Children of the Jedi

Children of the Jedi is a Star Wars novel written by Barbara Hambly. The story takes place not long after the destruction of the death star. Leia and Han are married and have three kids. Luke is a Jedi Master who is trying to teach children who are strong in the force. Leia and Han receive word that some of the old Jedi families may have taken their children and hid on the outer reaches of the galaxy on remote planets to protect their children from the Empire. Leia and Han set out for one planet to investigate. Meanwhile Luke decides to investigate another region of space to find evidence of another hiding place. Instead, Luke finds himself trapped on a large ship hidden by the Empire that has been awakened to complete its unknown mission.

The story was a fun read exploring more of the Star Wars galaxy. I nearly gave up on it because the author introduces a lot of characters and throws out lots of locations in the first few chapters. I couldn't keep track of it all. But I just ignored that which I didn't have any prior knowledge and continued on. I figured the important new characters would show up again and the rest would just disappear. Sure enough, if you stick with the story, it will come together and make more sense.

Book Rating: 3 stars

Three books I couldn't read

I had intended not to mention these books, but maybe you will come across them and my comments will be helpful.

Errands by Judith Guest.

Editors gushed over this one, which is why I picked it up. "Guest deals with the death of a loved one in a very real way" kind of garbage. I guess I was in the mood for an emotional, thoughtful book. How does a family deal with the death of a loved one? In this one, the author writes in an exploitative, sensational way where the characters reveal all their sins. I could see that the characters were destined to each lose their minds after the death of the one character. There was no humanity, IMO. It was just a story that dealt with the worst of humanity, swimming in the muck where there is little hope. I couldn't get passed the third chapter.

Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall.

In this story a man wakes up with absolutely no memory of his past. He finds a note that tells him to call a Dr. Randall immediately who explains this is not the first time this has happened to him. I have to admit I liked this story. I liked the quality of the writing. It was intriguing, albeit derivative of other stories. Even so, it had potential. I was getting into it until I hit the chapter in which the character describes his girlfriend. I couldn't get passed the objectification of women in that one chapter. The book slammed shut and went back to the library.


The Truth Machine by James L. Halperin

I never did figure out what the truth machine is exactly. The first chapter is an explanation of how the story is told by a machine, emotionless and factual. It begins by discussing a Dr. Carter, a psychologist, and one of his cases working with a violent criminal. This criminal describes being raped as a child. The book immediately slammed shut there. I don't like reading details of such a crime.

The book has lots of praise on Amazon - equating it to 1984 and Atlas Shrugged with its political commentary and positions. Wasn't worth wading through the muck to get to it.

Austenland

After reviewing The Actor and the Housewife, I said I may stay away from Shannon Hale's books for a while. The book still annoys me and I would be hard pressed to recommend it to others. Well, I caved with Austenland.

The immediate thing I noticed is that this book was probably the inspiration for The Actor and the Housewife. In this book Jane has an addiction to all things Austen, including the Pride and Prejudice version with Colin Firth. Jane is a 33 year old single woman who dreams of meeting and falling in love with Colin Firth's version of Mr. Darcy. In The Actor and the Housewife, the main character actually meets her hollwood hunk obsession.

Jane inherits an all exclusive trip to Austenland from her great-aunt Carolyn. Austenland is a vacation resort in which clients enter the world of Jane Austen. Clients dress in period clothing, eat authentic food, and take on the life of British gentry circa 1813. The visit includes actors who take on various roles, including possible love interests. Jane decides to accept the trip so that she can experience her idealized dreamland and come to terms with reality.

I won't give the end away, though one can probably guess. This would be a fun romantic comedy. It kept me entertained for the weekend as it is a quick and easy read. It falls into all things Austen and joins a genre which seems to evolve around Jane Austen stories. I probably should get around to reading the actual books as I have only ever seen the movies. Maybe someday. At least this book by Shannon Hale is what I expected and I wasn't disappointed.

Book Rating: 4 Stars

Does this book need lead testing? Decision Flow Charts

In my spare time (not really), I created some flow charts to help work out the decision process in determining if a book needs to be lead tested. You may think that relying on the simple pre vs post 1985 printing date is all you need, guess again. The CPSC doesn't give a blanket exemption but instead gives many qualifiers to the post-1985 exemption. Perhaps I am making this way too complex? I'll let you decide. I don't assume to understand the final lead rule - so use these with caution and at your own risk. I hope this at least illustrates the regulatory complexity that is the result of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and the further complexity that results in exemptions.

These charts are available as PDF, openoffice, inkscape SVG formats. If you find an error, please leave a comment and I'll see if I can fix it. You can also DM tweet (melanes) me your email address if you would like a PDF copy. Click on the images for larger versions. (BTW, I couldn't make just one flow chart. It wasn't that cut and dry, thus the reason for two).

The CPSC exempts books, sort of

Yesterday the CPSC issued some new guidelines for resellers and exempted some items (90 page PDF, books start about page 26) from lead testing. The CPSIA gives the commission the power to exempt certain materials from testing if they determine something is lead free. They sort of did this by declaring certain natural products lead free back in February. These guidelines provide some good news to various product makers, particularly apparel and book makers. There will be more discussion about this over the next few days. Sarah of Organic Baby Farm and DHMrs both discuss how this ruling applies to books. Keep your eyes on the site What is the CPSIA for more.

The CPSC took a component approach to the lead testing exemptions. This means if the individual components do not contain lead then the entire unit does not contain lead. If the manufacturing process does not introduce lead, then the product does not contain lead. The CPSC examined the main components of books, paper, adhesives, thread, staples, inks, and printing processes. There are some big exceptions though. This means there is some good news and bad news for books. The CPSC also examines the arguments made by the ALA which had requested a blanket exemption for libraries.

The Good News

The CPSC found that paper, paper coatings, and most printing processes do not contain or introduce lead into a book. The guidelines specifically examined modern 4 color or CMYK printing. The inks used in this process do not use or introduce lead and most books are printed this way. However, spot ink processes might, so books that use spot ink processes will have to be tested. Adhesives might contain lead, but they have been ruled inaccessible because they are contained in the binding of the book (more on this below).

Most books printed after 1985 are exempted from expensive 3rd party testing because of this component analysis and approach.

The Bad News

Books printed before 1985 may have lead, which would have been used in the inks. Even though the lead, in most cases, would be below the limits, the CPSC cannot issue an exemption. There may be some books which are above the limits and the only way to know is to test them.

Books with staples, spiral bindings, stickers, attached and or painted components are not exempt. Spiral bindings have been involved in recalls because of lead, so not really a surprise. Novelty books fall into this category and they are not exempt.

The American Library Association

The ALA tried to get a blanket exemption for libraries, which the CPSC did not grant. The ALA did a really poor job in their arguments for an exemption. They tried to says books from libraries are not distributed as products in interstate commerce. The ALA went as far as to say children's books are not products at all. The ALA seemed to forget that libraries sell books for fundraisers. There is also a little program called interlibrary loaning in which libraries send books, sometimes across state lines, to other libraries. In any event, the CPSC determined that libraries do distribute books in commerce regardless if any money is exchanged. This is rather humorous because the ALA originally supported passage of the CPSIA. The ALA then had the arrogance to assume that their lobbyist pals and Washington insiders would be able to protect them and their member libraries. They went so far as to tell libraries/librarians to sit tight, that they were taking care of this and libraries would be protected. Instead of marshalling the strength of their membership like they did to protect patrons from the Patriot Act, they rolled over like a lap dog and let libraries fall victim to the extremes of the law.

What this means for libraries

The CPSC told the ALA to expect further guidance on how to deal with books that already exist on library shelves. So while books printed before 1985 are still subject to the testing requirement, there is still some hope for some relief. Though it is hard to know when or in what form this relief will come. The deadline for the third party testing to begin is February 2010.

As I have blogged before, it is difficult, if not impossible, to know when a book was printed. This information was never considered relevant. Books include a copyright date, which does not equate to a printing date. This still subjects libraries to pulling books which are perfectly safe simply because the copyright date is pre-1985. Like most libraries, this will devastate my local library.

I don't think the CPSC realizes the number of children's books on library shelves that contain staples. I don't think anyone really knows. Books bound with staples are bound in two ways. The first way is rather obvious - the staples go through the center of the book like a pamphlet. It is a simple, cheap way to bind a book. There are many, many books produced this way. Books are also bound with staples through the back edge of the book and are contained within the binding of the book. Sometimes, there is no way to know those staples are there unless one takes a book a part.

Novelty books are equally difficult. There are all kinds of novelty books. "Touch and feel" books have fabrics or laminated components. Some books have parts that come apart. Some novelty books have vinyl, which is known to contain lead. I expect novelty books will disappear from the marketplace. Stapled and spiral bound books are certainly going to disappear from the market place too. Older books have already started to disappear from places like Amazon. The costs for testing and other regulatory requirements make it to expensive to make these books available at an affordable price.

I expect regular children's books to go up in price as well. Book publishers may not be technically required to test regular books, but there is the whole liability problem. The CPSC is going to watch the market place. This means they will purchase product, test it, and if it fails any part of the CPSIA, you can expect heavy, heavy fines and possible jail time. So even though they are exempting books, I still expect some form of randomized testing to occur during manufacturing. We can only assume State Attorney Generals will go along with these guidelines. But who truly knows? In any event, the price of children's books will go up.

The lead testing exemption stands so long as the adhesive remains inaccessible. Fine for new books, but used books pose a problem. The normal use and abuse of a library book may subject a book to testing requirements if the book falls apart. Now you may assume that libraries throw books away when they fall apart. Libraries do throw away children's books beyond repair. But we do try to extend the life of a book as much as possible. We have numerous books on the shelf that have some of the bindings exposed because we just haven't had time to repair them. Their circulation stats don't justify immediate attention. There are just too many. We tape or glue books back together and hope we can get a few more circulations out of it. Some books are worth repairing and saving because no equivalent replacement can be found. This is true of our older collection. Older books used animal based adhesives and they seem to be exempted. More recent books used other adhesives which may contain lead. In any event, this is a grey area that libraries will have to deal with.

A few words of warning

It is hard to know if these exemptions will stand. There is a certain complexity that makes it difficult on many levels. Throw into the mix consumer lobbyist groups which successfully sued for the pthalate ban to be applied retroactively. They used the strictness of the wording of the law as justification and a judge agreed with them. The CPSC claims that the law gives them power to exempt certain classes of materials which are inherently lead free. But they themselves say that more testing needs to be done in the market place for absolute proof. The wording of the law doesn't allow component testing and yet the CPSC takes a component level approach to the exemptions. It is a more common sense way to look at products, but is it truly supported by the CPSIA? I don't know. There is the attorney general aspect in which they can do what they want.

This ruling only applies to lead testing. There are still other testing requirements, tracking labels, and more regulations to come.

For now, we can deal with the exemptions they have given us. I don't think we can relax though. The law truly needs to be repealed or severely amended to allow risk based rulings. We can't give up on this yet. Stay tuned.

Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii

Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii is a story by Lee Goldberg and is very similar to Mr. Monk Goes to Germany, which I previously reviewed and didn't like. This story was written before the Germany story and it is ten times better.

Natalie is invited to attend a friends wedding in Hawaii. This is one of the few vacations away from Monk she is able to take and she really looked forward to the time off. Problem is Monk couldn't bear to be away from Natalie for a full week and so he followed her. In order to endure a airplane ride for over 5 hours, Monk takes some prescribed mood-altering medications (the idea is introduced here which later shows up in Mr. Monk Goes to Germany). These medications depress Monk's detective abilities, so he would only take the medication in extreme circumstances. Once Monk is in Hawaii, he turns Natalie's vacation into a working vacation. He immediately begins investigating a murder that takes place at the resort. Monk-ish hilarity ensues with a fake tv psychic, a string of unsolved robberies, and more.

The story was enjoyable and I didn't mind the medication crutch to take Monk to Hawaii. It does get old in the Germany story though (and I think the author uses it in at least one other story). In some ways it is like drugging B.A. Baracus of the A-Team to get him on a plane. There must be some other way to get Monk out of his element and into a new location than to default to this every time.

Book Rating: 3 stars.