The Book List: The Hazel Wood

 

[this post may contain spoilers]

 

The Hazel Wood

by Melissa Albert

Alice and her mother, Ella, have been near transient for Alice’s whole life, pursued from place to place by the bad luck that has destroyed every ounce of stability they’ve managed to get their hands on.

When it finally seems that their long journeying may be over and they can take a rest and finally build a decently ordinary life, the bad luck returns in a flurry as Ella disappears amidst other strange occurrences and Alice is thrown into a new journey as she works tirelessly to find the mother who has always been there for her.

This book came highly recommended and now I must pass that recommendation on to you.

You see, I read The Hazel Wood in less than three days.

I am not a fast reader. I am in fact such a slow reader that when I recently finished Terry Pratchett’s Jingo a couple months ago it was after a full two year struggle to get through what was in fact a fairly good book about my favourite set of Discworld characters (the city watch).

A book really has to catch me in the first couple of pages if there is any hope at all of me getting through it. Let alone flying through during nap times, and even once – during a late chapter – a bathroom run.

While some readers have insisted that The Hazel Wood is some strange retelling of Alice in Wonderland, Albert herself has confirmed what I think obvious: that it is Not. She just likes the name Alice. Though, as she puts it, it is a ‘Loaded Name‘ when it comes to literary use. While there are references to the Carroll book within the dialogue and narrative, if anything, the latter half of The Hazel Wood resembles much more the trials of Through the Looking Glass. But it’s still not the main point of this incredible, original story.

Melissa Albert wove together this adventure mystery using every fairy tale element I could imagine to give us this masterpiece novel.

Either in obvious reference, allusion, or echoing taste just at the very tip of my tongue, Alice’s adventure seems to whisper of Harry Potter, Un Lun Dun, Perdido Street Station, Fables, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Silent Hill, Once Upon a Time, Doctor Who, The True Meaning of Smekday/Home . . .

I think she must have read, in her lifetime, every book I’ve ever loved, and watched every fantasy tv series or movie I’ve ever enjoyed, because, stitched throughout The Hazel Wood were fragments, elements, flavours, and subtle (and not so subtle) pieces of literally every story that has ever captured my attention. As if this book, itself, like The Neverending Story, could read my inner depths and pull from them things I would recognize and relate to.

You know that part in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets when Harry reaches for Riddle’s diary for the first time in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom and Ron stops him telling him it could be dangerous and lists all those confiscated books?

“And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could *never stop reading!* You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed.”

Well, he could easily have been talking about The Hazel Wood. It really was very difficult to pull myself away from it. It has a magic all its own.

I got my copy from my local library in the Teen Fiction section, so I suggest checking your local library for a copy.  The Hazel Wood is also available from various booksellers and inside some of those collection boxes you can subscribe to. It has been translated into several different languages. And I really think you should go read it.

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Half Moon

When I was four years old my family moved from Manhattan to a tiny upstate town along the Hudson River. The town, looking back, was shabby and odd, but it had some really special things about it.

We rented a neat house with an amazing view of the water and a garden along one side.

It wasn’t a long walk down the hill roads to the boatyard where the Clearwater Sloop docked during the fall and held pumpkin festivals and made stone soup, with the help, of course, of all attendees who brought vegetables and seasonings to add throughout the day.

In town there was a small bookstore with a permanent collection of toys where little kids could play while their parents looked for books. The little barn that moo’d when the door opened. The little stage with a turntable and curtain so you could put on little doll productions.

And nearby, a bakery.

You know how memories never seem quite as strong on their own? But add a scent or a piece of music and suddenly you could be right there, at some specific point in your past?

There is a rare occasion when I remember exactly the feeling of standing in that little bakery. Picking out a half moon cookie.

It tasted exactly how the bakery smelled.

 

Last week, while we were waiting for our Chinese food order, we stopped in the grocers  nextdoor to get a few things. While my husband ran after our laughing, running toddler, I wandered over to their bakery, where my father-in-law works nights, just to see what they had in their case. Not much at that time in the evening, but there was that smell.

That smell that five year old me encountered, picking out a half moon cookie, all those decades ago.

It’s magical what sense memory can do.

About a year ago, I started baking. Inspired by The Great British Baking Show, I decided I would try making things I never thought it would be possible for me to recreate.

Today, inspired by a tiny memory from what feels like a distant past, I made Half Moon Cookies.

 

Who chokes up over a cookie?

I guess I do.

 

If there is

if there is a toddler toy it is on the floor

if there is a cake in the oven the sink is full of bowls

if there is a toddler he is poised atop something high ready to leap

If the toddler is crying he was probably told not to climb on the dog

if there is a mommy she is tired and not as clean as she likes

if there is a dish it is probably dirty

if there is a daddy he is hard at work wishing he were home to get climbed on

if there is a radio it is turned up high tuned to classical music

if there is a mommy she is poised to catch the leaping toddler

if there is a mommy she is crying over the one time she didn’t catch him in time

if there is a toddler he was fine

if there is a counter top he can reach it

if there is a mommy she is ready for him to go take a nap

if there is a napping toddler there is a mommy wishing he were awake for her to hold.

if there is makeup it is probably smudged

if there is a dog he is probably unwalked and overfed

if there is hair it probably has something sticky in it

if there is a tower of anything it will be knocked over

if there is something that can be stacked it will be

if there is something really anything at all it will be lined up

if there is a door the toddler will beg to go out it

if there is a ball it will be thrown

if there is a scrambled egg it will also be thrown

if there is a tantrum mommy will eat chocolate alone in the kitchen sitting on the floor

if there is a mommy she will hold her baby tight

if there is a toddler he will smoosh his face against mommy’s as hard as he can

if there is a family they will love each other mess and all

 

Nothing Deep Enough

I have loved things.

But never enough to want to prove that they are mine.

 

You have studied them.

You know them intimately.

 

While I appreciate them

to you they are old friends.

 

There is nothing I could love enough

to make up for my distance from them.

 

For today, everything is in extremes.

Either I must be fanatical

Or I am nothing to that world.

 

This seems especially true of hobbies I have tried to make my own.

Political activism.

Spirituality.

Personal history.

 

I only lived there for X amount of time….I suppose compared to others it doesn’t really count.

I only love the book not the fandom….others own it more than I do.

 

Everything today must be All

 

or Nothing.

 

I have loved things.

 

To you they are your bedfellows.

To me, they are the stars.

 

Beloved but not mine.

Momlife

Some days you spend your grocery budget on snacks and come home with your purse full of spilled blueberry muffin and snot filled wet wipes and unload groceries while your sick baby sleeps in the pack n play at 4pm because his 2 hour nap only lasted 44 minutes this morning.

And you spend your first bathroom trip in hours wishing dinner knew how to prepare itself and wondering if you’ll remember to pour the tea water you set before going upstairs when you go back down.

You listen to the baby breathing heavily through the monitor and think about pulling the crockpot out and try to decide what sauce to use for the chicken.

But instead you really just think about the open tube of Pringles potato chips you left on the counter after you emptied all the bags.

Shopping when momming or sick babying is worse than shopping while hungry when it comes to filling up a cart or emptying a bank account.

Some Like it Not

When I was in my teens I was pretty obsessed with the 1920s. Though the idea of being a flapper wasn’t very akin to my own very by the book follow the rules goody goody two shoes Hermione of Western New York personality and general behaviour, I loved pretty much every aspect of that period in our history (at least, that is, the study of it). I even did a history term paper on it.

And occasionally dressed up for 1920s photo shoots with my little brothers.

 

With the recent release of the first film of the Fantastic Beasts set, which takes place in New York City in 1926, my renewed interest has brought me to searching the clothing, home styles, and accessories of the time, while listening to my various Big Band recordings. Unfortunately, this means I get pretty much the same subject line and search result no matter where I look…..

 

The Great Freakin Gatsby.

 

Gatsby Party this. Gatsby Costumes that. Daisy Daisy Daisy Daisy Blah.

 

Look, I enjoyed The Great Gatsby when I read it in high school, but it is not the Be All End All of Roaring Twenties Culture and Existence. And I’m really sick of being encouraged to be the next Daisy Buchanan. She was a shallow bitch and you know it.

 

(I could be wrong . . . I loaned my copy to a boyfriend right before we broke up, and he, like some tightwad jerk who had just gotten dumped for all the wrong reasons, never gave it back . . . so I haven’t read it in a while. But I’m pretty sure I’m right.)

 

But seriously, there are so many more great options, besides that trainwreck of a high society ‘love’ affair, that we could be using as an example of the time! Here are some of my favourites, mostly fictional, but all worthy. You could plan a party or a costume from pretty much any of these, without even coming near Fitzgerald.

 

P.S. this shit’s all from memory, so please don’t mind any accidental inaccuracies or blunders:

 

1. Thoroughly Modern Millie – Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, and an all around fantastic cast provide a jolly setting with great songs, fun dance numbers, and unfortunately some extremely racist portrayals, in this modern-gal working woman meets high society jaunt and bungling mystery solving romance and story about friendship. I mean, it’s pretty much all those things. There was even a recent (okay, not that recent…2000…that was, like, two years ago, right?) stage production based on the 1967 hit. Raaaaazzzzzzbeeerrrriiieeeesss.
2.  Singin’ In the Rain. A personal favourite. Follows actors and a production company through the transition from Silent to Talkie. With Romance. And comedy. “Woooots the Big Ideeea?”
3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Wizarding World before Potter. With cocoa. I mean, really.
4. Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Sexual Tension. Women’s Lib. Good Vs. some very very nasty Evil. In Australia. The seasonal reverse got me really confused until I remembered they weren’t in England (I have trouble deciphering some accents. Sue me. I have hearing loss from standing next to tympani. Allegedly.) Opening credits, btw, look suspiciously similar to the TMM Stage Poster.
5. Oscar. Oh Em Goodness. It’s so hokey. It’s pretty perfect actually. Stallone. Curry. Tomei. “Not Lisa. The Other one!”
6. Some Like It Hot. In black and white to hide the ridiculousness of the boys’ makeup. With voice overs because Tony Curtis’ falsetto didn’t sound right. Comedy. Sleezy old men. Romance vs Gold Digging. Music. Gangsters. See-through dresses. And a teensy hint of lgbt+-acceptance.
7. Anastasia. This Fox (Not Disney, yo!) musical cartoon gave a romanticized, happier fate to the Romanov princess (based heavily on the Ingred Bergman version of 1956), and ends in the City of Lights. Paris holds the key to your heart! (Or it might have just been Dimitri’s hair.)

 

I could go on, but as we all know, Seven is the most powerfully magical number.

 

Despite the end of The Noble Experiment, I seem to have an under-abundance of gin. Shame. Bon nuit, mes amis.

 

Gryffindorable or Ravenclawesome?

The summer I was 19 I worked at a library on Chautauqua Lake, in Western New York, where everyone else had read and raved about the Harry Potter series. I knew a teensy bit of the first couple books because I sometimes sat in my little brother’s room as the stories were read to him before bed. (I still remember the chills I felt during the scene in Chamber of Secrets where they find Mrs Norris.)

But the biggest exposure came at the Library.

As the various copies of Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, and Prisoner of Azkaban were checked in and out and the upcoming release of Goblet of Fire meant a bevy of holds being put on all four books, my coworkers urged me to begin reading the series. I took RW’s hardcover copy of Sorcerer’s Stone from his bookshelf and halfway through bought my own paperback, which I still have, and occasionally carry with me for good luck.

[This Book is the Property of The Half Blood Kirstin]

The day my reserved copy of book four came in, I had just finished Prisoner of Azkaban (to this day my favourite of the series) on my lunch break, sitting on the huge stone fountain in the middle of the square upon the edge of which the library stands. I finished Goblet of Fire a few nights later, at 4:00 in the morning, with tears streaming down my face.

There are many such tales of my first readings, third listenings, premiere week viewings when the movies came out, foreign language editions, and myriad collectibles based on props from the movies and characters in the books.

The story of Harry and his friends brings a kind of hope, courage, and entertainment I haven’t found in many other places.

We now have the further magic of Fantastic Beasts to enjoy and look forward to, and the various backgrounds and histories offered by Rowling’s website Pottermore to help fill in the gaps in story and character, answering unasked questions we have about lesser characters as well as mysteries solved about the main ones, and of course, sorting us into our Hogwarts and Ilvermorny Houses.

As the world moves forward, social media and the internet do too. Sometimes for the better, but not always. I do not care for the new Pottermore. I don’t go on there much any more, but I do re-sort occasionally just to see how they think I fall in the House array.

Since the summer of 2000, I have always considered myself a Gryffindor. Until, that is, I read Deathly Hallows and discovered the way into Ravenclaw Tower. After all those years I finally knew where I belonged! To get in you got the chance to Learn Something. As a total Hermione when it came to school work this made me exceedingly happy.

Over the years, as I got farther away from my school days, and I faced other difficult life things, I shifted back towards my original assessment. I was a Gryffindor.

Medieval Hermione reads about it in Pennsic: A History.

My husband, clever and full of tidbits of odd knowledge, is a staunch Ravenclaw. We had a pretty well balanced household, and eventually determined our son would probably end up as a Hufflepuff (though sometimes the Slytherin peeks in). I got to take over Nic’s Gryffindor scarf (made for him by his grandmother who simply knew he liked that Harry Potter stuff), and I promised to make him a Ravenclaw scarf when I could afford the yarn. When I sorted into Ravenclaw for the first time when the New Pottermore opened, I was puzzled and then contented to think I’d finally found the right house – that my DH assessment had been right afterall.

Matchy Matchy Ravenpuffs.

It meant having to make two Blue and Bronze scarves, though, and that might take a little more time and effort: We’ve been together six years and I finally found the right color yarn a month ago. 

There is enough for one single short scarf. But this might actually be a good thing.

 

On Pottermore, I have been sorted into Ravenclaw twice. And Gryffindor six times. Slytherin and Hufflepuff only one time each. Most recently I have been made a Gryffindor twice in a row.

I think the mix of results makes me a Gryffinclaw or a Ravendor. But if made to choose just one I am constantly at odds between the two main options. While these options are based on a fictional world and shouldn’t cause one quite this much stress, as I could just choose whichever one I want, or none, or all of them, HP has been a deeply important part of my life for the past 17 years, and not having my House settled actually bothers me quite a bit.

 

As I sit here in my Hot Topic Ravenclaw pocketed sweatpants and my ThinkGeek Ravenclaw Bathrobe, I wonder what Godric’s old hat would really say about me.

At time of publishing, I have just ordered myself a Hogwarts Express ticket case for my new phone and a Gryffindor keychain.

The End.

 

The Scar: A Harry Potter Alternate Universe

Harry Potter has been part of my life for 17 years. Interesting how numbers can be important. A witch or wizard comes of age at 17.

 

And after 17 years of Harry Potter, yesterday I realized that my son is exactly the age Harry was when Lily and James died.

 

This got me thinking, once more, about all the things that scare me about parenthood, primarily, What would happen to my baby if something happened to me and Nic?  

 

I envisioned the scene at Godric’s Hollow. Voldemort walking through the broken Fidelius Charm and into the Potter’s home. I saw Lily pick up toddler Harry and race up the stairs as James tried to hold Voldemort off without his wand.

I grabbed my light-up holly and phoenix feather wand and carried it with me all day, even inside my oversized handbag while out shopping at the grocery store with C, even knowing it’s a kid’s toy, containing two aaa batteries, instead of being made of willow, or being good for charm work. Not exactly a match for a dark wizard’s unforgivable curses. It was a psychological security measure.

 

I thought about what would happen . . . like, even if a dark wizard didn’t show up, what if . . .

 

What if there really had been a car crash like Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always told Harry that Lily and James had died in?

 

I thought about my sister, and how, thankfully, she’s about as unDursleyish as I am. Though she’s got two kids of her own, I know that she would do her best to take good care of my baby, raise him like her own, give him everything she could and make sure he knows he is deeply loved by his whole family.

 

So, what if that had been the case with Harry? What if his aunt and uncle had cared more?

 

What if Harry ‘s cool aunt & uncle had raised him on elaborate tales of magical heritage and a narrow escape from an evil dark wizard after his parents died . . . in a car crash.

 

The perfect opposite of what happened in the series. Harry as an ordinary boy whose loving aunt and uncle told him bedtime stories about a wizarding world to cheer him up as he grew up parentless?

 

I discussed this with my sister all afternoon.

 

If anything happens to me and Nic, Bettie and Oslowe know what to do.

 

And now, without further ado, my rewrite of an excerpt from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

 

Chapter One. The Boy Who Lived.

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number 4 Privet Drive, were perfectly normal, if normal were a thing that actually existed. They were above average people who might be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they were fascinated by that sort of thing.

. . . Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley’s sister, but they hadn’t met for several years, because the country was just too big and neither of them had the budget for regular visits.

. . . When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the bright, cloudless Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the blue sky outside to suggest that a profoundly personal tragedy would soon be gripping news readers all over the country.

. . .

Chapter Two.

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had been woken by the police bringing their nephew up the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all.

. . . Only the photographs on the mantlepiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bobble hats – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large, blond boy riding his first bicycle, beside his dark haired cousin, both grinning with matching ripped trouser knees from where they’d fallen one after another around the same corner as they learned how to ride. There was no sign that the second boy hadn’t always lived there.

Harry Potter was asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her voice which made the first sound of the day.

“Up, boys! Get up!”

Harry woke with a start. His aunt knocked on the door again.

“Come on, get up!”

Harry heard her walking down the stairs and towards the kitchen, and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled on to his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a huge fire engine in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.

 

. . . Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. . . He had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes. He wore round glasses. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had got it.

“In the attack by the dark wizard Voldemort when your parents were killed,” she had said. “I’m sure you’ll have lots of questions.” And she hugged him.

 

 

 

 

Rewritten from:
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. 1997. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

 

 

 

I’ve made mousse au chocolat, so if you’re feeling at all the way I am, come over and have some. Professor R.J. Lupin had it right, you know.

40% Bagel

Being a stay at home mom is hard. I often feel completely unproductive because the results of raising a child are Long Term and not always visible day to day. This is the absolute best, easiest, and hardest job I have ever had.

I am completely responsible for a mostly dependent human life, you guys!

It’s sometimes easy to forget how to be a grown up. As a Parent I have to BE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT All the Time. But it’s hard to also actively be the kind of adult I was in my 20s and early 30s.

Today, however, I wanted to share my morning productivity.

 

Today I have

• Made coffee
• Done Pilates (Beginner Mat Workout)
• Showered
• Kept my son safe and moderately entertained
• Fed the Dog Twice
• Fed myself. And my kid!
• Got my kid down for his nap
• Pin Curled my hair
• Made a cup of tea
• Made a real sandwich
• And I made a batch of Bagels for the first time in my life

(If you go by my pregnancy diet…my son is 40% bagel. Carbs were the main thing I could eat without feeling totally sick for the first few months he was in utero.)

This afternoon I will:

1. Eat all the Bagels (well on my way to this goal)
2. Vacuum (haven’t done this yet)
3. Make Macarons! (another first!)

 

A Vision of Ourselves

Dear Husband,

By the time you come home

we have spent the day

refuting all the compliments

you now rain on us

 

We have spent half the morning trying to keep the baby out of the dog’s water bowl and the other half trying to find clothes that halfway fit because not everyone can make it through a pregnancy in fifteen pounds and our bodies are not ready for size four. We spend our energy fighting our fear and regret that we’ve done everything wrong and our horrific jealousy of our friends who seem to have gotten everything right.

Our tired eyes are glazed with the miracle that overfills our hearts and the bags beneath them are testament to our sleepless hours comforting our cold or hungry or frightened children until they fall happily back to sleep and we lay awake wondering if it will stick or if we should rouse ourselves to walk down the hall to the bathroom.

Unfinished artistry lays on the shelf where it goes untouched for days or weeks. Five minutes to sit and write is taken up with dead batteries and slow servers and a scramble to find a pen.

The living dream is everything we ever asked for. But it is everything else, too. And just because it’s perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.