My Christmas Wish List

All I have to say is, "Be careful what you wish for."

I'm the kind of reader/compulsive book buyer who doesn't need more books, just more time to read all the ones waiting on my shelves (and in piles at the ends of shelves, and in stacks by my bed, etc.).

Two repaired ruptured discs later, I got my wish: I have the next three weeks free and clear for nothing but reading while I recover from the surgery. (Yes, that's why I dedicated the snake poem to my spine.) Again, be careful what you wish for!

First, as a member of the nominations committee for the graphic novels category of the Cybils, I'm going to read as many of the nominees as I can get my hands on. The scope and breadth of the nominees is amazing -- from BABYMOUSE: BEACHBABE to Yaoi Manga and every possible variation in between! It's like there is a whole room in the library that I've never explored! To further my GN education, I am reading Comic Guru Scott McCloud's books UNDERSTANDING COMICS, REINVENTING COMICS, and MAKING COMICS.

I have some gift books that I'd like to read after the GNs: DEAD IN THE SCRUB by B.J. Oliphant, a mystery set in Colorado given to me by friends who know I'm not a mystery reader, so there must be something special about this one. My German "mom" sent me SNOW by Orhan Pamuk for my birthday. How timely, since the next book for book club is MY NAME IS RED, also by Pamuk. Last year at this time I was agog about listening to David Mitchell's CLOUD ATLAS. I got the print version for Christmas, as well as his earlier book NUMBER9DREAM. (I do suppose if there is one book Santa might send, it would be BLACK SWAN GREEN, if it's in paperback.)

I won't be able to swim for three months, but luckily I have HAUNTS OF THE BLACK MASSEUR: THE SWIMMER AS HERO, "a meditation on both the act of swimming and on its cultural, literary and psychological meaning," and GRAYSON, Lynne Cox's (of SWIMMING TO ANTARCTICA fame) new book about her encounter with a baby grey whale while doing a training swim in the ocean.

And of course my to-read pile includes children's books: Penny Colman's ADVENTUROUS WOMEN, which I won in a drawing when I heard her speak more than a year ago; THE CONCH BEARER by Chitra Banerjee Kivakaruni, a book recommended by a librarian in my quest to have more books in my classroom library in which my Indian children could see themselves; IQBAL by Francesco D'Adamo, a novel based on the true story of a modern Pakistani child sold into slavery at a carpet factory; three to finish before I make my short list of Newbery nominations: YELLOW STAR by Jennifer Roy, BREAD AND ROSES, TOO by Katherine Paterson, and THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING by M.T. Anderson; and two that are intriguing hybrids of novel and graphic novel: THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznik, and THE FOG MOUND BOOK 1: TRAVELS OF THELONIOUS by Susan Schade and Jon Buller.

OK, Franki, you asked for it; there it is!