Why Do Mormons and Fantasy Go Together?

And. . . the long-awaited answer to whether kids are reading Lord of the Rings: Some definitely are. I've heard of several who have in fact read the series in junior high or high school. And probably I overestimated those who read it when I was in school because it was almost certainly just my friends and not lots of other people. And, let's face it, I hung out with dorks.

One interesting thing is that opinion seems widespread that LOTR is more for adults than for youth. Even youth who have read them proclaimed to me how difficult they were. I don't recall anyone ever saying that or thinking that when I was a youth. This could be in part, as many have pointed out, because there are so many youth fantasy books these days and they are all really accessible.

On a related topic, the English faculty who play basketball with me were saying that about half of their MFA candidates these days want to write youth fantasy. It's huge.

So, the question: Why Do Mormons and Fantasy (especially youth fantasy) Go Together?

LDS writers have probably been more successful in the youth fantasy market than in any other market. And they've been very successful indeed, wildly successful, actually. Consider:

Brandon Sanderson: Alcatraz Series and many successful fantasy books for adults.

Stephanie Meyer: Yes this is Fantasy and Science Fiction. It counts. The English guys said so.

Brandon Mull: Fablehaven Series.

Shannon Hale: Bayern Series.

Jeffrey Scott Savage: Farworld Series.

Obert Skye: Leven Thumps Series.

James Dashner: Maze Runner Series.

It's an impressive list of people who are selling well and getting noticed well beyond LDS circles, especially the first four on the list.

I've read some of Sanderson, Meyer, Mull and Hale.

I think Sanderson is the real deal and could hit super-stardom. He has already hit pretty high levels and gets lots of love. He was asked to finish one of the premiere fantasy series of all times, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, which is a very high honor. I've really enjoyed his adult fantasy. His youth series, Alcatraz, is kind of fun and quite different.

Mull's Fablehaven Series is one of the few I've actually finished, in part because Nathan adored it, and in part because it got BETTER with each book. I've never seen that before. It was really excellent by the second book and pretty amazing from the third book until the end. (While I love fantasy, I especially love the part where people create new worlds, leading me to frequently drop a series before I've finished it in favor of the next enticing new world just around the bend.)

Hale is very gifted and enchanting, with memorable characters whose conflicts are more internal than external. But I thought Goose Girl better than the next one in the series, Enna Burning, and am not sure I will finish the trilogy. The books undoubtedly appeal more to girls than to boys, but it's fun to have a strong fantasy female lead for a change.

Meyer has a fine imagination and creates interesting worlds and characters. I made it through Twilight but felt very mixed about it and refused to read more. But I did enjoy her science fiction book, The Host. It's a very cool idea that she executes well, if too long-windedly. I suppose huge fame has the downside of editors not telling you when you need to cut 100 pages.

OK: So why do LDS writers and youth fantasy go together?

1-Orson Scott Card pioneered the way in scifi/fantasy and has been a big mentor, I'm guessing. He remains extremely active in the writing world and is very visible. His Ender's Game, by the way, is a must-read classic.

2-It's clean: no need for sex.

3-Its moral orientation fits with LDS culture (and Christian culture) in multiple ways:

a) There are larger forces of good and evil out there with powerful qualities that humans can draw on

b) Themes of the chosen one (and not just a messiah, but other kinds of chosen ones) are frequent

c) Life is a battle between good and evil, and the two are frequently clearly distinguishable

d) Evil forces have menacing power that threaten to overwhelm the smaller bands of faithful

e) Virtues such as love, patience, hope, sacrifice, wisdom, and loyalty are essential to winning the day and gaining the prize

f) Life is a perilous journey requiring constant vigilance and effort

g) Many have special gifts they share with others along the way to ease their path

I suppose there are others. Fantasy themes just seem a very good fit with Christian values and worldviews, to me, as CS Lewis obviously pointed out.

What other genres or sub-genres might we expect to take off with LDS authors?

Yurting the Uintas

Cozy, cozy, inside our Uinta Yurt!

Nathan and I went Yurting in the Uintas! Look closely at the photo at the top. Nathan and I are both in the photo. This is the terrain behind our yurt. We climbed it to get to the top of the ridge you'll see below.

It was a Glorious Day. Lots of sunshine. Temps probably in the 20s. No wind.

The ridgeline above our yurt, looking down on East Fork of the Bear River and Valley.

Lily Lake right by our Yurt. Most photos of Theo involve him being in the air or in motion somehow. It was doggie nirvana.

Tolkein's Irrelevance?

So, here is the question: Why are kids not reading Lord of the Rings any more? Why are the LOTR movies and other excellent fantasy books not leading leading people to read LOTR? Has all of Tolkein's success in terms of inspiring imitators actually making people forget about his master works?

When I was in 5th grade, my teacher read The Hobbit to our class. Our first assignment was to use the description we heard to draw a Hobbit. I hated drawing and so wasn't sure I liked this whole fantasy thing, but survived the assignment to fall in love with the book and with Fantasy generally.

I subsequently read The Lord of the Rings about 5 times in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades or so. Maybe more. I've forgotten. And since then I've read it a couple times, most recently about five years ago perhaps. I remember in particular being comforted by it during a particularly long commencement/convocation ceremony at BYU. I received a paperback box set of the Hobbit and LOTR at some point around 6th grade. I still own it, the books so wide from wear that only three fit in a box originally intended for four.

I didn't just fall in love with LOTR; I fell in love with Fantasy generally. I've read more Fantasy than any other genre, easily, and I associate it with happiness, comfort, love, and all good things. And Tolkein didn't just invent a world, he invented a whole genre, which is amazing.

So I naturally assumed all my children would follow this passion. I read the Hobbit to each of them the summer after their fourth-grade year. I've now started early with Leah since it seems a nice winter activity. They've all enjoyed the Hobbit quite a bit. But no one has yet fallen in love with LOTR. Not one has even managed to read even Fellowship of the Ring. Well, Adrienne tells me she read the first two books but couldn't make it through the third. Nathan tells me he made it 150 pages but it was too boring. The fellowship had only made it two miles, in his view.

I'm trying to figure out why. It's not that they despise Fantasy at all. They've all gone on to read and love other fantasy books. Sammie with the Harry Potter series most closely resembles my passion for Tolkein. She has been fairly obsessed at times with Harry and has read every book in the series multiple times. Adrienne has read a bunch of different Fantasy books I've foisted on her and enjoyed them quite a bit, but doesn't really read Fantasy any more now that I have no influence on her reading habits, and I don't think ever read any Fantasy more than once. I just asked Nathan his favorite Fantasy series and he wondered if I was asking which fantasy sport was his favorite. Oh dear. But now that we're communicating, he says his favorite is Percy Jackson, and he has read each book multiple times.

And they really like the LOTR movies. Nathan puts the movies in his top 10 all-time movies. Sammie might as well. Probably not Adrienne. Leah is too young. I won't even ask Ellen about Fantasy; she will just talk about being on a desert island with no children, husband or anything but non-Fantasy books, a laptop with which to write, and maybe some PTA people to email. That's her version of Fantasy.

I actually think Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are reasonable contenders for the title of best Fantasy series of all time. They are both probably in my top five. But LOTR is still far ahead. Why? And why don't others see this? And does this a symptom of a deeper problem in education and society? Everyone was so pleased a few years ago that kids were reading Harry Potter. But if we've substituted Potter for Hobbits, is that progress?

Condi

I got my picture taken with Condoleezza Rice today. It was pretty cool. I succeeded in impressing Sammie, which is quite an accomplishment. She thinks it needs to be my profile picture, on Facebook I guess. I'll post it here when I get it from the university. Presuming someone at the university can figure out who that low-level person is who had the temerity to go greet her and get his photo taken with her!

I had all of 30 seconds with her. She shook my hand kind of mechanically and smiled for the photo. I told her I was with the political science department and she looked at me with renewed interest and remarked that she understood it was an excellent department. She seemed to mean it sincerely, like she had had an actual conversation about this and remembered it. That's possible; she is in political science at Stanford and the Graduate School of Business, and we place undergraduates in graduate programs in both departments and then they go out and find jobs, and so the world turns. Maybe she also even reads actual political science articles too and knows someone's article.

Anyway, she gave the University Forum today and was quite charming. She completely won over nearly everyone, I believe. She gave a very inspirational commencement-style address but really managed to make it relevant to current students, in large part by telling stories of her own undergraduate experience. She wound up giving a pretty passionate defense of a liberal education. Because she loved political science, it turned out to be a pretty good advertisement for our major and for international studies programs.

Among her interesting ideas either in the speech or afterward in Q&A:

1. Biggest security threat to the US is deplorable state of K-12 education. (Ellen now adores Condi, as much for this as for anything).

2. Second biggest threat is the northern part of Mexico, which is increasingly looking like a failed state.

3. China is not likely to become the world's economic leader because the modern global economy is so much based on knoweldge and information, and China is too scared of open information flows.

4. Mistakes she made: Not paying enough attention to failed states before 9/11; not investing enough to rebuild Afghanistan and conquer Taliban post-9/11.

5.Favorite secretaries of State were Seward, Jefferson, Marshall and Acheson. The latter two were Truman's two Secretaries. Interestingly, they built global institutions, something the Bush administration in which Condi served was pretty averse to.

6. Work hard to find your passion and pursue it in terms of a major, but don't make it easy on yourself. If you're good at math, take writing classes and vice versa.

7. Educations must be well-rounded and include a good dose of the arts, including at K-12 level.

8. Schools must get better by having higher standards and by getting rid of teachers who aren't interested in improvement.

9. This was funny: She loves reading the newspaper and thinking, "Hmmm, that's interesting." That must be wonderful indeed, but perhaps also deflating if she thinks she can do better.

10. There will one day soon be a woman president. The interesting question is whether there will be a woman commander in chief of the armed forces.

11. If Hilary serves out her term, it will be 16 years since the last white male secretary of state.

12. Political dialogue has always been rough and tumble in this country, but the pace has accelerated, which is a huge problem. LBJ would not get something momentous like civil rights legislation through Congress nowdays because he would not be granted the time to do the coalition building that was necessary. Our institutions were designed to move slow and deliberately; the speed of modern negative political discourse helps prevent them from operating well.

Theo and the Mouse, and Other Tales

Sammie had a super-fun date/dance last night: a masquerade. Adrienne created these amazing masks for her and her date. Check them out! Adrie is off and running on another semester and applying for the special ed program. She is super-excited to do that and is doing so great.

I went snowshoeing with the bike shop gang Thursday evening up American Fork Canyon to a place called Pine Hollow. It's really incredibly beautiful. We had quite a bit of snow. We went up to two meadows and an overlook where you could see some peaks, some valleys, and Heber in the distance. The stars were great because there was a new moon.

Along the way, Theo found a mouse somehow. He chased it down, batted it between his paws, and picked it up in his mouth. Then he spit it out again and let it run, chased it down, and got it again. What fun! The mouse had been on the packed down trail, but Theo took it into the deeper snow. I suppose this wasn't as fun because it was harder probably for both the mouse and Theo to move. I'm not sure what happened. I lost track, but there's probably a dead mouse up there.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts is a book called Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day. It makes really amazing, crusty-on-the-outside, dense and moist on the inside, artisan breads of the kind you might find in good bakeries in, really and truly, about 5 minutes a day plus 15 minutes of prep time every 5 days. It's our new favorite thing. The only downside is that it uses just basic flour so you don't get all the different kinds of flours, but maybe there are recipes later that use other flours. Try it!

I have here in front of me a seed catalog. The first sign of spring. It is time to order seeds! I just pulled the last of the frozen green beans from the freezer. I still have beets and carrots in the garden ready to harvest. Leaving them in the ground to harvest in January and February is a wonderful way to have fresh veggies in winter! I tried Burpee seeds once, and they were terrible. So now I'm trying Johnny's. I ordered spinach from them in the fall so I could get it in and it would over-winter and come up in February. I got them in pretty late, and then Theo discovered how to get over the fence and tear up the garden, so I'm not sure they survived. Plus we've had a layer of snow now for a week that is not going anywhere. So, we'll see if we have spinach in February. Maybe not. But I'm cheering for the spinach. And at least the seeds came on time and sprouted well.

This new year has started so well! I'm very grateful not to be teaching. I've been able to focus on administrative and management issues in the department. I'm going to lead an effort this semester to re-think our curriculum. The face of our department has changed dramatically in the last 15 years and it's a good time to re-think what we are doing. I sense we have the capacity to do more and better.

Leah had her first swim meet yesterday. It was very cute and fun seeing her excited to do well. She dropped 6 seconds within the same meet on the 50 free! Nathan has a good basketball team, but they got beat yesterday by a tremendous team. I took him to the gym last night with sweet new basketball shoes to work on some skills. He met a guy his age doing the same thing and they had a lot of fun.

Tracking in the Snow

We have found a really fun, family-friendly place near our home to snowshoe. It is below the mouth of Dry Canyon in the Wildlife Management Area. The terrain is rolling and not too steep, but there are fun slopes and gullies if you want a bit more adventure.


There is also a deer colony, complete with a deer highway in the snow. In the picture above you can see it looks like a place where deer have slept. The snow is packed down and icy as if it has been melted by body heat and the shapes are about deer-sized.

In this photo, you can see how deer have pawed the ground extensively looking for grasses.

Here is some deer scat and interesting tracks. You can see in the upper left marks that look like skis. Sometimes we saw tracks where these were very pronounced. It looked exactly like skis, except no pole marks off to the side and the ski marks were punctuated by holes in the middle of the "ski" tracks where a hoof or something had been planted. I suppose, after some thought, the sk marks are made by hoofs being dragged along the top of the snow? It's amazing how perfectly straight they are, however, for fairly long distances. Also, you can see deer skat. We saw, but did not photograph some larger scat. It was located in a place where the snow had been dug away much more to get down to the grass for a bed. We wondered if it were elk or moose that made the larger scat and deeper beds. I researched scat on the internet and discovered interesting things, such as replica moose scat available for purchase. I also discovered that it is difficult to tell the difference between elk and moose scat. They are about the same size and (there is some dispute about this) color, but one is more rounded on the end and the other more indented. We'll take a picture next time. Tracking is fun!