King Dork fans take note - this weekend I received my official "Sam Hellerman is a genius" t-shirt! June will be all about King Dork at Bookslut with Michael Schaub interviewing author Frank Portman and a review of the book included in my column (which is all about trying to survive high school). If you're still wondering if this book lives up to the hype really, I can't recommend it enough. It's such a smart look at high school and teenagers (and from a boy's perspective!!!), and we really don't get enough titles like this one.

I don't write a lot here about the picture books I review for Eclectica twice a year. (I figure maybe you guys don't care so much about picture books) but Railroad John and the Red Rock Run is just too much fun not to tell the world about. It has railroads (duh) and takes place in the wild wild west and there are storms and flying cows and a wedding that the groom is going to miss if the train doesn't get to Red Rock in time. It's really really funny and Michael Austin's sepia toned artwork gives it an oldfashioned but quite fun look. Author Tony Crunk clearly had a blast writing this book - you can tell what a joy it must have been - and our resident 4 year old loves it. If you're looking for a good title that a little reader will adore, this is the one. (There's a good description at the publisher's site.)

The fabulous Jenny D has signed a book deal for her YA alternate history, Dynamite No. 1. I liked her novel Heredity very much - quite an unusual idea and the heroine was very complicated and confused (as well she should be when you read about her life). What really won me over was the combination of history and literature - something fans of AS Byatt's Possession will recognize as a great way to craft a book. (Not that the two books are anything alike, there is just a sort of similarity in the finding of old journals/letters.) Jenny has a nice description of Dynamite at her site and it sounds quite cool. I'm so glad this book (and its sequel) will be seeing the light of day. (And I love the title - don't change it!!!)

Via The Literary Saloon, a most interesting interview in The Daily Sun with Kenyan author Nguigi wa Thiong'o. He discusses several aspects of African literature, but it was this bit about translation that really caught my eye:

“It’s very important we write in Africa languages, whether in Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Gikuyu or Zulu. But we must go to the next stage of having our works translated either into English or French or, to me, even more important, having works in different African languages being translated directly because, note, for instance, the Bible was originally written, presumably, in Hebrew or Greek, but not many Africans know Greek or Hebrew, but we read the Bible through translation,” he notes.

"Translation enables two languages to be in conversation,” he says with an inflected lilt. And his contention is not restricted to literary texts. He thinks newspapers could do the same. “There is no reason why there are no Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa daily or weekly, or, are there any?” he asks you. “This is very bad for Nigeria, bad for Kenya, bad for South Africa, bad for Africa.”

I am constantly trying to read more literature in translation and this insanity over making English the official American language really strikes me sometimes as quite bizarre. This might be because my father spoke both French and English and when he was young French was much more prevalent in his home and community (in RI). I agree though that indigenous languages must be kept alive - and used - or they will disappear and in the case of Africa, a whole wealth of national identities would disappear with them.

I just read the first installment of a great new original tradepaperback (digest sized) series from Oni Press - Borrowed Time by Neal Schaffer. It's a very unique riff on the Bermuda Triangle that is packing a lot more of an emotional punch then you would expect from an adventure story with sci fi elements. I think Schaffer's whole idea about the Triangle is brilliant thus far and I'm looking forward to seeing where goes with it. (And of course it's from Oni - still and always my favorite comics publisher.)

Finally, in light of the nightmare at Haditha last November and all of the recent news stories about it and the cover-up that immediately followed, there have been many many comparisons to the My Lai Incident during Vietnam. I taught on this subject many many times over my five years as a history instructor and while such incidences are actually horribly common during war (part of what makes war hell), that does not diminish the significance of what happened in Haditha, nor the shock that we should all be feeling over the cover-up. Tim O'Brien has an excellent novel about the after effects of something like My Lai with In the Lake of the Woods. (Keep in mind, after the war the soldiers go home - how do you think they cope with participating in something like this, or seeing it, or lying about it? You can't be involved in something like this - on any level - and discard it and say you are "alright". And don't even get me started on the civilian trauma.) There is also a first class nonfiction book that I referred to contstantly, Four Hours in My Lai. If you want to know what everyone is talking about when they refer to this long ago tragedy, this the book that will tell you.