pack of one of his mutated creature things!
• Haaaaaaa Sam just stuck the monkey thought translator on his father so he could make an “I’m proud of you, son” speech. And they kiss!

Fin.

I liked how the movie put the food more solidly in the real world. In the book, the people of Chewandswallow could simply run away from their culinary misfortunes by sailing over many seas, etc. on their boats, facing only the predicament of assimilation into a food-purchasing world. After seeing District 9, I wonder what the people of the supermarket world would do seeing a city’s worth of people arrive overseas with pizza/swiss cheese, PB and J sailboats. Probably nothing good, I’m sure.

In the movie, however, the food was problematic to not only the town, but to the whole world (see Eiffel Tower BLT). This also fit into the environmentalist undertones that the movie suggested. Namely, we shouldn’t try to manipulate nature into doing something it’s not supposed to do, lest it result in… mutated food of death. And what happens in just one part of the world effects the globe as a whole. I did think the food with malicious intent was a bit much, but it made the climax extra-exciting so it served its purpose I’m sure. Kids won’t be decapitating gummi bears heedlessly after seeing that, haha.

All in all, not really like the book (it did say “inspired”) but the screenwriters (Phil Lord and Chris Miller) definitely have produced a script that keeps the interesting parts of the plot alive, while adding topical bits that relate to the issues the kids of the world face today – the environment, economic collapse (Sardines are gross!), and hopelessly computer-illiterate parents, for example. Win!

9:30 a.m.: Hunker down with the final throes of the FLD report – make it coherent, add some pictures and send. ZOOM…

10:03 a.m.: Month end-report and statistics. This requires looking at calendars and spreadsheets. I … do not like this. I manage to get all of the programs entered (20 or so to Teens 1 and Adults 3… jeesh) and start tabulating the stats. I also get the main points of my month end report bulleted. Sound-proofing, Cabinet Security and Winter 2010 registration and programs… it’s going to be a scorchin’ good read!

11:10 a.m.: All that staring at spreadsheets and now I have to get my storytime ready for Ontario Early Years in… 4 minutes!

My what? Oh right – break it down:

So we have a partnership w/ Ontario Early Years (OEY) so they offer a drop-in play based program for children 0-5 years and their caregivers. They provide a wealth of information about child care, health, development, literacy, etc. We provide the space and a liaison (yours truly) to lead circle time for 15 minutes every Wednesday. This is a pretty sweet deal as far as I’m concerned, but it’s incredibly difficult to entertain many children that literally range from lap babies to JK’ers looking for a fun day out of school. It’s also my number one source of baby hugs!

11:15 a.m.: Go into OEY and rock their little socks off! A good time was had by all.
We read:
On the First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
10 Rubber Ducks
(oh yes, they’re learning about numbers).

11:30 a.m.: Baby-hugged and back at statistics and emails. Which are far less interesting.

12:00 p.m. Lunchtime!

1:00 p.m.: Information Desk time! I spent a good 10-15 minutes on the phone trying to direct a customer how to access a downloadable audiobook on our website – really difficult to coordinate over the phone! She finally gets to where she needs to be – literally clicking “Click here to Download”, but then her computer has some kind of connectivity error?! Yeargh.

3:05 p.m.: Back to the safety of my office where I have the BEST intentions of hunkering down and finishing my month-end report but then, but then BUT THEN I see that the Summer 2010 (yes we program this early) draft has come out. And proofreading is due soon! This means looking at more and further spreadsheets. Both computer generated, and human-inputted (word? ohwell) So in order to proofread I have to look at the information generated by our online-registeration system, a spreadsheet that the librarians all over the system use to schedule programs, and the Outlook Room Booking calendar for our branch.

3:58 p.m.: It appears as though someone has changed the curriculum-based (ohgod I will explain that later) programs around for our branch and the person all happens to be “not me.” This being the case, I’m not quite sure how I’m expected to proof-read, since I don’t know which way is up or down or where my butt is. Will have to figure this out. But the good news is – the programs I’ve contracted are looking good. FTW.

4:02 p.m.: SPREADSHEETS. SO MANY SPREADSHEETS. I’m trying to make all of them match what we have on the online-registration document. This is “tedious” to say the least.

4:48 p.m.: Finally have located and identified my programming ass from my programming elbows. It’s all looking good up in my various spreadsheets. I turn back to Month End Report and other spreadsheets… but … nope. It’s too late. I’m out!

Well that was my fairly boring, administratively laden and tedious day. Now I have to go back and blog about yesterday!

I had the good fortune of being off-desk all day (I know, I know, practically unheard of in public libraries!) so I tried to take advantage of that and try to finish things that need doing so I could try to relax the rest of the week. So this was my to-do list for the day:

• Call about preschool about class visit (52 kids!) on Friday. Incidentally, I got an email saying that they aren’t coming due to “rescheduling.” Considering that they said they were coming last, oh Thursday and could we have a room and program for them, I’m considering it a good thing. Even though I like the preschool set… jeesh. Short notice and a whoooole lot of munchkins. I wonder what the collective noun for that would be?
• Call doctoral student about workshop re: infant speech development and infant/caregiver communication. If you’re in the GTA and interested, I can pass on some information.
• Write report for Family Literacy Day events and Month-End report.
• Tabulate programming and display statistics
• Make a list of partnership opportunities for programming in my catchment of Markham.
• Storytime rhymes/songs for Week 3: Phonological Awareness
• Make subject headings for Kid’s Databases
• March break publicity
• Outreach materials for this week: Info on Tumblebooks for parents and teachers. I have 2 outreach visits for Family Literacy Day, which is January 27, 2010.

So I’m not going to lie – some things came up. I got through… well, I got through everything that was truly going-to-come-down-on-my-head-tomorrow kind of urgent, but otherwise… FTF, to do list. I’m disappointed because my kick-off for round 4 is totally a “Let me tell you about how I didn’t do anything!” entry, but this week’ll be exciting! I promise. I have 3 storytimes, 2 outreach visits, and I’m planning to retro-blog (is that even a word? Well now it is…) about Saturday and Sunday because – hey – that’s when my week began. And as a result, I’m a bit fried. Oh! But there was a fire alarm today. And we had to evacuate alllllll of the students out of the library. They were… not so pleased to go outside. Because it’s finals week. Fortunately, (or unfortunately as the case may be), the alarm stopped just as we had told about 1/3 of the lower level to leave. Then we had to go around and tell them “Just kiddin’ guys!” Which I always love, because you look like an alarmist and next time chances are they won’t leave…

Me to Disgruntled Student (avec sheepish grin): “Err, sorry. It’s all clear. Carry on, guys.”
Disgruntled Student: “Man. Seriously?! I don’t even WANNA carry on, now!”

Me neither, buddy, me neither…

More tomorrow! With added and further energy!

Something that is interesting about Yee’s plot structure is that there are no true antagonists in the traditional sense of the word. Really, Stanford’s worse enemy and best friend in the book seems to be himself, as is the case with so many kids at that age. Sure, there’s Millicent Min, the uber-nerd who seems to perturb Stanford every chance she gets. But the reader can see that Stanford, while annoyed with her, truly deep-down has a fondness for her that transcends their outwardly differing world views; a fondness that is finally realized in the denouement of the book. Also looming large on the “conflict” side of the line are the seemingly disapproving parental units, but Stanford’s need for acceptance bleeds through so strongly that the reader cannot help but understand that while his parents stress him out with their expectations and their own problems that he really cares for them and they for him.

Finally, there’s Digger, the tough, bullying, self-imposed “leader” of the Roadrunners (Stanford’s basketball gang) who actually IS an antagonist, but since he’s on the basketball team he sort of has the sense of “the positive aspect of Stanford’s life” even though he’s a major stress on the team and in the novel. Digger seems, at first glance, to be a classic antagonist in the novel: rich, strong, handsome, brutish and conniving. But part of his character development that makes him, in my eyes, a pitiable character, is the physical abuse he suffers at the hands of his rich, strong, handsome, brutish and conniving father. This abuse is possibly the only aspect of the book that really bothers me: It’s always alluded to, but never fully addressed… and also never fully resolved. Instead, towards the end he’s awkwardly villified and as part of a final conflict resolution, Stanford and the other Roadrunners walk away from him and are subsequently a lot less cool, but much more better off. [Oh - SPOILER ALERT I suppose... but you knew it would happen. This is, after all, tween fiction.] Yes, this teaches good life lessons to adolescent boys (money and popularity are not as good as friends and being kind, etc.) but the adult in me (yes, there is a little bit of one) really felt badly for this kid who tries to buy friends and bully and blackmail them into staying in the friendship. I thought it was fairly irresponsible of Yee as an author to touch on such a serious topic and then never brings it into the plot more fully, or resolve it. I ended up wondering about Digger’s safety, especially since his group of friends, who really could have helped him, have deserted him.

The other protagonists in the book are simply delightful. My particular favourite are the pair of grandmothers, Maddie and Yin-Yin (Millicent’s and Stanford’s, respectively), who have been best friends since they were girls and “when they get together, they don’t sound like grandmas, they sound like normal people.” They are hilarious, kind and caring – the kind of grandmas anyone would be proud to call their own. Also, the remainder of Stanford’s basketball team, Tico, Stretch, and Gus are in my opinion, the sweetest group of adolescent boys ever to have dribbled a basketball across the pages of fiction. There’s a scene during which Stretch and Stanford watch Sesame Street together. Simply precious. It should be noted that Yee wrote Stanford Wong for her daughter, Kate, to make her try to like tweenage boys, so… maybe not the most realistic depiction in the world… but what’reyougonnado?

The best part is, if you end up liking Stanford Wong, it’s a series! Well, a series… of… perspective, if you will. Yee writes about all the occurances of one summer (of flunking, winning, and moving) from the perspective of three different people in this series of books. Millicent Min, Girl Genius and So Totally Emily Ebers are the other two installments told from the perspectives of Millicent Min (girl genius) and Emily Ebers, Stanford’s “girlfriend.” So – I will leave you with that. Stanford Wong may flunk big time, but his story does not. And now, I’m going on vacation! Hurray!

Girl (one Bella Swan) moves away from her emotionally needy, child-like, yet perceptive mother in sunny Arizona to live with her quiet, introverted father, Charlie, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. The weather is terrible, she hates it. Blah, blah, blah. I felt as though Meyer goes through a lot of trouble to really drive home how “normal” Bella is. “Hey, look, kids! She’s a REAL LIVE TEENAGER TYPE PERSON!” The beginning of the novel is made up of many excruciating pages of text in which Meyer painstakingly enumerates the minutiae of Bella’s everyday existence. Her sweatpants. Her intellect. Her insecurities. Her food preferences. Her quiet, awkward -yet-loving relationship with Charlie. Her inability to accept presents (???). Her clumsiness. We get it, Steph, “Bella” is spelled B-O-R-I-N-G. Or it was, until …

She begins school and notices a group of beautiful teenagers, the Cullens, who don’t eat and keep to themselves. One of them, Edward, appears not to be able to stand her. This DEVASTATES her. Why? The reader isn’t sure. She’s used to being a relative outcast, but she seems generally well-accepted in this new school. She’s smart, she’s capable (physical prowess notwithstanding), she’s pretty. But we get it, rejection from hot guys is hard. Fact of teen life, right?

Edward disappears for quite awhile from school and when he comes back he suddenly takes a special interest in Bella – giving her rides to school, questioning her incessantly, etc. He even saves her miraculously from potential physical harm during an out-of-town shopping trip (rape is generally implied, later confirmed) after which he takes the stunned Bella to a very expensive Italian restaurant. It’s all very mysterious and romantic. Then, during a weekend trip to the local Native American reservation, her old friend Jacob Black (remember that name, ladies and gentlemen) tells her about the Quileute (Jacob’s tribe) legends regarding “the cold ones,” and their antagonistic relationship with the Quileutes’ wolf-spirit forefathers. She puts two and two together and then: OMG, you guys, Edward Cullen is totes a vampire, amirite?!?

It turns out there isn’t just ONE vampire there’s seven. The Cullen family consists of Carlisle, Esmé, Rosalie, Edward, Emmett, Jasper, and Alice. The Cullens have a unique world view from most vampires – they’re “vegetarians,” meaning they only feed on animal blood, even though it’s generally a poor substitute for human blood. Subsequently, Meyer goes about deconstructing all of the old vampire legends: destroyed by sunlight, silver bullets, and stakes through the heart. Basically anything that makes it more difficult for this romance to be a reality. In fact, she incorporates attributes to her breed of vamp that makes them even more sexy! Their beauty, for one thing: they’re just so brilliantly beautiful that they can’t go out during the day because then everyone would KNOW something was wrong. But that’s not all, folks! Some vampires have special “talents,” and it just so happens that the Cullen family has three such vampires: Edward can read minds (except Bella’s), Jasper can influence moods, and Alice can read futures based on decisions as they are made. So they are breathtakingly beautiful, harmless vampires that have a stable home life, supportive vampire role-models, not to mention extraordinary talents, (even for a vampire). Oh, and did I mention they’re pretty? Because they are.

So girl meets vampire. Vampire meets girl. They are in so. Much. Love. They kiss, he spends the night in her bed watching her sleep, he straps her on his back and takes her on runs through the countryside. It’s awesome. She’s generally accepted as part of the family and everything is great UNTIL:

They’re playing baseball (the great American pass-time, why not?) and suddenly Alice sees another coven of vampires coming towards them. They see Bella, normal human teenager girl hanging out with a bunch of vampires, and all hell breaks loose. One of them, James, tracks Bella, despite her best efforts, to her childhood home in Arizona. For a minute it looks like Bella’s going to bite it (oh, pun intended) but of course Edward saves the day just in time. Hooray! So Bella’s got a broken leg but also a boyyyyfriend. The End. Of Book 1.

“Appropriate.” Such a dangerous word when it comes to children and literature. Is it too violent? Too sexual? Too profane? All of these are parental concerns, naturally, but taken too far can be … limiting to a child. Exposure to different viewpoints via literature is a powerful experience, and something I personally wouldn’t deny a child without good reason. On the other hand, reading material meant for more mature audiences (even the difference between children and teenagers) is a delicate balance when you’re young, but ultimately, I find it hard to prescribe censorship of any literature. A book might be perfectly acceptable in my opinion, but I’m a 20-something, idealistic, extremely liberal woman with no religious affiliation or children of my own. So, what’s acceptable for me, might not be so for the parent at the other end of the sociopolitical spectrum. Overall, it’s my opinion that parents need to read what their children read – especially in the case of these so-called “controversial” texts – so they can be aware of issues that may come up and address them if necessary.

So is Twilight “appropriate?” Having previously vowed a life of Twilight-celibacy, I wasn’t in a good position to answer such a question. Well, abstinence-only sex-ed doesn’t work, and neither does a life un-touched by Twilight, especially when you work with kids in a library. So, I read it. I read the whole thing. Why? So I could write a BOOK REPORT on it. It’s forthcoming, probably in several instalments… What I plan to do is give summaries of each book (with as much brevity as can be expected) and then let the criticizing (for better or worse) begin. Stay tuned!

We’re Going on a Bearhunt