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 –