I'm Officially a RAKtivist!

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

I've been doing random acts of kindness for years. I did a 100-Day Challenge, I completed 29 RAKs for my 29th birthday on January 29, and in 2016 I'm launching B(e) Kind 366  - one RAK a day every day of the year. Ever since I started doing RAKs I've been following The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation on Facebook and Twitter. At the beginning of this week I noticed that the Foundation was taking applications for RAKtivists. In the lead up to the launch of B(e) Kind 366, this opportunity was just perfect timing. The application was short and straightforward and within one day of submitting it, I received a response letting me know I was officially in! I'm a RAKtivist! I strongly urge you to think about becoming one too. Really and truly and once you do, here's the application: Become a RAKtivist™ today!

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation also has a Pinterest and YouTube page filled with pretty much unlimited kindness ideas. The Kindness Ideas page of the Foundation website supplies kindness ideas in the categories of Environment, Animals, Community, Work, Family, School, Sports, Just for Me, and Everyday Kindness. The acts can be sorted by expense and time investment. As a RAKtivist I take part in a weekly challenge with hundreds of fellow RAKtivists. I can't wait to turn my RAKtivism and the ideas and inspiration from The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation into a big part of B(e) Kind 366!

Around the World in 80 Days (Audio Book) by Jules Verne

I've always been intrigued by this story, perhaps because I've always had a touch of wanderlust in me. When I happened upon the opportunity to download this audio book version for free, I couldn't pass it up, plus it counts towards to The Book Riot 2015 Read Harder Challenge!

Around the World in 80 Days was originally published in 1872 (1873 in English), but I think Phileas Fogg may still be the best character name in literary history. Can you think of a better one?

The story tracks Phileas Fogg and Passepartout from London, England to Paris, France to Turin, Italy to Brindisi, Italy to Suez, Egypt to Bombay, India to Calcutta, India to Singapore to Hong Kong, China to Yokohama, Japan to San Francisco, U.S.A. to New York, U.S.A. to Liverpool, England and finally back to London. Throughout the journey they travel by steamer ships and sail boats, trains, an elephant, and a sled (with sails). I'm not really sure why the image from the Listening Library's website has a hot air balloon on the cover. I suppose it's likely because of the popularity that the 1956 film version of the novel, in which a hot air balloon is used at one point, brought to the story. During the entire story the listener wonders whether Phileas Fogg is actually guilty of the theft he's being accused of and whether or not he'll actually make it around the world in eighty days! I won't spoil either one for you in case you haven't read/listened/watched it.

The novel provides historical, political, geographical, religious, and cultural facts about many of the countries visited: India, Singapore, China. A lot of these details include the colonial effects of Britain, its benefits and its detriments (such as the supply of opium to Hong Kong). Every time the local natives were depicted as savages (especially the Sioux in the U.S.A.), I shuddered, but had to remind myself that Around the World in 80 Days was written in the nineteenth century. At the end of the audio book, Tim Dutlow, publisher of Listening Library, provides a nice explanation of Jules Verne's background including his lack of cultural and religious knowledge. I thought that was an appropriately added touch.

One of my favourite parts of the book is when the train crossing the U.S. has to wait for a herd of bison. I couldn't help but chuckle at the irony that only our fast-paced society would appreciate. How much do you despise waiting for a train to cross when you're trying to get somewhere?

Of course, the wanderluster in me was most interested by all of the places Phileas Fogg encounters on his around the world route. If you're not all that intrigued by the places, you might want to skip this list! Mokha, Yemen is seen from the Mongolia between Suez and Bombay and the travelers make a stop in Aden (Steamer Point), Yemen for refueling. As they approach Bombay, the Islands of Mumbai Harbour (including Salsette, Elephanta, and Butcher) are noted. On the way to Calcutta, the train stops momentarily in Burhanpur. The railway stops in the small hamlet of Kholby and the travellers must find alternative transit (which ends up being an elephant) to Allahabad where the rail begins once again and proceeds to Calcutta. After a brief stop at Banaras (Varanasi), the group arrives in Calcutta. After Hong Kong they have an unexpected stop in Shanghai before making it to Yokohama. Across the United States a number of cities are mentioned: San Francisco and Sacramento in California, Reno in Nevada, Ogden City in Utah, Green River in Wyoming, Fort Kearny and Omaha in Nebraska, Chicago in Illinois. There is one shout out to Canada as the Henrietta passes the coast of Newfoundland and just as the travellers are about to complete their journey, they must stop briefly at Queenstown and Dublin in Ireland.

The audio book is just under eight hours long and narrated by Jim Dale. He does a fantastic job with the characters' voices. Each chapter includes music for the first few minutes that sets a nice tone for the rest of the narrative. For instance, Chapter 10, taking place in Bombay, begins with lovely Indian music; Chapter 19, taking place in China, begins with vibrant Chinese tunes; Chapter 23, taking place in Japan, incorporates some beautiful Japanese music. One more added benefit of an audio version of a book is the sound effects. There are pounding horse hooves, chugging trains, gun shots, and every sound you can think of really!

This is the first audio book I have listened to from start to finish and I have to say that I really enjoyed the experience and the book. Right at the end of the recording, narrator Jim Dale speaks to the benefits of audio books for children: "Try pressing play on an audio book," he suggests, rather than turning on the television. I think I may take his advice for myself!

I have to look past the cultural insensitivity of this 1872 publication and give Around the World in 80 Days 5 stars!

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Shadow of Night is the second novel in Deborah Harkness' All Souls Trilogy. I picked up the first book, A Discovery of Witches, because I am taking part in Riedel Fascination's Ethereal 2015 Reading Challenge. I'd consider these books to be fantasy, a genre that I am not typically a reader of, but that's one of the reasons I decided to join Ethereal 2015. The first book was a worthwhile read, intriguing enough to make me consider reading the second one. What really got Shadow of Night off the shelf into my hand is the fact that Harkness takes her readers back in time to the end of the sixteenth century. Historical fiction is my guilty pleasure (which means Shadow of Night also works for The Book Riot 2015 Read Harder Challenge) and I'm a student of literature so the sixteenth century means Shakespeare!

In my review of A Discovery of Witches, I was a little disappointed in Harkness' negative opinion of Shakespeare. Part of the reason I wanted to read Shadow of Night was to see how she treated Shakespeare in his own historical era. I am sad to report that it doesn't get any better in book two. Harkness pushes her opinion that Shakespeare stole all of his work from other authors, particularly Christopher Marlowe, whom she seems to be a fan of. If you happen to be a skeptic as well, I suggest you watch this little TED Ed video: Did Shakespeare write his plays?

Diana (witch) and Matthew (vampire) time walk (one of Diana's powers) out of twenty-first-century America back to sixteenth-century England both to escape danger and find answers. One of the main purposes of their time walking is to find a witch to help Diana learn about and control her powers. The wide array of witches and their many powers is, by far, my favourite aspect of the book. The descriptions of weavers; fire, wind, water, and earth witches; and the witches' fetches (sort of like pets, but with a lot of power, that live inside a witch's body and can be released when their assistance is required) are very finely detailed and definitely imaginative. The fact that I enjoyed these fantasy aspects more than the sixteenth-century setting says a lot considering I am a historical fiction junkie. The sixteenth-century setting was well done and clearly well-researched, but I found that most of the focus was on changes required of Diana's clothing more than anything else.

Harkness intermingles the past with the present considerably well. Diana and Matthew could not travel to the past without affecting the future and the author makes sure to address that detail intelligently. All of the characters that remained in the twenty-first century from the first book were brought into Shadow of Night in some clever way so as not to be forgotten. Traveling to the sixteenth century in turn, allows the introduction of new characters from both Diana's and Matthew's past adding to the depth of character development and plot.

In my review of the first novel I critiqued how Harkness casts Diana in the stereotypical role of damsel-in-distress and allows Matthew to become the knight-in-shining-armour. In Shadow of Night Diana receives some redemption despite the female-oppressing gender dynamics of the sixteenth century. As she increasingly masters control of her powers, Diana is able to save herself and rely less on Matthew for protection.

Before giving my final opinion, I have to mention one specific detail that really bothers me. I'll quote the line so you can see exactly what I mean: "The lumbering vehicles resembled enclosed wagons and were nothing like the dashing carriages in Jane Austen films." Jane Austen was a nineteenth-century writer, not a sixteenth-century writer so I am not sure exactly what the point of this reference was. I hope the mention of Jane Austen was meant to be a comparison between the centuries and the progression of transportation, but bringing in a reference to the nineteenth century at all when the settings (whether sixteenth or twenty-first century) have absolutely nothing to do with Jane Austen or the era when she was writing just seems like a mistake. The whole statement is out of place, especially to someone like me who is finishing a Master of Arts thesis on Jane Austen. I couldn't help but notice the oddity of the reference!

Shadow of Darkness is a bit slow to get going, but the last half of the novel is quite a page turner. I don't think I'll pick up the third book, The Book of Life, anytime soon, but I won't write it off forever. Overall I'm giving Shadow of Darkness 3.5 stars.

1000 Voices Speak For Compassion (#1000Speak)

Brilliant, right?!

This post is part of the amazing initiative 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion. On February 20, around the world humanity is pulling together to flood the blogosphere, twitter, and facebook with kindness and compassion. If you're stopping by on the 20th and want to take part or even just read more #1000Speak posts, here is the link up, but in all honesty, today and everyday, let's just all be kind!

Here are my thoughts for UN World Day of Social Justice:

In a group therapy session a few months ago, the leader asked all of the members to introduce themselves and to include the thing(s) that were most to us. My "simple" answer was family, but my "more complicated" answer was social justice and equality. Life gets a little complicated when those two things collide. I have family members who are openly racist toward Muslims despite the fact that many of my friends practice Islam. I have other family members who think it's funny to make racist jokes about First Nations people despite the fact that I recently married a Syilx man. It's simple to disassociate with friends and delete contacts on facebook who feel the need to post hateful messages, but with family that's just not an option for me. So, I've decided what I need to do is take a lesson from the Quba Islamic Institute and come up with creative responses to hate. We are so quick to respond to hate with hate and it gets us nowhere. In fact, it moves us further away from any sort of conceivable utopia. Consider what the world would look like if acceptance was received on the sole fact that we are all human, if we could escape stereotypes and labels and put ourselves in the positions of others before we pass judgement.

When I watched this video, taken in downtown Toronto, Canada, I cried. I'll say they were tears of joy because they were, but a part of that joy still comes from the sorrow that drives this man's actions in the first place. Why are we more shocked by the strangers that stop to hug him than we are by the fact that he is standing there with these signs in the first place? Imagine if every person who saw this man hugged him and then imagine if this situation never had to exist in the first place! Regardless of whether you are Muslim or not would you be brave enough to do this in the city where you live? Would you stage a similar action with signs identifying yourself as Transgender (or any other non-heteronormative gender), or Schizophrenic (or any other mental illness), or any number of labels that would place you within a stigmatised group of people that exists outside the social "norm"? I like to think I am, but I don't know if that's really the truth.  

I dream of a day when media headlines more often include words like "kindness" and "peace" than "hatred" and "war". We can all do our part to ensure that dream comes true. I've been a RAKtivist for some time now and I challenge everyone who reads this to become one too. RAK stands for Random Act of Kindness and over the past few years I've made a conscious effort to be kinder. Sometimes opportunities to be kind just present themselves and sometimes they take a little more planning. In 2012 I spent one hundred days doing a RAK each day and keeping track of what I did. In 2013, I turned 29 on January 29 and performed 29 RAKs throughout that day. I challenged others to perform their own randomly kind acts and the result was nothing short of magical. Fifty-one people in seven countries on five continents performed seventy Random Acts of Kindness! It was the best birthday I've ever had! 

In 2016 I am launching an even bigger project in the hopes of inspiring as many people as possible to change the world with kindness. B(e) Kind 366 has been in the planning stages for a few months now and will have the finishing touches put on it throughout 2015. I hope I can entice you all to join in the fun and perhaps even create a kindness challenge of your own. 

Kindness and compassion can and will change the world, we just have to put forth the effort!

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Before I write anything about this book I have to thank Carolyn from Riedel Fascination for creating the Ethereal 2015 reading challenge. I don't know if I ever would have picked up A Discovery of Witches if it wasn't for the theme of this challenge. The genre is not what I typically spend much time with. The last novel I read for the challenge featured unicorns (a creature I'm fascinated by) and this time I chose witches (another ethereal interest). What I didn't know when I picked up A Discovery of Witches is that I would be reading about not only witches, but vampires, deamons, ghosts, and a house that is more than haunted, but, rather, alive.

In the first book of her All Souls Trilogy, Harkness gives readers a story of forbidden love reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet a.k.a. Diana is a witch descendant from Bridget Bishop, the first person executed in the Salem witch trials. She has suppressed her powers for her entire life and much of her story involves her journey to acceptance and mastery of those powers. Romeo a.k.a. Matthew is a 1500 year-old vampire. Both exist naturally and blend into human society, coming together in Oxford's Bodleian Library over an ancient, bewitched manuscript Ashmole 782 and initially despise each other. After all, vampires and witches are sworn enemies. The mystery behind Ashmole 782 is the driving catalyst for the entire plot, bringing other vampires, witches, and demons into the story as they all seek the manuscript. As the only one able to access the spellbound book, Diana soon becomes the target of each of these dangerous creatures. Matthew's increasing desire to protect Diana is inevitably what brings the two closer. 

A Discovery of Witches is an intelligent collection of history, academic intrigue, and myth. Harkness creates beautiful descriptions such as her explanation of Ashmole 782 as a palimpsest with once washed off ink reappearing under new text as if it were a textual ghost. The palimpsest image then occurs again, 350 pages later, in an image-evoking description of Matthew's body: "its bright surface obscuring the tale of him hinted at by all those scars." The most unique aspect of the novel has to be the house belonging to Diana's Aunt's Sarah and Emily (both also witches). It is not only haunted by a number of deceased relatives that come and go depending on the situation that arises within the walls, but the house has a mind of its very own. It closes, opens, and locks doors; creates new rooms for visiting guests; hides precious objects until they are needed; and any number of other strange and fascinating activities. 

If I am to provide some criticism it would be that A Discovery of Witches is basically Romeo and Juliet meets Twilight meets Fifty Shades of Grey. (In Harkness' defense, though, the last title in that list was published after A Discovery of Witches.) Despite the fact that Diana is a strong and independent female character, Matthew still takes on the protector or knight-in-shining-armour role that is so typical of love stories. It was rather disappointing when it became clear that Diana would inevitably take on the role of damsel-in-distress. Near the end of the novel, there is a subtle jab at Shakespeare that doesn't sit quite right, suggesting that the famous playwright was a magpie collecting other writer's stories. Demeaning the most famous playwright in history is a bit harsh coming from an author who has just written a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet herself. 

What is wonderful about A Discovery of Witches and places it outside the confines of being labelled "just another forbidden love story" is that it asks for acceptance, but not just acceptance for the two lovers, an all-encompassing acceptance of all species (or races) by all others. The novel is a page-turner no doubt and as Diana and Matthew timewalk back to the 1590s for Harkness' second novel of the trilogy, Shadow of Night, the historical-fiction lover in me is definitely intrigued. I'm also curious to see how Shakespeare will fare through Harkness' eyes during his own time period. 

Overall, A Discovery of Witches is getting 4 stars and a glowing (of the witch variety) recommendation!

Coming Soon: B(e) Kind 366

It's been about a year since I posted on a regular basis. I've been on hiatus and I still am (sort of). While I complete my Master of Arts degree, blogging is one of the things that has to be put on the back burner so to speak. Most of the posts you'll see if you stop by will likely be book reviews. My New Year's resolution of sorts was to read for pleasure more often. To keep up with that promise to myself I signed up for a few 2015 Reading Challenges. Every now and again, though, you'll find a post like this. I've had a plan in the making for some time inspired by 366randomacts.org. A few years ago I started and finished 100 Days of Kindness. Then on my 29th birthday (January 29th) I performed 29 Random Acts of Kindness that day and asked others to perform RAKs as well. The results were incredible with 51 people in 7 countries across 5 continents performing 70+ acts of kindness!

In 2016 I plan to launch B(e) Kind 366. 

I'll do a RAK (Random Act of Kindness) every day of the year. At the same time I'll be raising money for the WUSC (World University Service of Canada) SRP (Student Refugee Program), an organisation and program that I have been involved in for over a decade and one that has changed my life! Every month I'll have a different theme for my RAKs and different surprises for everyone who contributes to my fundraising efforts. It'll all be part of a perpetual kindness cycle and I hope you'll be a part of it!

2016 is going to be a fantastic year; I can just feel it and as part of the build up I'm going to try my best to write an anticipatory post like this at least once a month in an attempt to build my blog following. In 2016 I plan to update my blog daily as a record for B(e) Kind 366 and I'd like as many people to follow along and take part as possible! So, if you stopped by this post, please stop by again and tell all of your blogger friends. Leave a comment and I'll be sure to visit you too!

Into the Land of the Unicorns by Bruce Coville

I think I've owned Into the Land of the Unicorns for close to twenty-five years. I'm venturing to say that I ordered it from a Scholastic book order in elementary school. It's young adult fiction, but I was reading well above my age level as a youngster so I'm thinking Mom would have bought this for me before I was ten. I dug this out of my youth-book-box when I found out about Riedel Fascination's Ethereal 2015 Reading Challenge. If I had to choose a favourite ethereal being it would be the unicorn; in fact I often tell people it's my spirit animal!

Coming back to visit this book after so many years was a lot of fun. I don't have a lot of interest in YA literature and, to be honest, this book didn't help to build that interest. It is a lovely read, though, and once I got into it, the story did captivate me enough to read the last fifty pages non-stop. Into the Land of the Unicorns is a magical book filled with vibrant detail like this description of the ethereal creatures themselves: "In shape, he was much like a horse, though somewhat smaller and more finely built. His hooves were cloven, like a goat's, rather than solid like those of a horse. Mane and flowing tail seemed spun of silver cloud and moonlight. From between his enormous dark eyes thrust a spiraled horn, three feet long at the least, that glowed as if lit from within." Beautiful!

The story follows a young girl, Cara, from the human world to Luster, the land of the unicorns, where she along with a group of unlikely companions treks through dangerous country to return a powerful amulet to the Queen. Of course, they hit some bumps along the way. What fun would a fantasy be if good did not have to conquer evil?

By far, my favourite character is the Squijum, a rambunctious cross between a monkey and a squirrel who says things like: "Now now shake butts move feet hotcha get going." As a book lover, my favourite scene in the book occurs when the group reaches the home of Grimwold, keeper of the Unicorn Chronicles. He has a room called the Story Room described as follows: "Books, scrolls, stacks of paper, notebooks, pens, and pots of ink seemed to cover every available surface - of which there were many, since the room held five long, low tables. The dark wooden walls were lined with with maps, pictures, and intricately woven tapestries." I would love few things more than to live forever in that room. Wouldn't you?!

I'm really glad I revisited this book and I actually wouldn't mind reading the other three books in the series. Since YA fiction isn't really my forte, though, I'm giving this book a three star rating.