Review: The Steal

The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting by Rachel Shteir was interesting. The writing was okay for a nonfiction, but I've read much more engaging nonfiction authors.

Some of the information was interesting. Who shoplifts and why. Punishments and prevention techniques throughout history. The top ten most shoplifted items. On the list was steak. Really people? Steak?! Why? And I really don't want to think about the how. But it brought one of the more interesting aspects to light. People who are hungry steal bread (which doesn't anger store owners nearly so much), those who steal steak steal out of a sense of entitlement. They have enough, maybe even a lot, but somehow they feel they deserve more. Or they deserve something for nothing.

So overall, interesting but not fascinating. Well written, but not amazing. Read it if the subject interests you enough.

Review: Divergent

I've been jumping from book to book lately without really committing to or finishing anything. But then I got the YA Fiction Divergent by Veronica Roth from my books on hold at the library. I read it in two days, which is really good for me these days. It was entertaining and interesting. Even though I finished it hours ago, I feel like I should pick it up again and keep reading. It had a good ending, but obviously has a sequel coming.

It fits right in with the current YA craze of dystopian societies. If you liked the Hunger Games series, you will probably like this book. It is not a copycat of it by any means, but it is in the same vein and has the same feeling about it.

Review: Mistress Shakespeare

"Several mysteries surround the life of William Shakespeare, and one of the most fascinating concerns whom he married. Will evidently promised to wed two women at nearly the same time. In records that survive today, he is listed as being engaged first to Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton. But on the next day in the same book of marriage bonds, he is recorded as being promised to Anne Hathaway of Stratford in the diocese of Worcester."

Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper takes this mystery and tells the story from Anne Whateley's point of view. Since there is so much speculation surrounding William Shakespeare, even whether or not he was the one who wrote his plays, it is easy for me to follow along with a what-if scenario of his life.

I chose this book because I thought it would be interesting, but I liked it even more than I anticipated. I really liked the narrator, Anne Whateley, and the story was engaging whether you have any knowledge of Shakespeare or not. This book is good for anyone who enjoys historical fiction or has an interest Elizabethan England. A knowledge of Shakespeare and his life and works will add another level of enjoyment to reading this book. But it is entertaining even if Shakespeare is just some guy who wrote a bunch of plays to you.

Review: The Mistress of Nothing

I think I saw The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger on an IndieBound List. Either that or an NPR book list. Those are my two main sources of finding new books to read outside my norm. I was drawn to it by the title.

I didn't know till I finished it, but apparently this novel is based on the true story of a English ladies' maid who devotedly follows her lady to Egypt. Lady Duff Gordon lived the last seven year of her life in Egypt, where the hot, dry air kept her living longer than the cold, wet air of England would have allowed her to. The story is told by her maid, Sally Naldrett.

Sally is completely loyal and dedicated to her lady, but her life changes the longer she lives in Egypt. And she discovers how far her lady's own loyalty and gratitude will--or will not--go when Sally tries to live her own life and make her own decisions.

I think I would have liked this book better if I had realized from the beginning that it was based on a true story, because it is such a strange story for the time and the people who lived in it. It was almost too far fetched when I thought it was simply fiction. But it's fascinating when you realize that the basics of the story are true (though the author had to fill in gaps where we don't have any documentation).

So, overall it was an interesting historical fiction. And it was very short and a quick read, especially for a historical fiction.

Reread: The Hunger Games Trilogy

I just reread The Hunger Games trilogy so that I could actually read them in quick succession instead of waiting months between books.

I think I read them almost as quickly as I did the first time. Even though I knew the endings, it was still interesting and engaging. And I'm good at forgetting details of books and movies, so I can enjoy my second time around almost as much.

There are some complaints about these books and its main character. Katniss is a bit slow at picking up on the hints and help people try to give her sometimes. Some people also think she's a bit wishy washy when it comes to her two romantic options. But I think it helps to remember that Katniss is only around 16 years old when these books take place. How well would you have done in her situation when you were 16? I prefer not to think of myself at 16, so keeping that in mind, it helps me forgive some of her silliness. Also, if she always picked up on the clues that the readers do and was always certain who the love of her life is, where would half the suspense be?

I liked these books just as much the second time around. And I'm looking forward to seeing how they adapt them to movies. Especially since the main audience is YA and many of the scenes are quite gruesome. It reassures me that it's for a YA audience though, or I don't think I could stomach it in movie form.

Read Aloud: Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever

This is the version of Mother Goose rhymes that I grew up with, so when I saw it in a bookstore I had to get it. I recently read it to my daughter. It's almost 100 pages so I was going to break it up into a couple of readings, but she sat with me through the entire thing. She liked that the characters were animals that she could identify. For me it was a bit of nostalgia along with the pleasure of sharing classic nursery rhymes with my daughter.

Review: Great Expectations

I finished reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I feel more relief than anything. I took longer to read this book than any other--even longer than it took me to read Moby-Dick, which I read over two summers while I was an English major. I just can't get through the heavy reading like I used to. If I have something else, I always turn to the lighter read instead of Dickens. I finally finished it by putting the book next to the toilet and reading a few paragraphs at a time while I went to the bathroom or while my daughter played in the bath.

I know people who love Dickens. But it's just not me. I can appreciate his work, but I never really enjoy it. I have another unread Dickens on the shelf, but I think it will take me a long time to pick another one up. I have dozens of other TBR books waiting for me. We're going camping this week and I'm definitely choosing something lighter to read while we're gone.

Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith is one of those classics that I've always meant to read but never got around to. And I enjoyed it even more than I expected to.

It's about a young girl growing up in poverty in Brooklyn in the early 20th century. Though it's a work of fiction, it has enough similarities to the author's own childhood that there is no doubt she knows what she's talking about. It's what I would call true fiction.

The heroine, Francie Nolan, is engaging and interesting and it is easy to feel for her, though she rarely feels sorry for herself. One of the things that impressed me the most about this book is the compassion that the author had for just about every character. None of them were demonized--not the alcoholic father or the unaffectionate mother. She knew that people were weak, but she seemed to understand why and had sympathy for them. The only overt criticism of a character in the book is of the rich when they are demonstrative of how giving they are to the poor. Why can't they just give without pointing out how rich they are and how poor we are? Francie wonders. And I can't blame her.

If you haven't read this book, then go and read it now. My only regret is that whatever I read next is likely to pale in comparison. I had better pick something completely different.


from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

"Laurie's going to have a mighty easy life all right."

"She'll never have the hard times we had, will she?"

"No. And she'll never have the fun we had, either."

"Gosh! We did have fun, didn't we Neeley?"

"Yeah!"

"Poor Laurie," said Francie pityingly.

Read Aloud: Beatrix Potter Collection

For her first birthday, my mother gave my daughter a collection of Beatrix Potter books. They're the small, illustrated books and sit on her highest shelf.

Today I finished reading them aloud to my daughter. Sometimes she played and ignored me, but sometimes she sat with me and looked at the pictures. Her favorites were the "bunnies."

Previously I had only read the most popular Beatrix Potter books like Peter Rabbit. The stories are sweet or funny, and the illustrations, of course, are classic. There were many words that young children today wouldn't recognize (at least American children)--usually clothes or household items that were common in Beatrix Potter's day.

I enjoyed getting to know these beautifully illustrated children's books and love that my mother gave my daughter a good start to her collection of classics.

Review: Birth Matters

In my quest to better inform myself about birth choices during my second pregnancy, I could not pass up the newly published Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta by Ina May Gaskin--the midwife of all midwives in the U.S.

Gaskin is obviously a very experienced, intelligent, and educated woman. Though I already knew some of the information she provided, this book gave greater detail of the history of obstetrical care in the United States, focused on advocating women's health and informed choice in areas besides pregnancy and labor, and presented ideas for improving the maternity care system in our country (which is far behind most other developed countries).

This book is a little more difficult a read than Your Best Birth. But it may be more important. Your Best Birth is targeted to pregnant women. Birth Matters should also be read by maternity care providers and has valuable information for any women's advocate.

Review: Becoming Jane Eyre

Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler is a work of fiction imagining the writing life of Charlotte Bronte. The writing was good and I enjoyed the story, though it made me wish I knew more of the facts to be able to separate fact from fiction better.

The only downside I see to this novel (and this may be my editor/publisher education talking) is that there is a limited audience for such books. Apparently it was Sheila Kohler's tenth novel and she's won a bunch of awards, so she was probably a pretty sure bet though.

I suppose you could read this book without first having read Jane Eyre, but you would certainly be missing out even if you weren't confused. It also helps to have read Wuthering Heights. And I felt guilty for never having read anything written by Anne Bronte (has anyone read anything of hers? any recommendations?). But the good thing is that it made me want to reread those books again.

If you like historical fiction and like any of the Bronte sisters, then you'll enjoy this book.

Review: Bossypants

I read Bossypants by Tina Fey in less than a day mostly because I'm only home for the weekend and it's due back at the library before I get back from my trip to Portland next week. But also because it's a funny, light read.

If you think Tina Fey is funny, you'll think this book is funny. But if you don't, you won't. And if you don't like Tina Fey, why would you pick up this book anyway? There were a lot of little funny moments throughout, and I even laughed out loud a couple of times, which I don't do often.

She comes across as very down-to-earth and a little self-deprecating--but in a humorous way, not a pity-me way. I liked that she's honest rather than stating opinions because they're popular. I also appreciated that she gave equal weight to celebrating her daughter's third birthday as she did to having Oprah appear on 30 Rock or impersonating Sarah Palin on SNL.

One point of interest for me in this book was her take on motherhood. She often struggles with the fact that she can't spend more time with her daughter, but knows that stay-at-home moms sometimes have break downs because they're home with young children all the time. Which I can attest to.

A small nugget from her advice on motherhood:

"'Sleep when the baby sleeps.' Everyone knows this classic tip, but I say why stop there? Scream when your baby screams. Take Benadryl when your baby takes Benadryl. And walk around pantsless when your baby walks around pantsless."

Review: Your Best Birth

I haven't posted many book reviews lately because I've been reading pregnancy and birthing books. I read Better Birth by Denise Spatafora. It was good, but a little too touchy-feely for me. And I didn't feel there was a lot of information (particularly the breathing and meditating exercises for birthing) that I hadn't read elsewhere.

One book I really did enjoy was Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein. They wrote it after the debut of their documentary The Business of Being Born.

This book was very accessible, easy to read, and written in simple language for the average woman (not the medical community). There is no doubt that Ricki and Abby have their opinions about birth, but they do not shove their opinions down your throat. They give straightforward information about various birth options and interventions, including their history, their side effects, and the times when they are medically necessary.

What I liked best about the book is that they are trying to inform women about the various options out there without trying to tell you what you should do. They also realize that you have to be flexible--birth and your baby are not going to follow your plan. But they encourage women to be informed and make active choices instead of laying back and simply letting things happen to them.

To the Children of Troy

For the 1971 opening of a children's library, a librarian wrote to various authors and asked them to write a letter to the children of the town about what libraries mean to them.

Here's a link to the letters, if you want to check it out:
Letters to the Children of Troy, 1971

I'd like to frame a copy of Dr. Seuss's letter to put in my future home library.

Review: Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half

This book was actually a quick read, despite its thickness. And you don't even have to read the entire book, you can pick and choose categories that interest you.

Most of the principles in this book won't actually work for my family right now because we live so far from any grocery store and there is very little competition between the stores we can go to because they are so few and far between. We also don't have access to a Sunday paper (thus coupons and store ads). Some money saving methods they use would also take a long time to implement.

The appeal of this book though is that you can use one or all methods, and use them to varying degrees. They menu plan for an entire month, but you can start by trying to menu plan for a week and move your way up.

They also cook and freeze about fifteen meals to be used over a month's time. But it is easy to start this on a smaller scale by cooking a double portion and freezing the extra for another meal. I've been doing this with soups for a while now, but will look into expanding that to other meals (once I start cooking again after the nausea of the first trimester settles).

A few things that I never anticipate implementing is freezing milk and bread. I just don't like them once they've been frozen and thawed, so it would not save money if you never end up eating it. I would like to try freezing more fresh fruits and veggies (when they're in season and thus cheaper) and maybe cooking large portions of meats and freezing them as thawing and cooking meat is often what takes the most time in daily meal preparation.

Especially if you can pick it up from the library, I recommend taking a look at this book. You can disregard any principles that don't appeal to you and your lifestyle, and all the methods are broken into little (or big) steps you can take and can be adjusted for a single person or a large family.

Dream Home Libraries

I've envied many fictional home libraries. The one from Disney's Beauty and the Beast was almost too amazing. I always liked Professor Higgins' library from My Fair Lady.

But here is a real life one that I'm adoring. I've always wanted a library in my home, and here's what it would start with:

Found here: http://lilykleppertknoop.tumblr.com/post/3563206803

Review: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I knew almost nothing about this book when I picked it up. I had seen it on lists and I liked the title. What it's about is very succinctly put on the cover, which is an odd and interesting place to put it.

"This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old."

I read this book in just a few days, which is pretty amazing for me and my schedule right now. It was provocative.

It was interesting to read as a parent, even though I hold Western ideals of parenting despite the proof of the results of Chinese parenting. I'm always fascinated by mother-daughter stories, being both a mother and a daughter myself. Especially since my own daughter is so young and still thinks the sun rises and sets with me.

And it was enlightening for someone who has read many fictional stories of Chinese Americans, particularly Amy Tan. It shed some light on the dynamics of mother-daughter relationships in those books.

It was also an interesting look at immigrant culture--seeing how each generation changed as a result of having come to America.

Review: Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks has long been on my TBR list. When I was finally able to read it this week, it did not disappoint.

The story was engaging, the history fascinating. Though fictionalized, this story of a town that voluntarily isolates itself in order to contain the plague is based in fact. Which makes the horrors witnessed by our narrator and heroine, Anna, all the more vivid and terrifying. I feel very lucky to live in a time and place free of plague and witch hunts.

I definitely recommend this book, though you should keep in mind that many of the images are gruesome.

Review: Swamplandia!

I haven't posted anything in a while because I have been in the swamps with Ava Bigtree. Written by Karen Russell, Swamplandia! is set in an alligator theme park in the swamps of Florida. It could hardly be a more foreign landscape, but the story was all too familiar for me.

Ava's mother dies and her family is then faced with the possibility of losing her home while her family falls apart. Well, that last part is not familiar. But last year my father died and my family lost their home. I think our family has held together much better than Ava's does, thank goodness.

It is hard to explain the plot of Swamplandia! because there are so many twists and turns. It was at times painful to watch the family struggle. Ava's naivete hurt me, and sometimes her. Her poor brother tries so hard to make something of himself so he can save his family, but he is no better equipped to live on the mainland than the rest of his family. He continually mispronounces big words because he has only ever seen them in books, but never actually heard them in conversation.

In conclusion, I guess I would say that the writing is excellent, the story is engaging, the characters are real, but this book is not for the faint of heart. It made me think of some of the Southern Gothic Fiction books that I read in college--definitely not light reading. But great literature all the same.

Happy National Bookmobile Day!

This week is National Library Week. And today is National Bookmobile Day.

Before moving to the middle of nowhere, I never thought twice about bookmobiles. But since the closest library is almost an hour away, I am so grateful for the bookmobile that stops in our tiny town every other week.

Our bookmobile librarian knows everyone who visits her little library on wheels. She drives a huge vehicle over small windy roads that make some people uncomfortable driving in small cars. Once when I asked if the library had a certain book, she researched it for me and when she couldn't find it, she sent me some alternatives that she thought would interest me with a personal note.

My almost two year old daughter loves visiting the bookmobile. The board books are in a little bin on the floor and she knows right where to find them. When we step into the bookmobile out of the cold, she pulls off her hat and coat and makes herself at home. She'd even take off her boots if I let her.

The bookmobile is also a place where we actually get to meet and see some of our neighbors during the freezing months when everyone is stuck inside all day.

Few people have the need for a bookmobile, but for those of us who need it, it is a huge blessing.

Libraries in the Digital Age

I don't think anyone has the answers yet, but here's another look at the controversy of e-books and libraries from NPR: The Future of Libraries in the Digital Age

Review: Sacred Hearts

"She is only a young woman who did not want to become a nun. The world is full of them."

I don't remember where I first heard of this book, but it was a good gamble on an author I hadn't read before. This is my kind of historical fiction--a completely fictional story steeped in history.

The idea behind the book is told best by its brief introduction:

"By the second half of the sixteenth century, the price of wedding dowries had risen so sharply within Catholic Europe that most noble families could not afford to marry off more than one daughter. The remaining young women were dispatched--for a much lesser price--to convents. Historians estimate that in the great towns and city-states of Italy, up to half of all noblewomen became nuns. Not all of them went willingly..."

The story was engaging, the history heartbreaking, the way some of the characters adapted to or fought against their fate inspiring. We've all heard the stories, true or not, of disgraced young women being forced into becoming nuns while their illegitimate children were sent to orphanages and such. But I had never known or considered that such large groups of women were forced into convents.

I was swept up by the story, despairing when the heroine despaired and cheering when she found some little bits of joy or respite. It made me pause and think about the countless real women whose lives were bought and sold by their fathers and husbands. A woman might have been sent to a convent simply because she had a sister who was prettier or more cunning or older. Though often, the convent might have been a safer and possibly happier fate.

How happy I am to be able to choose my own path in life, even if I merely stumble along it.

Review: Library: The Drama Within

"My dream was to live in this heavenly building and know all its secrets...to be allowed to go behind the curving book-clad walls into the stacks and have keys to unlock the cabinets of bookish rarities." - Germaine Greer

It is simple. If you love libraries, you will love perusing this book filled with photographs of libraries by Diane Asseo Griliches. Whether you read the short histories behind the libraries, or just feast your eyes on the pictures, you will be reinspired to visit and support your library. As well as finding yourself wishing you could visit every one in here.

Oh, how I miss being near a library. But I did pick up this book while browsing in the bookmobile that comes to our tiny town every two weeks, weather permitting.



"To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear head, a strong hand, and above all, a great heart...and I am inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve this greatness will be women." - Melvil Dewey

(This last quote is for my sister who spent many years working in a library.)

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. Do you read poetry? Do you write it? Does the very word frighten you?

I used to be an avid poetry reader, and I have the collection to prove it. I still enjoy it when my mom-of-a-toddler brain emerges from the fog.

My first favorite poet was Emily Dickinson. I started reading her when I was around seven because we shared first names.

I Felt a Funeral in My Brain
by Emily Dickinson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –

Review: The Last Battle

This week I finished reading The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis aloud to my daughter. And thus we finished reading the complete Chronicles of Narnia together.

I've read these books many times, but there's just something about a good story read aloud. Even if I'm reading it more to myself than my daughter. It also set a good tone for reading together each day. She used to ignore me and play while I read. But in the last few months, she took that time to bring me books to read to her while I was reading. So our reading of the Chronicles of Narnia was interspersed with readings of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Bob and Larry's ABCs (a Veggie Tales ABC book that is her favorite--she calls it Bob).

Next I'm going to read aloud her Beatrix Potter collection that my mom gave her. After that, I have no idea. But it's a habit that I want to keep up.

And now for The Last Battle. It is the only Narnia book that I didn't read and reread as a child. I read it once and never picked it up again. When I read it this time, I remembered what I didn't like about it.

Spoiler Alert: Susan is taken out of it. She is "no longer a friend of Narnia" and has become preoccupied with nylons and lipstick. She was always the most skeptical of the Pevensie kids, and C.S. Lewis might have been trying to make a last days of Narnia thing realistic by not having every person we know end up in "Aslan's country." But I didn't like it. Susan is by no means my favorite character, but it still made me wonder what C.S. Lewis had against her to turn her into a snob and leave her out. If I ignored that fact, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I did the first time.

Book and Movie: A Room with a View

In college my roommates and I watched the 1985 film version of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View over and over again. The appeal was not the personality, but the passion and boldness of George Emerson (played by Julian Sands). He contrasted sharply with Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis) and we all had to wait for Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) to realize what we had known all along--always choose passion over propriety. (If you love Daniel Day-Lewis in movies like Last of the Mohicans, you will barely recognize him here, but you'll admire his talent.) The movie cast also includes Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and other recognizable faces.

Though I had watched the movie countless times (and the kissing scenes even more times) with my roommates, I had never read the book. Well, I have now read the book and my summation is that is pretty much just like the movie--or the movie is like the book. There is very little variation. The only thing you'll gain from reading the book as well is a better sense of the author's purpose in writing it and the narrator's opinion on different characters.

Sorry E.M. Forster, but for me, a movie does the same job that your book does. So if you've seen the movie, there's no real need to read the book (unless you love the movie, in which case there's no harm in it). And if you've read the book, you know what happens in the movie, but it's still entertaining. If you haven't read or seen it, the movie is obviously the shorter, more entertaining version. Unless you want to avoid having to see grown men run around a pond naked, then you might want to try the book instead.

Review: Word Catcher

If you are a word nerd, you will love this book. If you are not a word nerd, tread carefully because it might turn you into a word nerd. And if you suffer from hippomonstrosesqipedaliophobia (the fear of long words) then you had better just avoid this book altogether.

It contains the fascinating history of words from the everyday (calm, love) to entertaining (canoodle, kerfuffle, whipplesnizzit), as well as words that make you grateful this book comes with definitions so you don't have to run to the dictionary every time you turn the page. Although the author is a proponent of keeping your dictionary handy in your daily life.

I don't know how I've lived so many years without words like these:

Petrichor: the smell of rain rising from the earth
Borborygmus: the rumble in the jungle of your tummy
Fribble: to kill time
Noctambulation: guiding one's way through the night
Drachenfutter: an olive branch to your lover or spouse
Seeksorrow: one who looks for trouble, sees sorrow everywhere
Aphilophrenia: the haunting feeling, however fleeting, that one is unloved
Clouderpuffs: scarcely visible summer clouds
Flizzen: to laugh with every muscle in your face
Verbicide: word killing; language torture
Tomecide: book killing
Mondegreen: a mishearing of a song lyric that leads to a fresh new meaning, often humorous (when I was a child, I always wondered what a marezeedote and a dozeedote were--"Mares eat oats, and does eat oats")

But there was a word or two, though fascinating, that I'm pretty sure I can live without, if only because I don't want to take the time to learn to pronounce them (floccinaucinihilipilification).

Review: The Lightning Thief

What if the Greek gods were real and were still around today? Well, they'd be doing what they've always done, which includes hanky panky with mortals that results in half-god, half-mortal children, i.e. heroes.

That's the premise of The Lightning Thief and the other Percy Jackson and the Olympians books. I read the first book quickly. It's an easy, entertaining read. I found a couple of bits a little predictable, but there were plenty of unexpected plot twists as well.

I'm not rushing out to read the next one, but I probably will read them all eventually. They'll be good for when I've been doing too much heavy reading and need some lighter fare. Plus these books include just enough allusions to popular Greek myths so that someone (like a young adult, the target audience) who doesn't know the myths can follow the book but also might be interested enough to learn more. Which can only be a good thing.

Review: Heart of a Samurai

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus was another recipient of a 2011 Newbery Honor. I'm really liking this being caught up on all the Newbery Award Medalists so that at the beginning of each year I have time to check out the Honor books as well, because they're all amazing. I really don't know how you would decide between them.

Heart of a Samurai is too incredible of a story to be fiction. It is based on the true story of a young Japanese boy in the mid 19th century who is lost at sea on a fishing boat, deserted on an island with nothing but rocks and birds, rescued by blue-eyed barbarians (aka Americans), works on a whaling ship, and is likely the first Japanese person to step on American soil.

Can you imagine the kind of prejudice you would have to face from people who had never seen anyone who looked like you? Can you imagine the fear you would experience being rescued by blue-eyed barbarians whom you had been told also eat people?

Manjiro's story is fascinating and strange. This book covers many years, as it has to in order to give you a sense of how remarkable his life was. It also includes beautiful black and white drawings by Manjiro himself of many of the things he saw and did.

If you have any interest in history, in true stories, in adventures on the high seas, or in different cultures, you will enjoy this book.

Review: Moon Over Manifest (2011 Newbery Winner)

Moon Over Manifest is the story of a girl sent to live in the town of Manifest during the Great Depression. As she searches for evidence of her father who lived there as a boy, she discovers the story of a town full of immigrants as they struggled to work together and survive during World War I.

I wasn't pulled into the story immediately, but I think it had much more to do with my mood than the book itself. Because once I got into the book, I was hooked. The characters are real people, the fictional town is a real place, and this story is a true story--as all good stories are, whether fact or fiction. It heartily deserves the Newbery Medal.

I found it interesting that two of last year's best books for young readers (this one and Turtle in Paradise) are set during the Great Depression. We are not experiencing times nearly as hard as that, but maybe in our hard times it is good to remember that people have been through worse and still survived and thrived.


Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool is the winner of this year's Newbery Award.

Review: A Long Walk to Water

After the Newbery Award winning A Single Shard, Linda Sue Park has been one of my favorite YA authors.

A Long Walk to Water was a Newbery Honor book for 2011. It is based on the real life of Salva Dut, a Lost Boy of Sudan who was driven away from his home by civil war in 1985 and spent more than a decade walking across Africa and in refugee camps before he found a home in America. Not content to rest on his eventual good fortunes, Salva now spends his time on a project to help the people of Southern Sudan have clean drinking water. Check out his foundation: Water for Sudan.

Salva's story is woven with the story of a young girl living in Southern Sudan who must walk half a day for one trip to and from a pond to bring back water for her family. Water that is dirty and often makes them sick. This helps the reader to understand the importance of Salva's work to help his country and its people.

A Long Walk to Water is a short, simple, and moving tale that for just a moment helps you to appreciate what you have. Simple things like being able to turn on the tap and have an abundance of clean water.

Review: The Silver Chair

I finished reading The Silver Chair aloud to my daughter today. I miss the Pevensie kids, but it is full of adventure, magical beasts, evil witches, and journeys through strange lands.

As I read it, I imagined how the film version might play out. I wasn't sure how many of the books of The Chronicles of Narnia would be turned into movies, but at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, there is both a hint that Eustace might be back to Narnia and a reference to Jill Pole (the girl who joins him on his journey to Narnia in The Silver Chair), so I'm fairly confident that the movie will be coming out, likely at the end of this year.

Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford was a heartbreaking, beautifully told story of family, loyalty, first love, and of belonging neither here nor there.

The hero, Henry, is a Chinese American in Seattle during WWII. He is too Chinese for his white American classmates, but too American to fit in with his Chinese family. He is witness to the evacuation of Japanese Americans to inland camps for their "protection" after Pearl Harbor.

Having grown up in the western states, but far from the western coast, I admit I knew little about how seriously the threat of Japanese attack was taken for the states and towns on the Pacific Coast. I have since visited forts built to protect the Northwest from the Japanese during WWII. This book made the evacuation and containment of Japanese Americans feel even more real to me because it talks about places that I have been and live not far from now.

I am often drawn to stories about mothers and daughters, but rarely to ones about fathers and sons (since I am neither). But this book is for anyone who has navigated the complicated relationships of family, and for anyone who has loved or lost.

Review: Turtle in Paradise

"Everyone thinks children are sweet as Necco Wafers, but I've lived long enough to know the truth: kids are rotten. The only difference between grown-ups and kids is that grown-ups go to jail for murder. Kids get away with it."

And so begins the story of Turtle, a girl sent to live with her aunt in Key West during the Great Depression.

I picked this book because it received a Newbery Honor this year. I haven't read the winner yet, but I think Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm easily deserved the prize as well. The characters are funny and believable (some of them based on real people who lived in Key West in the 1930s), the story is charming and heartbreaking and beautiful, the narrator is real and tough, and the ending is touching without being too sappy.

This book was so good I read it in one day--which didn't used to mean much, but with an active toddler and a house to take care of, that is a lot more significant these days. Let's just say that my house is maybe not as clean as it could be, but I read an excellent book today. I recommend it to anyone.

Sad News for Powell's Books

It's a sad sign of the times when one of the most well established independent bookstore chains in the country has to lay off some employees because sales are down. It's probably part due to the economy, but largely due to the increase in sales of e-books.

Read more about it in the Oregonian article here.

Even better support Powell's or your local independent by buying your books from them. Powell's Books has a large selection of used and sale books as well new books, and they have a great online store if you can't make it out to Portland. A couple of my other favorite Oregon independent bookstores are: Beach Books in Seaside (we always stop in when we go to the coast) and Annie Bloom's in Multnomah Village (close to my old neighborhood).

2011 Newbery

The American Library Assiciation has named the 2011 Newbery Award Winner: Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.

I know nothing about the book or its author but I have it on hold at my library to be sent to me via books by mail as soon as a copy is available.

This goal of reading all the Newbery Award books is much more enjoyable when it requires me to read one book a year. I'm also checking out the Newbery Honor books from this year that interest me.

A Love of Books

I love books, but I love them for their words and the worlds they create, not for their physical form. I try to take good care of my books, but I don’t treat my books like precious antiques that my 20 month old daughter can’t touch.

I love that she loves books so much already. She comes to me throughout the day with a book for me to read to her. She sees me reading, and she sees her father reading. She can sometimes even point out whose book it is if she’s seen us with it a few times. I have shelves of classical literature and I let her play with them. (I do have to remind myself that they can be alphabetized again very easily, but I am not concerned for the physical book itself.) If she wants to carry around John Stuart Mill or Charles Dickens for half a day, I couldn’t be happier.

There are a couple of books that I am more careful with. I let her look at and turn the pages of my illustrated Complete Chronicles of Narnia, but I sit with her. But even that book is replaceable—these early formative years are not. I want my daughter to continue to love books and to have positive experiences with them. She may not turn into a literature nerd like me, but I’m doing everything I can to help instill a love of books in her, just as my mother did with me and all my siblings.

Top Ten Classics Redux

Penguin Classics released a 10 essential classics list last year. As any top 10 or 100 or 1000 list would, they got a lot of opinions about what was missing from their list. So they put out a call and let people vote. I couldn't help but put my two cents in, and believe me, it was hard to decide on my top ten. One of the problems is not having read all the books you could choose from.

Well they just came out with their 10 essential classics redux based on the votes of the common people (er, I mean those nerdy enough to take the time on it).

From their first list, I had read 6.5 (I've read parts of Walden, but never in its entirety). From their new list, I've read 9. So I like the second list better based on the fact that it makes me feel smarter if nothing else. The one I haven't read on the new list was also on the old: Pride and Prejudice. It's been on my to do list to read Jane Austen, and I think Pride and Prejudice just jumped up to the top of the list.
 

Review: Good Poems

"...no one

can have poetry or dances, prayers or climaxes all day;...

only Dostoevsky can be Dostoevskian at such long

long tumultuous stretches;..."

from "Moderation Is Not a Negation of Intensity; But Helps Avoid Monotony" by John Tagliabue

This book is just what the title says, good poems. They were selected by Garrison Keillor from poems heard on The Writer's Almanac. Any compilation of the best books or the best poems is going to be subjective, but what I liked about this one is that it is not claiming to be the best poems, just good poems. And most of them were. I would not have chosen them all, but I was introduced to many poems and poets that I never would have looked at otherwise.

If you like poetry, this is a good book to read. If you're afraid of poetry but have always wanted to give it a try, this is a good book to start with. It had a good mix of old and new, traditional and experimental. And it had a lot of Emily Dickinson, my own favorite poet, so you certainly can't go wrong there.

Reading to My Child

One of the things I most looked forward to, and most enjoy, about being a mother is reading to my child. It's an excuse to reread childhood favorites, and something for us to share.

Check out this blog post from the New York Times about revisiting childhood favorites as adultss.

Review: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

"About this period her brother remarked to her: 'Mag, I'll tell yeh dis! See? Yeh've edder got teh go teh hell or go teh work!' Where upon she went to work, having the feminine aversion of going to hell."

From my TBR List I picked Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Short Fiction by Stephen Crane. I read quite of bit of Stephen Crane in college when I was studying American Literature. Maggie was a new one for me and an interesting read. Apparently it was too risque for its time and Crane published it himself under a pseudonym. After he became famous for The Red Badge of Courage, his publisher asked him to clean up the language in Maggie and they published it. Mostly he took out a lot of "damns."

My version was the original. The damns didn't bother me, but the dialogue was hard to follow at times. It's definitely a story from the streets of New York. I had read most of the short stories in this volume. I even remember writing a long paper on the symbolism in "The Open Boat."

But if you want to read something representative of Stephen Crane, you really should just read his classic, A Red Badge of Courage.

Learn more about Stephen Crane here.

Reading Aloud: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

In our adventures of reading The Chronicles of Narnia together, my daughter and I just finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I haven't seen the movie yet because we moved to the middle of nowhere with no gas station let alone a movie theater a few weeks before the movie was released. I look forward to seeing it soon. Even if I have to wait for it to come out on DVD, it will be relatively close to my rereading of the book and I hope to be able to compare the two mediums with more accuracy.

Reread: Catherine, Called Birdy

Despite my goal to start reading all the heavy classics that I have on my TBR shelf, I needed something lighter the past few days. So I reread Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman.

My sister read it a few months ago and said that she thought it ended in a strange place because you really don't know what's going to happen with our heroine. I hadn't read it in years so couldn't remember it well enough to comment at the time.

I can definitely see what she means. Catherine's fate is uncertain at the end of the book. But the book ends at the close of her childhood and just before a new chapter in her life begins. So although I'm left wondering what happened to Catherine, I feel that what happens next would be another book entirely. And yet I don't think Cushman would write that book because the next book would be Catherine stepping into adulthood and wouldn't fit into the YA genre anymore.

The appeal of this book is a spunky, independent girl in a world where most women were neither of those things. And we'd all like to think we could be the same in her situation, but I don't believe that any of us can really know what we would have been like in a different time and place, if we had been raised in a completely different world. It makes me grateful for being born when I was, and especially grateful that one of my regular household chores if not catching and squishing the fleas in my bed.

Review: The Help

"Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. No that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought."

I know I'm late on the bandwagon of reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. My hold copy finally came into my library--and then I moved. I reserved it at my new library and the copy finally came in--a few days before I was moving. (I don't recommend moving twice in the same year if you can help it.) I put it on hold yet again and got it via books by mail.

And it was just as good as I'd heard that it was. I completely agree with what I've heard--everyone should read this book.

I'm not surprised to see that the book is being turned into a movie, and I hope they do it justice. I'll be watching it--though I will most likely be really late in seeing it just as I was with reading the book. Better late than never.

New Year Book Challenges

At the beginning of 2010, I made a goal to read 100 books by the end of the year. That didn't happen. I might have read 100 books in a year when I was a literature major, but (unfortunately) my main job in life is not to read like it was back then. I finished 58 books in 2010, more than I did the year before. And that's all I'm expecting of myself this year. I'm signing up the Outdo Yourself Challenge at the measly "getting my heart rate up" level of reading 1-5 more books this year than last.

I could never have anticipated the changes and challenges I was about to face in my personal life in 2010. So instead of setting an unreachable goal, I'm just going to keep trying to do a little better than I have before. Plus my goal for the year is to attack my large and lofty To Be Read list. (Shouldn't reading something like War and Peace count for a lot more than one book?)

In 2010 I did meet my long-time goal of reading all the Newbery Medal books. I'm looking forward to a new year where all I have to do is read the newest winner.

Besides reading more books than I did last year, my goal for 2011 is to write more. I'm not going to be picky about what I write or what it's for, but I used to be a lot better about writing in general. I'm going to try to write a little bit each day and then have one day a week where I take more alone time to write more intensely without interruptions.

What are you looking forward to in 2011?