Gods of Jade and Shadow

 Gods of Jade and Shadow, written by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.    

I didn't know what to expect when I pulled this book off the shelf.  The cover was so very intriguing. When I read the back cover, I was even more intrigued "A young woman and a Mayan death god embark on a life-changing journey in this one of a kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican Folklore."   I'm a die-hard fantasy lover, and this book checked all of my personal "This is going to be a great read" boxes, I checked it out.

I was not disappointed.  I enjoyed every minute of this book, and heaved a deep sigh at the ending.  While one adventure ended, the end left us with another adventure beginning.

My thoughts on the book:

The beginning of the book felt a little bit like a Cinderella story - beautiful main character - Casiopea - who has been taken in by her grandfather and is forced to do menial labor for the grandfather and her cousin, Martin. 

But the story took an unexpected turn when Casiopia opened the locked wooden box kept at the foot of her grandfather's bed. She found the bones of what turned out to be a Mayan death god who reassembled himself.  Cassiopea was then held in service to the death god, as he had to find the missing parts of himself that were scattered when he was dissassembled by his brother and placed into the wooden box.

I know, it's a wild twist, isn't it?

Set in Mexico in the 1920's, this story follows Casiopea on her adventure across Mexico to help reassemble the death god, Hun Kame.  Along the way, she meets ghosts, spirits, necromancers, and various other members of the underworld.

But what role does her cousin Martin have to play in this saga?  What is the allure of mortality? Given the choice between true love and despair, what will Casiopea choose?  

Author Website: https://silviamoreno-garcia.com/

The 6888th Postal Battalion

You may have heard of the 6888 Postal Batallion.  During WW2, this troop of all Black Women was sent to Europe and assigned the monumental task of sorting a backlog of mail that was intended for front line troops and for the folks back home. In that era, with no cell phone technology, and no internet, snail mail was the only way that people could determine the status of their loved ones.

The women who were sent to straighten out the mess worked around the clock, sorting mail.  They managed to clear out a backlog of 6 months of mail - 17 million individual pieces of mail - by working around the clock, 7 days a week. The job was completed in 3 months.  After cleaning up this backlog in Buckingham, England, they were sent on to Rouen and Paris, France where they cleared up even more backlogged mail.

When the war was over, the women quietly disappeared back into their lives.  While friendships remained, their work was largely forgotten by not only the people who sent them there, but also by the people who direcly beneffited from their work. Their own families did not know what they did in the war.

This past summer, I visited the 6888 Memorial at Leavenworth Army Base.  I wanted to pay my respects to these remarakable women who made such a difference in the lives of so many with basically no recognition until they were honored with Congressional Gold Medal in 2022. The actual medal presentation took place on April 29, 2025. (That's 80 years after the fact.)  

If you want to find out more about the 6888 Postal Battalion, I have included several links at the bottom of this post.

In the meantime, a handful of pictures from the 6888 Memorial:

The front of the Monument.
On the back is the list of every woman who served in the 6888.

A little closer up view of the words on the right.

And of the words on the left.

The actual Congressional Gold Medal.
I got to see it in person (and even hold it) when I met the daughter
of Indiana Hunt Martin (6888 Member) earlier this year.
What an absolute honor to have met her and heard the stories
that her mother had shared with her.

Resources:

Truman Library Institute: https://www.trumanlibraryinstitute.org/6888th-battalion/

The National Archives: https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2022/02/08/no-mail-low-morale-the-6888th-central-postal-battalion/

The National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/6888th.htm

The VA News: https://news.va.gov/102004/six-triple-eight-women-to-receive-congressional-gold-medal/

Arlington National Cemetery: https://education.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Search/Post/11048

Book: No Better Time, by Shelia Williams

Movie: The 6888, a Netflix Original.

The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King

Have you read this book yet? 

The Phoenix Pencil Company is a magical realism novel, written by Allison King. I don't know if I can adequately capture the absolute magic of this book, but I am going to try.  If you haven't read it yet, it is worth your time.  The themes of love, memories, and family ties existing across generations and time run throughout the book.  I found myself deeply attached to the characters and the story.  

The premise of the book is unique. I'm trying hard not to give away too much of the book, but I feel that the magical pencils are key to the story and what makes this tale so unique. In this world, magical pencils exist.  Pencils that can be reforged to bring back the memories they contain.  But - this is an important clause - not everyone can reforge the pencils.  Only those gifted with this power are able to reforge the memories. Not every pencil is capable of reforging memories, either.  Only those forged by the Phoenix Pencil Company.

There are several characters in the story.  Monica Tsai is a computer coder who is working on a program that connects strangers online.  These aren't just any strangers - they are related to each other.  Her grandmother, who currently lives in San Francisco, grew up in China and survived two wars before coming to the United States. Her grandmother, Yun, has been searching for her cousin Meng since she left China.

The computer program connects Monica with a young woman in China who is connected with her long lost Aunt.  The young woman sends Monica a Phoenix Pencil, which leads Monica deep into the past, where she discovers the secret magical power that her family possesses. 

I loved how the story gently moved back and forth in time - between Monica and her grandmother.  The author does not flinch when telling of life in China during the wars.  The pencils - and the role that the pencils played in the grand scheme of the war... I know the story is fiction, and yet I could see it also being very true.  Part of me wants to believe that this particular type of magic exists in our world, hidden away somewhere, deeply guarded and protected.

Does Monica's Grandmother Yun ever connect with her sister?  Can everyone come to peace with their past and make terms with what has happened to them?  What happens to Monica as she deals with the realities of aging grandparents?  You'll have to read the book to find out! 

Author Website: https://www.allisonjking.com/phoenix-pencil-company

Remembering Sept. 11

25 Years Ago Today.

Do you remember where you were?  I do.  I was discussing this with a young friend who had not yet been born earlier this week.

I vividly remember the day.  The sky was that beautiful blue that only happens in the fall.  It felt like you could see a million miles that day.  It is my favorite sky color in the fall.

At the time, I was working from home.  I was on the computer, when the screen changed and looked like it was melting. Think crayons running down a screen, with the black moving from the top down.  To this day, it remains the strangest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Just a week or so before, we'd had a train crash in one of the tunnels in Baltimore that impacted the telecommunications on the East Coast, and I remembered thinking that "Folks in New York at the Trade Center commented on how weirdly their computers were acting in the wake of that."  Keep in mind, the news stations had not yet picked up the news story that the Trade Centers had been hit.  

Since it looked like my computer would be down for a while, I shut it off completely and headed to the gym.  I was there, at the Y, watching the horror unfold.  We watched the fires burn.  We watched the horror continue to unfold.  We heard that the Pentagon had been hit, and we all looked at each other with an "oh sh--" look on our faces. I remember driving home, wondering how such a beautiful day held such absolute horror.

My Mom was living in Virginia at the time.  Her house was 18 miles from the Pentagon.  She felt the impact when the plane hit the Pentagon.  She said that the house "jumped".

The days that followed were so filled with sorrow.  We knew people who were lost that day.  The world was forever changed.

In place of pictures of the horror of 9/11, I am posting pictures that we took a few years ago in New York City around the 9/11 Memorial. 

Flee North by Scott Shane

Flee North, written by Scott Shane completely changed my world view and challenged some long held beliefs and assumptions. This book is a Non-Fiction History, written by a newspaper writer who has written for both the Baltimore Sun and the New York Times.

In this book, set in Baltimore and Washington DC, we learn the true story of some of the people behind the Underground Railroad in the Mid-Atlantic.  

Thomas Smallwood was born into slavery in Prince George's County Maryland in 1801.  In the 1830's, he educated himself and bought his freedom.  He moved to the Navy Yard area of Washington DC and opened a shoe repair shop. By night, he spirited entire households out of slavery and moved them north towards Canada. In his spare time, he wrote dispatches to an Abolitionist newspaper in Albany, New York, taunting the enslavers and police - using the real names of the enslavers and those who he helped escape.  Most notably, Thomas Smallwood penned the phrase "Underground Railroad" to describe how abolitionists were helping enslaved people to escape.

Scott Shane is a gifted author who captures the story of the men and women involved in this previously unknown story of one of the most significant players in the Underground Railroad in the Mid-Atlantic. 

I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.  

Scott Shane website: https://www.scottshane.org/

New York Times article about the Underground Rail Road: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/man-who-named-underground-railroad.html?unlocked_article_code=aT-JOE56I-XYNjVAR34FNCbfozz964z9f5SdOR2J6LIUlXAZPuA7ZoR4A0ZzSb_IrTe3-LF2XA4uMbAsVvOabWA1WxHF8xSEcWodmId7LsOt2uHXnv6WsrN6Gn8SlEHUAP-l5y-9DiGje4bPD44mNBQFbVvAPg6OdnTCinhq77l1O5Z2o_jNxIZw1pIbzhtRVclYjo5N8mShG4sm0C96NzcsIEXm0Lolvs1VaddsQa-TnqNAt9hGxC4YPDZ8DXx-HfGPaw4FzZoSYcsMEzgwgu3lK3BUpq5PyjivZocoxxd3BMcxf7pKwEslEGJLyWFkzSUx_CEYkYitTzd819kyPjor12q8h_5gX4P95Q&smid=url-share

Random Pictures

 Some random bits and bobs from this summer!

I hosted many library programs this summer.  It's summertime at the library.  For one program, I froze a lot of plastic toys in ice, and then the kids had to get the toys out of the ice.  In the picture below, you are looking at yellow building blocks encased in ice!  This was part of a larger Dog Man program.  This particular activity was entitled "Save the Town"! (If you've read Dog Man, you know.)

Bubblepalooza!

We found this old movie projector at a museum.  

It's a Kodak, and at one time, it was in a small movie theater.

Modern projectors are so large, this one kind of blew my mind.

Obligatory July 4 fireworks photo!

The welcome to the World Cup Games at the Kansas City airport.

I Ran Away for a Day

Okay, not so much ran away as "abdicated adult responsibilities for a day".  It was around my birthday.  My Mom passed away 2 years ago - 2 days before my birthday. So, I went out to visit the cemetery on the day after my birthday.  The cemetery is out in the mountains of Frederick County.  It's a lovely, beautiful spot.  I took a lunch with me, sat beside her tombstone and caught her up on all of the things that have been going on with me and the kids since the last time I was out there.

It was a gorgeous day!  When I was finished, I drove home the long way.  I stopped by a couple of orchards and picked up Apple Cider Donuts, and the absolute BEST peaches I've had since this time last year! 

When you drive home through the mountains of Maryland, you know you're going to have a great time!

Birthday cupcake!

View towards the mountains from the cemetery.

I stopped by the covered bridges on the way home.