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I’m in the odd position of loving children without being very good with them. You know how there are those adults who really get how children think? I’m not one of them. But Beverly Cleary sure is.

(So is Emily, judging by her ability to articulate what she likes about SMASHED POTATOES. Plus, children always like Emily. I’m kind of like my dad: I tease kids in the one way I know how, and they either like it or they don’t, and if they don’t we’re both stuck.)

I was thinking about this lately because a few recent reads have had these little snatches of expressing something about childhood or adolescence. John Berger, observant as always, offers these small asides of descriptions in FROM A TO X, the adult novel I can’t stop talking about because I’m so proud I read one — like, “He already had a man’s voice but not the pace of a man’s voice.”

Or this one, which is now one of my favorite all-time descriptions of youth:

What the young know today they know more vividly and intensely and accurately than anyone else. They are experts of the parts they know.

There was a really good example in EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING A GIRL I LEARNED FROM JUDY BLUME, too. Berta Platas kind of mentions in passing an actual event from her own childhood:

I even sighed over Randy, the guy in homeroom who had a crush on me and gave me my first Valentine ever. I read it so many times that I can still recite the little Hallmark poem inside, and the signature, “Your friend forever which is Randall.” Sigh.*

Who could make up a Valentine like that? I mean, I guess a really good writer could. But I sure couldn’t. I love kids.

* (And yes, the inclusion of the “Sigh.” is an example of what I was saying about this book, about being startled by what strikes me as the sloppiness of the writing. It’s just kind of… all like that.)

…because even though I skipped last week, my Sunday Summary is really embarrassing. Meaning, I continue to start many books, and finish very, very few. I once had a professor who (twice!) sent me a long quote from Trotsky about how the problem with the young comrades is how they skipped from topic to topic instead of having the focus to really learn anything. That professor knew me better than people in positions of authority over me ought.

In my defense, my ongoing roommate search is taking way more time than I ever expected which kind of sucks, and also, I’ve been kind of obsessed with reading things related to my (new! improved!) MA thesis, which kind of really doesn’t suck at all, except it’s taken up my reading-for-fun-especially-about-teenagers-falling-in-and-out-of-love-with-each-other time. And come to think of it, the fact that I now read about unobserved heterogeneity distributions instead of cliques and monsters at bedtime may explain why I’ve been sleeping really poorly.

Anyway. Books finished and yes that is an inaccurate use of the plural:

• FROM A TO X by John Berger. This is one of the best love stories I’ve read. It’s made me reconsider the fact that I never read adult fiction. There was really no way I wasn’t going to love this one, seeing as how it’s about love:
  

  I was clinging to you hard, not with my arms, because it was not your body I was clinging to, we were both sitting well back in our seats, very calm, I was clinging to your intentions, your exact intentions. What they were I couldn’t tell because I knew nothing about flying, but the way you intended whatever it was, was deeply familiar to me, and inseparable from my love for you.

  And war:

  What I admired about Fernando was his capacity to persuade people to be honest with themselves, for when this happens they gain the advantage of surprise. An incomparable tactical advantage in any insurrection. It’s the lies we tell ourselves that make us repetitive. Fernando understood this.

  And prisons. It’s about prisons.

Reading this week:

• SEXUALITY AND SOCIALISM by Sherry Wolf. I put this down before finishing it when I was dealing with some other things, but I’m very excited to get back into it. Especially because the last few chapters are on the stuff I know less about. I particularly want to get more into her critique of the turn to queer theory in the academy.
• I’ve been thinking about going on a mystery kick. Lenore’s been reviewing some promising books I want to read, but I believe I’ll start with China Mieville’s new detective novel, CITY & CITY. It’s exceedingly rare that I shell out for a new hardcover, as I did with this one at a book fair last month (damn you for placing it by the register!), so I’ll feel lame if I don’t read it while it’s still new.
• I’m also thinking about going on an LGBT young adult reading kick, because it’s been a while since I’ve read much of this lit (not in any large quantity since I was in high school, when there was a lot less of it). This was inspired by reading in the NY Times Book Review today about the promisingly-titled THE VAST FIELDS OF ORDINARY, which is so new that I’m going to try to get my hands on a free copy for review (in a political periodical), which means I won’t be reading it this week. So: LGBT teen/kid book suggestions welcome!
• My boyfriend went to the American Library Association conference (he was exhibiting for Haymarket Books) and brought me back some freebies. They’re short enough that I can review them this week, so I’m keeping them a surprise…