MY NEW APARTMENT!

As some of you (who am I kidding? You all know!) I have spent the last couple of months going through the stages of buying a a co-op apartment in Forest Hills. I got approved by the board a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted to wait until all the maybes were yeses before I posted about it. Now the closing date is set for next week, and hopefully I'll be moving in the same day. The photo is what the apartment looks like now - obviously that's the seller's stuff, but you get a little bit of an idea about what the place looks like.

For those of you not familiar with Forest Hills, it's a kickass neighborhood. For example, I am within walking distance of the following:

the subway
two gyms
the bookstore
two movie theaters
Starbucks
Blockbuster
various restaurants
Cold Stone Creamery
various shops

Hooray!

The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai

I'm not even done with this book yet, but I know it's something I want to put up here on the blog. This book is fascinating. In the mid 1800s leprosy began to spring up on the Hawaiian islands and government officials were afraid if they didn't contain it, the disease would wipe out the entire Hawaiian population. So the board of health began exiling patients to a remote, unescapable island where instead of receiving care and medicine, the victims of this disease were left to more of less fend for themselves and to die. I don't even remember learning about this in school, so since this is the first I'm hearing of it, it's definetely interesting to me.

Graphic Novels

It feels like it's been forever since my last post. Sorry guys, but things have been busy. And I've kind of been all over the place. And I've been getting a million spammy comments from this blog which has been annoying. Anyway! Today's post is about the new hot thing in the children's book world - graphic novels. If you haven't seen them before, think comic book but longer. Since I've never been a comic book fan, I wasn't very excited about these when they started coming out. I must admit, most of the time, I don't give a crap about superheroes. But graphic novels are getting interesting - they're not just about the Green Latern anymore. Here are two that I've read and really enjoyed.

American Born Chinese. this just won the prestigious ALA Printz award - the first graphic novel to ever do so. This book has three storylines, but the common thread is racism. This graphic novel combines ancient legend with every day conflict in a way that has never really been done before (at least not that I've seen) and of course, it's one of few books out there that focuses on the Asian characters. I read it in a single lunch hour, and recommend picking it up.

Blankets. This graphic novel is a love story, which I am almost always a sucker for. The main character is about seventeen - struggling with a heavy Christian upbringing, thoughts of becoming a priest and of course, his first love. I read this in one night too - the story pulled me in and the illustrations only made it more poignant,

Despite my uncertainty about graphic novels, I really enjoyed both these books. My company is at work on one of these too - we're hoping it will be out by the end of 07!