I just finished the Coraline graphic novel and I have to tell you, that "other mother" is creepy as all get out. The book was wonderfully creepy anyway but seeing those button eyes and long fingers...it's awesome and a worthy read even if you already have the novel.

*****
I am twenty kinds of jealous that Maud has an ARC of Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates. Vowell has very nearly made the essay my favorite written form; she does an excellent job of both entertaining and educating in her collections and I'm eager to see if she can make me care about the damn Pilgrims. The book is out in October.

*****
It is beyond ironic that I am reading a book about the Blue Whale that highlights how they were nearly driven to extinction by unrestricted whaling (we're talking hundreds of thousands killed a year even though they were known to reproduce slowly) at the same time that the Bush Administration proposes scaling back the protection zones for the Right Whale (which is endangered). Here's the money quote in the article:

The proposal was criticized yesterday by the World Shipping Council, a trade group that has led opposition to the idea of speed zones.

"We continue to see no scientific or statistical support on the record of the rulemaking to show that a 10-knot speed limit for large ships around East Coast ports will help protect right whales," the group said in a statement. Typically, ships in this area might travel 20 knots an hour or faster.

There are 300 Right Whales left in the world. Their leading cause of death is collisions with ships.

This is my third book on whales for Booklist. I love knowing that I can write a compelling review for a well written environmental title that will bring it notice among librarians but man - sometimes it is hard to take so many things done so wrong over and over. It makes it hard to believe we will ever learn.

Someday I'd like to write an essay collection on the myth of animals that will live forever. One of the former whale hunters in the book I'm reading says he never thought the Blues could become endangered. "Something so big", he says, "something so big can never die."

Wolves and whales will live forever. I'm sure the Pilgrims thought the forest would never disappear, the Cod would always be plentiful in New England, the Indians would forever be present. in Massachusetts

Which one of our truths will be revealed as myth in one hundred years?