Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

A couple of Sundays ago I had to come up with a meal plan kind of late in the day; I was looking through muffins recipes to make breakfast for dinner and I found these Good Morning Muffins right before my hubby offered to make biscuits.  (In case you’re wondering, his mother made good biscuits when he was growing up, and he learned how to make them.  My father made biscuits that he enjoyed more than anyone else, and I never felt the urge to learn how.  Therefore, my hubby makes all the biscuits in our marriage, because his are awesome.)  I was all about him making biscuits with our particularly grouchy son, so I tabled this recipe until the next Sunday, when we fed my nephew and I needed a bread to go with soup.

Interestingly enough, my pickier second girlie was a big fan, although it probably helped that she didn’t much care for the soup.  (Potatoes.  Seriously.  What is so objectionable about potatoes?)  None of the other kids seemed passionate about them; my oldest thought they were too orange-y.  My hubby was fine with them and my nephew said they were good (not that a 20-year-old college student is difficult to please), while I adored the streusel (bless the woman for using equal amounts of cinnamon and nutmeg) and wished the muffins themselves tasted more like my mother’s orange rolls (OH, those orange rolls!) and less like orange marmalade.  (Yes, they have a bunch of marmalade in them.  I just don’t love the stuff.  My father does, but then, he also loves mincemeat pie.)  I was hoping the orange juice would lessen the marmalade punch, but it mostly turned the muffins rather a lovely color.  Oh, and the streusel was a very dry streusel.  It didn’t make a difference to the actual eating of it, but it meant that you lost more while eating it.  Which was sad.

Honestly, I’m sort of tempted to try them again with peach jam, and perhaps peach nectar if I can find it; the streusel would work quite nicely with peach, and I think my oldest and I would be bigger fans. (Sadly, the boys in our family don’t care for peaches, which baffles me.)  As it is, if you’re a big fan of orange marmalade, you really ought to give this recipe a try; if not, approach with caution.

Okay, maybe not really.  It would be more accurate to say that it’s the last Natalie Kinsey-Warnock book in the system that’s not a picture book; it’s also the longest I’ve read by her, and the least setting-driven. Which is not to say that True Colors wasn’t quite enjoyable, you understand.  It’s just that in her other books (at least the ones I’ve read!), the setting drives the plot in a lot of ways, while True Colors feels like it could have taken place in any rural community (okay, any rural community that also has touristy summer visitors).  The emphasis here is on identity and relationships.

Blue was a 2-day-old baby when Hannah Spooner found her in her yard; the two have been together ever since.  This summer, however, things feel different.  Blue wants desperately to know who her real mother is, and her quest for information involves her in her community in a new way, while her best friend, one of the summer people, is acting like a completely different person this year.

Blah, blah, blah.  I am struggling to write a summary of this book that pleases me, so here it is in a nutshell:  I liked it.  I liked Blue, I liked Hannah, I liked the people in their community, and I liked the family story that turns out to be Blue’s.  Nadine, the summer friend, made me cringe, but I have to admit that I can see how her life situation is affecting her behavior.  (I would not have been at all understanding if I’d read this in elementary or junior high, mind you.  I just would have hated her.) Bottom line? True Colors is engaging, it moves along, and it’s got depth–or in other words, it’s worth the read.

Remember Babymouse?  As in, Babymouse:  Queen of the World?  My oldest read it in her quest for a report-worthy graphic novel, and while she wasn’t terribly interested, my second wanted to read another one–which is how we ended up with Babymouse:  Our Hero checked out of the library.  I decided to read it before I passed it on, in case she got confused about the plot like she did with the first one; what surprised me was just how much I actually liked this one.

I knew half of my problem with the first book was my inability to relate to the plot, mind you.  The second one, however, reminded me lot of a tween girl episode of “Scrubs.”  Babymouse keeps slipping suddenly into random daydreams inspired by the everyday sorts of things that happen to her, and those daydreams infuse ordinary events with humor.  Missing the bus, having to play dodgeball in gym class, and fighting with your locker are easy situations to relate to; Babymouse makes them easier to laugh about.  (And the final confrontation, by the way, is very satisfying.)

Bottom line?  Again, it’s a graphic novel, so it’s not so much my thing.  On the other hand, if it IS your thing, it looks like the series might be worth sticking with after all.