Wanna find out where Santa Claus is buried? Read NICKED
Hint: Not the North Pole
A book to read: NICKED by M. T. Anderson
Oh, how I love M.T. Anderson! I’ve read his books for teenagers, including one of the BEST YA nonfiction books in the world SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD. (Here are my thoughts about teaching SYMPHONY). His adult debut NICKED just came out this summer (July 2024), and it’s glorious.
NICKED is the story of a pious monk living in Italy in the late 11th century. He gets sent to Seljuk-occupied Lycia to verify the theft liberation of the bones of Saint Nicholas. The compassionate monk hopes that the ooze from St. Nick’s corpse can cure plaque victims. The covetous Archbishop hopes the corpse will lure pilgrims and their indulgence monies to the city of Bari.
Actually nicking the bones of St. Nick is a task for Tyun the treasure hunter. He cannot be more different than our pious monk, Nicephorus:
But opposites attract don’t they…especially same-sex opposites?!? Read to find out :)
The story (and based on actual historical events1) is great and all that, but the real star of the book is the writing. Author M.T. Anderson is hysterical. The book is delightfully irreverent, brimming with flippant turns-of-phrases and perfectly placed esoteric words.
Several reviews compare the book’s tone to The Princess Bride, but I kept thinking about Christopher Moore’s LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL, which is my absolute favorite book in the whole entire world (I wrote about LAMB here). Both books do this genius thing wherein one character will say something beautiful and poetic and profound and then another character responds with a sacrilegious one-liner.
Just cracks me up.
A place to explore: Greece and the Adriatic
As the characters in NICKED sailed from Italy to Greece and beyond, I reminisced about my own travel across the Adriatic.
Nearly two decades ago, I spent a winter in Europe, winding my way from Athens to Trondheim before settling in to student-teach in Norway. It was the first time I’d ever been on a plane or traveled by myself. When I first landed in Greece, I felt a little lost and scared. But luckily, my best friend and her new husband were in the city. They’d been traveling through Europe for the past few months.
We’d planned, months before, to meet up in Greece and stay at the same hostel. However, as we were all traveling without cell phones (HOW DID WE SURVIVE?), I kept warning myself that they might not be there.
But they were!
I was thrilled and relieved to see familiar faces. My friends were thrilled that I’d brought then a tub of homemade candy in my backpack. Their 5-Euro-a-day budget had not allowed for chocolate (or enough food in general).
Note: This formally-formal frugal friend is now willing to
wastespend $50 a year to financially support this very newsletter, which is so lovely of her! But seriously, Rachel, how much would you have killed to have this extra $50 to spend on Greek gyros back in 2005? Being in our twenties was great and all, but yay for the expendable income was have in our 40s.
After Athens, the three of us took a train to Patras where we’d board a 16 hour ferry to Italy. On the train, we made friends with a gregarious traveler from Mexico, also heading to Italy. The four of us spent most of the train trip lamenting the fact that we were traveling away from the land of feta, baklava, souvlaki, and (especially) gyros.
Our timeframe to get off the train and board the ferry was incredibly short, but our new friend declared that she simply could not leave Greece without one more gyro. When our train pulled into Patras, my friends and I dashed for the ship while our new friend dashed into town for that last gyro.
We were sure we’d seen the last of her, which was a bummer because she was hilarious.
But just as the ship was about to leave, we saw her from the ship deck.
“Wait!” She yelled in several languages. She hopped off the back of some Greek dude’s motorcycle and came racing towards the dock, gyro in both hands, enormous backpack bouncing with each step.
I still think of her whenever I eat a gyro. Or read about people traveling across the Adriatic. I hope that Brother Nicephorus and Tyun The Treasure Hunter had excellent food in Greece.
A lesson to teach: Not Greece
Sorry Greeks, but I don’t teach anything about Greece :) Bummer, I know. But ya can’t teach everything.
I don’t even teach about ancient Greek democracy in my Gov class. Instead of learning about how ancient Rome and Greece influenced US politics, my students learn about the Haudenosaunee Nations (later called the Iroquois Confederacy by colonists) and how the Great Council worked in the 1700s. Here is a video that explains it and here are video notes for students.
If you purchase books via the links in this newsletter, know that you are financially supporting me, the authors, and your local independent book store. Thank you!
Here is the story, as told by the St. Nicholas Center (which for some reason is in Michigan?)