December 2001 - Nr. 13
A Few Books for Christmas
by Randi Spires
So, it is less than two weeks before Christmas and you still haven’t completed all your gift shopping. Join the club. Fortunately, books for all tastes and ages abound. Here are a few suggestions you might consider:
Dennis Lee has two wonderful personae. One is that of a serious adult poet and the other is that of a children’s author. Remember Jelly Belly, Alligator Pie, and "Skyscraper, Skyscraper, Scraping the sky". If you don’t you really should check them out, for your own sake as well as for the kids in your life. His latest book The Cat and the Wizard gives those way too young to curl up with Harry Potter some magic to enjoy. It takes place in Casa Loma, that real live castle in mid-town Toronto. The rhymes are as jolly as ever, the language simple with a smattering of more complex words to stimulate a child’s curiosity and increase his/her vocabulary. The cat in question is a female cat. Will this turn off little boy readers? I sure hope not. They, after all, have the wizard to identify with. The story is delightfully illustrated by Gillian Johnson.
Matthew Fernades’ big bold paintings are very different from Gillian Johnson’s more delicate line drawings, but they are perfectly suited to Farmer Bill, the story of a simple farmer who at first endures his son’s love of technological ‘improvements’. And then … Part nostalgia for a simpler age, it is also about being true to yourself no matter what the trends are.
Every year at Christmastime the National Ballet of Canada presents The Nutcracker Suite to the delight of thousands of little girls, and a few little boys, as well. The Nutcracker is one of those timeless stories that can survive all kinds of reinterpretations. Woodland Nutcracker, written by Avril Tyrrell and illustrated by Frances Tyrrell, sets the story in the forest among a family of bears. Frances Tyrrell’s artwork is far different than either Johnson’s or Fernandes’, but still full of elaborate fun.
For the young, or not so young, naturalist on your list here are two books worth considering: New Animal Discoveries by Ron Orenstein and The Encyclopaedia of Amphibians edited by Robert Hofricter.
New Animal Discoveries, which features a forward by reknown primatologist Jane Goodall, looks at many recently discovered animal species. Most of these newly discovered animals (newly discovered by scientists at least) have been found within the last decade. It is getting harder and harder to find new wildlife but not impossible. The book is full of wonderful photographs of these newly recognized creatures with notes on how they were first detected. It is also a primer of zoological classifications discussing such concepts as species, genus and phylum among others. The book as a whole is a plea for conservation. If we don’t protect natural habitats many wonderful species will die out before we ever find them. Author Ron Orenstein is a zoologist who has been active in the area of conservation for many years. Another of his books, Elephants: The Deciding Decade, is as beautiful as it is depressing when one thinks about the merciless slaughter this magestic, intelligent and endangered species has endured. Elephants, like humans, may well be aware of their own mortality. They don’t bury their dead but each elephant remembers where his or her mother has died. Every year as they pass by their mother’s bones they stop and handle them carefully with their trunks. Elephants is still available, although you may have to order it.
The Encyclopaedia of Amphibians, edited by Robert Hofrichter, came out in 1999 but is just as exciting a book now as it was then. Most of the contributors are attached to universities, museums and research institutes in Germany, Austria or Hungary. Their essays give the reader an in-depth look at the evolution, anatomy, physiology and behaviour of amphibians around the world. There are also chapters on how they care for their young, how they deal with predators, how humans have viewed them through the ages, their place in human nutrition (this goes far beyond frogs legs) and their role in the ecosystem. This is not a book to sit down with and devour in a few sittings, but one to partake of morsel by morsel of delicious information. And the pictures are stunning. Whether you feel kindly towards these creatures or not, you’ll have to admit – some of these animals are gorgeous.
Want
a couple of books, which can also be dipped into a little at a time but with
less intellectual strain and a lot more humour? Try A Devils’
Dictionary of Business Jargon by David Olive and Fotheringham’s
Fictionary of Facts & Follies.
When it comes to language, especially slang, people seem to be endlessly creative. And each subgroup has its own jargon. Printers use to have their devils even when they were true Christians, Valley girls used to cry out ‘gag me with a spoon’, and exclamation of disgust not a request to be choked. During the Vietnam War we learned that the American military sometimes ordered its soldiers not to kill but to ‘terminate with extreme prejudice’. And when baseball players speak of chin music they are not referring to anything that the Toronto Symphony might play.
The corporate world is no exception. As long ago as 1911 journalist Ambrose Bierce recognized this and put together his Devil’s Dictionary of robber baron newspeak.
David Olive, who has been covering corporate affairs for more than two decades, first for the Globe and Mail, then the National Post and currently for the Toronto Star, knows that world well – both for good and for ill. His A Devil’s Dictionary of Business Jargon follows in the tradition of Ambrose Bierce with definition after wild definition interspersed with quotations from business leaders, politicians and other notables. In a realm where clarity and directness would facilitate functioning in a complex arena, obfuscation reigns. This is not good. As Olive notes in his introduction:
"In business, slang has long since given way to more irksome abuses – the hollow rhetoric, polished deceptions and linguistic fog that collectively fall under the rubric of corpspeak"
"This volume is intended as an antidote to the gibberish that passes for current corporate coin, and a hand book for those who seek to assert their own mastery over those who would govern our business enterprises with duplicitous words".
In 1990 Olive put out a similar volume, White Knights and Poison Pills. It would be interesting to compare the two books to see how corporate language has evolved or, more likely, devolved.
For most Canadians the name Allen Fotheringham needs no introduction. A well-known, often beloved columnist of conservative bent first with the Vancouver Sun, more recently with Maclean’s magazine, Fotheringham is known for his rapier wit. So whether you agree with him or not he almost always makes you laugh. Fotheringham’s Fictionary of Facts & Follies fallows suit. His targets range from Air Canada to fellow scribbler Larry Zolf.
Fotheringham has been a journalist for fifty years. He’s travelled the world, hobnobbed with the rich and the powerful, and got paid to comment on them. He’s loved every minute of this life and yearns for an earlier pre-Watergate time, when the old boys of the Press Gallery has a cosy camaraderie with those in power. It’s a retro wish but the guy is still cagey and funny after all these years.
Happy Christmas reading!
