Book review - The Monster Hypothesis

Title: The Monster Hypothesis
Author: Romily Bernard
Genre: realistic fiction
Similar books: Spirit's Key by Edith Cohn
                      The Disappearance of Emily H by Barrie Summy
Rating:

more than meets the eye

Summary (provided by publisher):  Welcome to Bohring-home to 453 people, 2,053 alligators, and one monster curse.
Correction: home to 454 people, now that Kick Winter is living in the swamp Hollows with her Grandma Missouri, the town (fake) psychic. Bohring is anything but boring for Kick who has already blown a hole through the kitchen floor, befriended a chicken-eating gator, and discovered that the town's hundred-year curse is upon them.
It's the Bohring curse and all the kids are about to become monsters-or so the legend goes. People are worried-except for Kick. She knows there's a scientific explanation for everything, especially curses and monsters. But Kick is the new kid in school and she's determined to make a name for herself . . . by pretending to be psychic.
According to her calculations: one teeny-tiny life + (fake) psychic skills = popularity. But when kids start disappearing and glowing creatures start showing up, Kick's theory quickly evaporates in a puff of foul-smelling swamp gas. Can Kick use her (real) science smarts to prove the curse is a hoax? Or is it just-maybe-sort of-somehow possible the curse is here?
Author Romily Bernard weaves a fast-paced middle-grade mystery filled with humor and scientific intrigue, set in a perfectly eerie Southern town.

My opinion: I like the interpretation of a curse as the power of suggestion over a group of people. Our inclination towards belief influencing our perceptions and interpretation. We see that in the large scale in this book with the town curse. The people believe in it so they are inclined to attribute strange happenings as being related to the curse. Its an excuse for wild or weird behavior. Mass hysteria aided by malfeasance. We also see it in the small scale with Kick and her school relationships. She refuses to see the truth about who values and accepts here.There's an emotional complexity that belies the simplicity of the plot. While the mystery's resolution is a bit lacking in evidence, the heart of the story is strong.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Darning

I've long been interested in the idea of darning but never had a reason to try it. Until now. I have a pair of knitted socks that I love that recently developed a rather large hole.

I was pretty bummed but set it aside intending to repair it eventually. I mentioned it in passing to my mother and she found a darning egg for me to use in her stash.

Now, I'm aware that typically one darns a garment in matching yarn. But that seems boring to me. I decided to follow the Japanese philosophy of kintsugi, embracing a repair as part of the objects history and highlighting it instead of hiding it. So I darned my green sock with red-orange yarn. 

Not bad for my first attempt

I have a small stash of remnants of sock yarn now, just waiting for the next repair.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 1

It's already Christmas Eve, friends! So I have just one last craft to share with you. It's a simple one, made from felt, glitter, and embroidery floss, but it's the symbols I've been focused on all month. 

May you have a blessed Christmas.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 2

I've made a lot of puppets in recent years but my experience with marionettes is limited. I really wanted to try my hand at it this year and I settled on Scrooge as my subject. I fashioned a head and hands from some air dry clay.

If you look closely, though, you can see that as it dried, the head cracked. So I had to make a second attempt with a ping pong ball and hot glue. Given it's haphazard nature, I neglected to get any photos of the puppet in process. I formed the body from a chunk of foam, the clothes from scrap fabric.

The result is a bit rough but I think that suits Scrooge's character.
 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 3

I learned, recently, about the tradition of the yule goat. As a huge fan of goats, I was instantly intrigued. Once I saw a picture I knew I wanted to try making one of my own.

Of course, yule goats are made of straw which I do not have. What I do have in abundance is packing paper so I thought I'd try making one of shredded paper with a paper straw framework.

The assembly was a bit haphazard, so I don't have any process shots but I do have one of the finished goat. It's a bit rough but I'm happy enough with the result that I'll probably try it again in future.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 4

I have a thing about craft kits that have you make several identical items. I understand they're supposed to be used by a group but that bugs me even more. I hate the idea of a whole group of kids walking out of an event with identical projects. So when I get a kit of that sort I do my best to personalize each item. I loved these sloths and tried to use the pieces of foam in unique ways so each sloth is a little different.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 5

Some crafts are big and involved. And some are little and dumb. And I love them anyway. There's just something about giving an unexpected figure a hat or reindeer antlers that makes me very happy. And that's what I've done here. I dressed a bird skeleton for winter and tasked a dinosaur with pulling Santa's sleigh. They'll be joining my narwhal, voodoo doll, and fruitcake (part of previous countdowns).