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Bug Sandwich by Brady Smith (review)

Reviewed by: Bug Sandwich by Brady Smith Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Smith, Brady Bug Sandwich; written and illus. by Brady Smith. Paulsen/Penguin, 2023 [32p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593461747 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593461754 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 4-7 yrs Our bug-bitten protagonist is furiously annoyed with the creepy-crawlies that inexplicably target him, leaving him with ouches and itches, so now he's ready to bite back, quite literally. Intent on making a bug sandwich, the boy grabs a jar and starts collecting the offenders, and despite being impressed by the ants' strength, the spider's weaving abilities, and the bees' hive building skills, he still fills his jar with the insect ingredients. After slopping on condiments, he's about to have his revenge until the bugs speak up, pointing out that humans are also not particularly great at a peaceful coexistence: "What about you? You swat us! And slap us! And even squish us! And ya know we're just doing our jobs!" It's a solid argument that persuades the boy, who then sets down the sandwich and heads off to take a bath—the bugs are not quite safe yet, however, as another hungry household member is looking for a snack. The digital illustrations are classically cartoony, with the expressive wide-eyed protagonist sporting a mop of red hair atop an oversized head, and the vivid palette hedges—appropriately so—toward garishness. The bugs themselves really sell the show, though, donning the occasional top hat or bandana and with prominent stingers or mandibles rendered goofily harmless with bright, geometric patterns. Kids who've wondered why they seem to be particularly tasty to biting bugs won't find answers here, but it's still a gleeful tale of almost vengeance that ends on a note of understanding the natural world. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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What causes a person to cheat on their spouse? How do you know if someone is truly repentant for their actions, or if they are only repentant because they were caught? In this philosophical short story fiction, Jacob is in a stable, if unexciting marriage to Dina, the mother of their two children. However, Jacob is also having an affair with the younger Sasha, the neighborhood barista. Jacob feels some guilt for his actions but heads off to meet and have sex, with Sasha on her break. After intercourse she opens his phone and finds out, for the first time, he is married. Sasha tells Jacob he must tell his wife of his infidelity by 4pm, or she will call herself. Jacob rushes home, a truly penitent man, ready to confess his wrongdoing, and beg for forgiveness. However, moments before confessing to his wife, he sees on the news that Sasha has been killed in a car accident.

Structural basis of the super-relaxed and hyper-relaxed state of myosin II

Super-relaxation (SRX) is a state of muscle thick filaments in which ATP turnover by myosin is much slower than that of myosin II in solution. This inhibited state, in equilibrium with a faster, disordered-relaxed state (DRX), is ubiquitous across muscle types and species. It is thought to be fundamental to muscle function, acting as a mechanism for switching off energy-consuming myosin motors when they are not being used. The structural basis of super-relaxation is usually taken to be a motif formed by myosin in which the two heads interact with each other and with the proximal tail, forming an interacting-heads motif (IHM), which switches the heads off.

Structural basis of the super- and hyper-relaxed states of myosin II.

Super-relaxation is a state of muscle thick filaments in which ATP turnover by myosin is much slower than that of myosin II in solution. This inhibited state, in equilibrium with a faster (relaxed) state, is ubiquitous and thought to be fundamental to muscle function, acting as a mechanism for switching off energy-consuming myosin motors when they are not being used. The structural basis of super-relaxation is usually taken to be a motif formed by myosin in which the two heads interact with each other and with the proximal tail forming an interacting-heads motif, which switches the heads off. However, recent studies show that even isolated myosin heads can exhibit this slow rate. Here, we review the role of head interactions in creating the super-relaxed state and show how increased numbers of interactions in thick filaments underlie the high levels of super-relaxation found in intact muscle. We suggest how a third, even more inhibited, state of myosin (a hyper-relaxed state) seen in certain species results from additional interactions involving the heads. We speculate on the relationship between animal lifestyle and level of super-relaxation in different species and on the mechanism of formation of the super-relaxed state. We also review how super-relaxed thick filaments are activated and how the super-relaxed state is modulated in healthy and diseased muscles.

18O labeling on Ser45 but not on Ser35 supports the cooperative phosphorylation mechanism on tarantula thick filament activation

Thick filaments from some striated muscles are regulated by phosphorylation of myosin regulatory light chains (RLCs). A tarantula thick filament quasi-atomic model achieved by cryo-electron microscopy has advanced our understanding on how this regulation occurs. In native thick filaments, an asymmetric intramolecular interaction between the actin-binding region of one myosin head (“blocked”) and the converter region of the other head (“free”) switches both heads off, establishing the myosin interacting-heads motif (IHM). This structural finding, together with motility assays, sequence analysis, and mass spectrometry (MS) observations have suggested a cooperative phosphorylation activation (CPA) mechanism for thick filament activation. In the CPA mechanism, some myosin free heads are phosphorylated constitutively in Ser35 by protein kinase C (PKC) and -under Ca2+ control - others (free or blocked) heads temporally on Ser45 by myosin light chain kinase (MLCK), in a way that explains both force development and post-tetanic potentiation in tarantula striated muscle. We tested this model using MS to verify if Ca2+-activation phosphorylates de novo un-phosphorylated Ser35 heads. For this purpose, we standardized an approach based on 18O isotopic ATP labeling to accurately detect by MS-MS the RLC phosphorylation under Ca2+-activation. MS spectra showed de novo18O incorporation only on Ser45 but not on Ser35. As the constitutive Ser35 phosphorylation cannot be dephosphorylated, this result suggests that the number of RLCs on free heads with constitutively phosphorylated Ser35 does remain constant on Ca2+-activation supporting that the myosin has a basal activation and force modulation or potentiation is controlled by MLCK Ser45 phosphorylation.

How to Catch a Clover Thief by Elise Parsley

Reviewed by: How to Catch a Clover Thief by Elise Parsley Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Parsley, Elise How to Catch a Clover Thief; written and illus. by Elise Parsley. Little, 2021 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780316534284 $17.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 4-7 yrs Roy the boar guards his little patch of clover, waiting for the yummy white flowers to blossom before he gobbles them up. Jarvis the gopher gives him a book a of clover recipes to pass the time, and, distracted, Roy heads off into the forest to gather up some more ingredients; unfortunately, when he returns, it's to a much smaller patch. Roy then sets up watch night and day, and Jarvis helpfully provides a guide to camping; after Roy finishes busily setting up the tent as the book instructs, he notices the bit of clover is even smaller. Jarvis shows up again, happy to read an exhausted Roy a book as he nods off and … well, viewers will likely guess where this is going. The fun, though, is in Roy's revenge, a carefully designed comeuppance using Jarvis' own crafty resource—books—against him as Roy studies up to engineer a huge, STEM-inspired gopher-catching machine. This is a snarky take on the books-are-the-best trope, and the irreverence is matched with visual absurdity, especially in Roy's enthusiastic embrace of Jarvis' selected books. The forest scenes in the digital art are largely static, but there's plenty of comedy in the contrasting proportions of spiky-haired, bipedal Roy, who looks like he's about to topple over as his snout nose surpasses his tiny legs, and Jarvis, whose wiggly round bottom gives him an undeserved look of innocence. Messages about sharing and/or stealing could certainly be gleaned here, but it might also be useful to illustrate that books have just as much mischief about them as morals. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Sun and wind cues guide dung-rolling beetles across the savannah

![Graphic][1] South African dung beetles compete fiercely for the chance to eat the poop of other animals. When a beetle comes across a pile of dung in the savannah, it quickly cuts off a piece, rolls it into a ball, and heads off in reverse with its stinky prize, away from other hungry

Then Speech is not an Impediment, A Sort of Brake on the Wheel of Intellect but like a Second Wheel Running Parallel with it on the Same Axle

Then Speech is not an Impediment, A Sort of Brake on the Wheel of Intellect but like a Second Wheel Running Parallel with it on the Same Axle Maria Fusco (bio) This is an extract from my unpublished novella, Sailor. Set during the Blitz in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1941, it is narrated by the eponymous Sailor—a two-year-old vervet monkey, smuggled from Freetown by a merchant seaman as a Christmas present for his wife, Sailor's adopted human parents "Mammy" and "Daddy"—written in first person Belfast dialect as an internal monologue. I am principal investigator of an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded academic project entitled "De-localising Dialect," which seeks to untether (and to test) dialect from geographical location; one of my key concerns with this ongoing project is to see if it's possible, ethical, or even desirable to "score" dialect. As I was writing the text, I had a persistent idea that the monkey would already have a thick Belfast dialect in the Sierra Leonean jungle before he is trapped [End Page 526] and taken to Northern Ireland: I want to question, therefore, what is a natural way to speak and, by implication for the reader, what is a natural way to read. By writing the text not only in dialect but in phonetic dialect, my method is one of deceleration. Firstly for myself as writer: I must teach myself how to write phonetically, off-the-peg solutions for this way of writing are not fit for purpose, I must use my own voice, my own dialect as an laborious editorial tool (many of us do not like the sound of our voice). Secondly for the reader: they must try to be patient, to agree not to immediately comprehend certain syntactic phrasing and specific dialect words, to read slowly. The title of this extract is borrowed from "On the Gradual Construction of Thoughts During Speech," by Heinrich von Kleist and translated by Michael Hamburger. Me an Daddy takes ourselves oudda the house at the scrake of dawn, turned off our wee street ontil the Springfield Road. A tram made a stap til let more workers get on, the ones already inside all pointed an called out til me, their eyes near fell oudda their head so they did. Daddy lifted me right up off his sholder in both his hawns til give them a praper luck, but he houl me too tight roun the middle, an a noddie squeezed oudda me ontil the krib. That made the ones in the tram shout out even more loud, whoopin an cheerin like goodo. Daddy was nat one wee bit bathered, he put me back ondee his sholder, meself nouw wi one paw restin cross the tap of his head, holdin ontee his right ear, a loose grip but ready til grab on tight if ah needed til. Daddy walked heavy douwn the road, ah felt the hammer of his boots on the pavement, each step jiggin up intee ma baddie. It was a clear mornin, so it was, wi no mizzle, an ah was ownee a wee bit hungry. There was plenty of folk out already, scrubbin their frontdewersteps or cleanin their windees, too busy wi their work til notice me up on ma Daddys sholder. Shaps was openin their dewers for business. Rollin up their stripey red an white blinds was Burles, where Mammy goes til get her meat an eggs wi the ration book. Ah jumped oer the counter in there one time til get at sumthin that smelled nice, the mawn bahine it grabbed me, held me douwn wi one hawn on his big woodblock coverd wi sticky bits, an held up a cleaver in his oer hawn like he was gonna chap ma head off. Mammy was screamin. Evrybaddie else was near laughin their own heads off. Daddy went intee the caffy on the oer side of the road from the Burles. Mornin Missus. Gimme two of them sausage rolls, a mug of tea, hardly no milk, plenty of shugar in it. What in the name of God is that there? The oul lady servin pointed at me wi the teaspoon...

Soprano Tough Orange, and: The Bear, and: Snowover

Soprano Tough Orange, and: The Bear, and: Snowover Susan Mitchell (bio) Soprano Tough Orange With a stutter and a sneeze,that's how, with catch ascatch can, with a quick spritz of cologne, a shakeof good-luck charms. Where theycan, that's where, and if there is a better place thanalong this highway, how woulda flower know? Like Day-Glo bunnies they catch on, like a crazeof orange balloons trailingcars of newlyweds, they honk the byways and center lane.A highway goes faster than anyflower in the world, knocks heads off deer, sheers rockclean through. A seed takes offlittering commotion tizzies and mango pops at everyservice plaza. Because they growout of wrappers blown from fries and Mr. Fizziesbecause they blareeverywhere, let me not take for granted a millionbells and whopper torches,let me not forget [End Page 19] each carrot thrust—though howsomething ends is asmysterious as how it begins. Blessed be orange for its brashand brazen, for its boldme too, me too. Blessed be orange because itdespises nothing. In its honorlet me not forget the acrid smoke of bloom and bust.Boombox of colors, promiscuousmusic blaring station to station, let me mercy the seedthat does not orange, that landscrooked or double spins through an open windowto swizzle my arm on the wheelwith its C above high C. [End Page 20] The Bear Oh, give us a thumbs up, give us a hwar and a hwil.For my last meal I will eat oysters and mother of pearl. I have seen it perched on a railing,front and hind legs drawntogether as if by the invisible. Its huge prints wear no seat belts and fillwith ice by morning. See how it rears up in reflections, window by window. How it floats above the East River and looks intoa hospital room, its muzzle bigas 42nd and Broadway. Oh, give us a thumbs up, give us a hwar and a hwil. Because of the bear, the operating room dimmed to twilightbelow zero, my arms crossed over my chest. Who knew the way was corridor under corridor, eachabsence to be learned by heart. To suffer the claws and feel no pain. To be strewnlike berries and seeds. Oh, give us a thumbs up, give us a hwar and a hwil. When the muscle was cut I gnarled.There is no alone like alone. Why the bear appears to some in broad daylightand not to others, I have no idea. To beget the bear—but what do I know of bear or beget?Oh, give us a hwar, a thirl, a whirl. [End Page 21] I know only warble and glisten,the bird stuck in its throat. The unmade I left unmade. Let us not regret regret. [End Page 22] Snowover To stomp through drifts of snow and listenfor the crunch, crisp and swote. Like biting into an apple with our feet. How wonderful to spend day after day in a trainof snow, a whole car just for you and me. How wonderful not to feel compelled to thinkof a better word than wonderful. To search the Internet for the crunchand creak of someone walking through snow. Cranch if we lived in the seventeenth century. Snow falling on yards of junk, on rustingengines and factories. On huge roots that could push up a city. What a joy to say quinquangular and stretchmy mouth around your mouth. To teeter the ridges between quartz and hunch.To prolong the crunch and say backstitchand eldritch, hotchpotch and crouch. What is it like to be a rootsucking up rain, dirt, and snow fallingwithout purpose or goal? Penetrating into the oldest covenants.Lapping the blood of billions. Is there laughter in the hereafter? Do you envy the rat its tailwith over two hundred scales? [End Page 23] What a whiff of snow rushes the headphones. Oh, honeybunch, if I met you in my sleepwould we lapspoon the possible? Would we push up a whole...

Auē Rona by Reihana Robinson, and: Between the Kindling and the Blaze: Reflections on the Concept of Mana by Ben Brown, and: Entangled Islands by Serie Barford, and: Night Swimming by Kiri Piahana-Wong

Reviewed by: Auē Rona by Reihana Robinson, and: Between the Kindling and the Blaze: Reflections on the Concept of Mana by Ben Brown, and: Entangled Islands by Serie Barford, and: Night Swimming by Kiri Piahana-Wong Leora Kava Auē Rona, by Reihana Robinson. Wellington, nz: Steele Roberts Publishers, 2012. isbn 978-1-877577-85-7, 68 pages, artwork, notes, acknowledgments. Paper, nz $25.00. Between the Kindling and the Blaze: Reflections on the Concept of Mana, by Ben Brown. Auckland, nz: Ana-hera Press, 2013. isbn 978-0-473-26385, 50 pages, glossary, cd track list, cd. Paper, nz $27.99. Entangled Islands, by Serie Barford. Auckland, nz: Anahera Press, 2015. isbn 978-0-473-33082-8, 86 pages, glossary. Paper, nz $24.99. Night Swimming, by Kiri Piahana-Wong. Auckland, nz: Anahera Press, 2013. isbn 978-0-473-24555-9, 50 pages, notes, acknowledgments. Paper, nz $25.00. Pacific Islander poets have long imagined and reimagined stories of origin, land, ocean, and gods in ways that mirror the complex relationships we have with one another and our place as people of this ocean. Reihana Robinson's debut collection, Auē Rona, is a stunning example of the power of imagination and the importance of recasting Pacific stories. Robinson's collection directly addresses the Māori story of Rona—the woman in the moon—in a voice that is powerful, unapologetic, and cutting. Through reimagining the voice and desires of Rona, Robinson sheds a nuanced and unwavering light on gendered constructions of will, desire, and power in the context of Māori storytelling. Robinson centers her collection on the character Rona, whom she briefly introduces in the collection's glossary. In this explanation, the story of Rona "opens as she is collecting water for her children," and, as "a cloud covers the moon; [Rona] falls, spilling the water, and she curses." As punishment for cursing, Rona is "torn from earth and taken to the moon" (64). This first depiction illuminates the multiple positions Rona inhabits, from mother and provider to lover and abandoner. The overview of Rona's story in Robinson's glossary not only functions as an access point for readers unfamiliar with the Māori story but also poignantly presents some of the key commentary, images, and themes that the poet sustains throughout the collection. Rona's story is paired with the first poem of the collection, entitled "How it all began," and the relationship crafted between glossary and poem reveals Robinson's prowess in creating complex commentary on the gendered constructions of stories, archetypes, and power, all of which unfold in the spaces of Robinson's poetic recasting. "How it all began" sets the tone and force of this retelling by rendering the voices of Rona and her lover, the moon. The moon watches Rona as "Husbandless, she / bends her will, [End Page 392] grabs / a calabash, heads off / through the ngaio trees / and mamaku ferns." Rona's response to the moon is both familiar and biting, as she replies, "Stuff you, moon, / boil your pea brain with pūhā" (8; italics original; pūhā is a sow thistle commonly used as a potherb). These first images—a woman bending her will, speaking for herself—establish the kind of work each piece of Robinson's retelling does throughout the collection. Robinson's poems reframe the archetype of the woman in the moon and, in so doing, add new layers of voice and complexity to a female archetype of Māori storytelling. Robinson wields the power of her own unsentimental exploration of Rona's character in order to create a voice where there was no voice, a curse where there needed to be cursing, and a desire where there needed to be desire, unapologetic in its manifestation. While Robinson illuminates female voice and gendered constructions of power in her recasting of a specific Māori story, Ben Brown also enacts a recasting as he explores mana in his debut collection, Between the Kindling and the Blaze: Reflections on the Concept of Mana. It is in the spaces "between" that Brown approaches definitions of mana, and he works with and within multiple "betweens." There is the space he creates as...

My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson

Reviewed by: My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson Elizabeth Bush Paterson, Katherine My Brigadista Year. Candlewick, 2017 [208p] ISBN 978-0-7636-9508-8 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-7 In 1961 Cuba, Batista has been ousted and Premier Fidel Castro calls for a campaign to raise the nation’s standards of living, beginning with the goal of eradicating illiteracy within a year. The call goes out for volunteer tutors who will be trained in pedagogy and sent out to remote farms and plantations to work alongside their students by day and teach them to read and write in the evenings. Revolutionary spirit and optimism appeal to thousands of adolescents and young adults, among them thirteen-year-old Havana resident Lora, who wears down her parents to gain their permission to enlist, trades her school uniform for military-style gear, and heads off into the mountains to live with small farmers Luis and Veronica Santana and their three young children, teaching them and four of their neighbors to read, while learning how to tend crops, ride a horse, and live on next to nothing. The adult students are determined, making steady progress and often driving each other forward through clever acts of social subterfuge and competition. However, counterrevolutionary followers still lurk in the hills, targeting the Conrado Benítez Brigade workers and their hosts. Paterson skillfully navigates the Zeitgeist, capturing the enthusiasm of young people reshaping their country, censuring the enemy United States while embracing the Twist, bonding with their host families even as they long to flee from insurgents to the safety of their city homes. A timeline of Cuban history is included, as well as author notes incorporating sources for her research. Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Exo Project by Andrew DeYoung

Reviewed by: The Exo Project by Andrew DeYoung April Spisak DeYoung, Andrew The Exo Project. Boyds Mills, 2017 [448p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-62979-610-9 $18.95 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-62979-799-1 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 8-10 The Earth is dying, and Matthew decides at least he can help his family with the cash settlement they’ll get when he joins the Exo Project and heads off into unknown space, along with shipmates Sam and Dunne, to look for a habitable planet. A hundred light years away, one such planet exists, except there are already humanoids living there, and they don’t take kindly to visitors, especially armed and aggressive ones like Sam. Unlike his crewmate, Matthew wants to make a peaceful connection, and the nearby leader, a teen girl named Kiva, seems to feel the same way, but with their populations at odds it’s not clear if they can make a success of peace—or of their budding love. The world building is impeccable, with backstories fully developed for both planets that show the folly and weaknesses of humanity even across the galaxies. Matthew and Kiva are united by their youth and optimism, but they are wildly different from each other, appropriate given their completely separate cultural/planetary upbringings. The complexities of warring loyalties are played out through the accessible perspectives of Matthew and Kiva, who are young and pliant enough to still be open to change. This will be a treat for sci-fi fans looking to settle into a lengthy novel and really explore a futuristic plot. Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The wave II

The wave II

Cutting Down Energy Usage in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Duty Cycle Technique and Multi-Hop Routing

A wireless sensor network is composed of many sensor nodes that have been given out in a specific zone and each of them had an ability of collecting information from the environment and sending collected data to the sink. The most significant issues in wireless sensor networks despite the recent progress is the trouble of the severe limitations of energy resources. Since that in different applications of sensor nets we could throw a static or mobile sink then all aspects of such networks should be planned with an awareness of energy. One of the most significant topics related to these networks is routing. One of the most widely used and efficient methods of routing is a hierarchy (based on clustering) method. In The present study with the objective of cutting down energy consumption and persistence of network coverage we have offered a novel algorithm based on clustering algorithms and multi hop routing. To achieve this goal first we layer the network environment based on the size of the network. We will identify the optimal number of cluster heads and every cluster head based on the mechanism of topology control will start to accept members. Likewise we set the first layer as gate layer and subsequently identifying the gate nodes we would turn away half of the sensors and then stop using energy and the remaining nodes in this layer will join the gate nodes because they hold a critical part in bettering the functioning of the system. Cluster heads off following layers send the information to cluster heads in the above layer until sent data will be sent to gate nodes and finally will be sent to sink. We have tested the proposed algorithm in two situations 1) when the sink is off and 2) when a sink is on and simulation data shows that proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of the life span of a network than LEACH and E LEACH protocols.

School's quick action heads off FPCO investigation

Case name: Letter to: Anonymous parent (FPCO 05/01/14).

School's quick action heads off FPCO investigation

The Successful RegistrarVolume 16, Issue 4 p. 10-11 Right to Nondisclosure School's quick action heads off FPCO investigation First published: 13 May 2016 https://doi.org/10.1002/tsr.30192Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract Case name: Letter to: Anonymous parent (FPCO 05/01/14). Volume16, Issue4June 2016Pages 10-11 RelatedInformation

Caveboy Dave: More Scrawny than Brawny by Aaron Reynolds

Reviewed by: Caveboy Dave: More Scrawny than Brawny by Aaron Reynolds April Spisak Reynolds, Aaron Caveboy Dave: More Scrawny than Brawny; illus. by Phil McAndrew. Viking, 2016 [256p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-451-47547-3 $20.99 Paper ed. ISBN 978-0-14-751658-9 $12.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 3-6 His grandpa invented fire and his dad invented the wheel, so Dave’s got a lot to live up to. To prove his worth, he heads off with the other twelve-year-olds to hunt one of many prehistoric beasts that can provide the village with meat, should the kids last in the wild long enough to kill one. Dave’s mind isn’t on this task, however, as he’s always daydreaming about ways to not just survive but improve his life. While creating underwear meant relief for his best friend’s itchy nether parts, the product was ultimately a flop, as was the invention of a fork, but he’s sure that if he sticks with it, Dave can make his inventing mark in his tribe. This graphic novel is outlandishly funny, with poop jokes (a whole story thread is based on following a fecal trail) mixing gracefully with more subtle humor. The illustrations, intentionally primitive and colored using rich, primordial shades, support the caveman theme. It’s a surprisingly—even ahistorically—diverse little group of villagers, but the anachronism is in good cause, and it’s a graphic novel where underwear (very dirty, no less) saves the day when used as a slingshot against a Stabby Cat (they haven’t quite gotten the naming down yet, as this is clearly a saber-tooth tiger), so the facts aren’t really the big issue. Fans will be thrilled to see that this is clearly a set-up novel for a new series, and it’s obvious Dave has lots more ideas for how he can change the hearts and minds of his fellow cave people with his amazing creations. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

My modus operandi

My modus operandi

Living as a Zombie in Media (is the Only Way to Survive)

Nessa contribuição, argumenta-se que viver na, ao invés de com, mídia não apenas nos transforma em zumbis, mas que tal zumbificação nos oferece vantagens adaptativas para sobrevivência no século XXI. Como zumbis midiáticos, estamos mais bem equipados para abraçar o coletivismo ao invés do individualismo; ser anti-hierárquico ao invés de organizado verticalmente; e se engajar em nossos mundos mútuos (de mídia) com paixão e fervor sem necessariamente ter um plano ou objetivo específico em mente. No fim, o futuro da humanidade como zumbis midiáticos se resume à pergunta: se isso realmente é uma sociedade zumbi, o que seria o equivalente mediado de arrancar a cabeças das pessoas? A resposta pode ser encontrada em práticas como hacking, o conjunto de habilidades do fandom e a moralidade do coletivo.

Bedtime Monsters by Josh Schneider (review)

Reviewed by: Bedtime Monsters by Josh Schneider Thaddeus Andracki Schneider, Josh. Bedtime Monsters; written and illus. by Josh Schneider. Clarion, 2013. 32p ISBN 978-0-544-00270-8 $16.99 Ad 5-8 yrs Arnold’s too busy tromping down a city built from blocks and eating the heads of his animal crackers to go to bed, but when the light finally goes out, he’s terrified that the terrible toe biter will come out—and it does. However, it turns out that the toe biter is afraid of the tooth gnasher and climbs under the covers with Arnold. Arnold’s bed gets more and more crowded with more monsters scared of [End Page 237] other monsters until one of them reveals that it’s afraid of the monstrous Arnolds, who destroy New York and bite the heads off of lions and elephants; then Arnold reveals his “secret” and frightens the whole gang away. Although monsters terrified of radiators that make glinking noises are a lot of silly fun, this story is a standard telling of a plot kids have likely heard before (even if they haven’t quite taken it to heart yet). The increasing goofiness of the monsters (the toe biter’s a big fanged purple guy who looks a bit like a boar on two legs, and the grozny buzzler’s a squat olive bird with wire-rimmed glasses and a fez) amp up the readaloud pleasure, but the ending’s reliance on distant details and sudden resolution causes it to fall flat. Schneider’s ink, watercolor, and colored pencil illustrations are distinctly outlined, which sometimes busies up the pages but also adds a cartoonish over-the-top-ness that matches the story’s tone, a tendency enhanced by the kid-friendly saturated palette and the use of blue outlines to show Arnold’s imagined worlds. The real show-stealers here are the monsters themselves, who are mildly frightening with their nasty teeth and horrible claws but hilarious in their worried expressions. Mayer’s There’s a Nightmare in My Closet is a standard measure for books of this type, but this might see some use as a complementary resource for youngsters who need a bit more encouragement to banish the bedtime boogeymen. Copyright © 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois