Teens Do Read and So Should You!

Shame on you, American Media, for proclaiming that teens don't read. The media needs to come over to my school and check it out. I was recently handed a book by a young lady whose reading tastes I very much admire and told, "You must read this book!" So I did.

AMAZING. The book is Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto and you should just go to Amazon now and order it as Borders and B&N don't stock it. Normally, when given a choice of reading material, I favor fantasy fiction, preferably long, serial fantasy fiction, so it is quite unusual for me to read novellas. Kitchen is two books: Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow. Both quite different, but still capturing Yoshimoto's spare writing style, which is elegant and evocative. They are surprizing stories, deeply touching. I was surprized because something so small shouldn't be so powerful. It's like silk long underwear. They say it will keep you warm and yet when it arrives at your door and you hold it up to the light, you think, "Surely not. This thin thing will never warm me." Yet, you put them on and slowly, creeping warmth steals over you and soon you are looking out on the snow from an insulated cocoon of comfort.

Read Kitchen. Be warm.