Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

It’s taken me far longer than I’m going to admit to get to Secrets Out! (The Top-Secret Diary of Celie Valentine). I gave its predecessor to my second girlie for Christmas two years ago, I believe; for a long time I didn’t realize that she’d read it, but once I found that out and she found out that it was part of a trilogy, I put Secrets Out! on hold at the library and then–procrastinated.

Or, alternatively, chose other things to read.

I finished Secrets Out! on Wednesday, however, and once I review it tonight I get to pass it along (and get it out of my bedroom!). Unfortunately, I’m tired and feeling somewhat overwhelmed, which means that this review is going to be relatively short (and, possibly, slightly boring). Julie Sternberg’s trilogy (I haven’t read the third one yet, but I know it exists) isn’t just made up of diary entries; it also includes emails, notes passed in school, texts, and illustrations intended to be part of the diary. All of these things together continue the story of Celie, her older sister Jo, her parents, and her growing-ever-more-forgetful-and-confused Granny, as well as Celie’s friend Lula and a few others. It’s a book that successfully marries friend difficulties with painful life events, striking an impressive line between authenticity and story. Celie doesn’t always make the best choices, but you can’t help but love her–and root for her. My 10-year-old is going to blaze through (and thoroughly enjoy) it, but its brevity and illustrations make it accessible for younger or struggling readers as well.

And now I’m done. On to the next thing on my list for the evening…

Last Saturday night I finished the audiobook I was listening to and started thinking about which one was up next; unfortunately, I was waiting on several digital holds from the library and my available choices mostly involved adult fiction from authors I haven’t read before. The problem there is that I’ve been trying harder and harder to limit my Sunday audiobooks to ones that don’t distract from the spirit of the day and my attempts to focus on my Savior, and if I’m not familiar with the author, I don’t know what to expect. I decided to scroll through available audiobooks for a better option, and I eventually came to Heaven is for Real. My thought process went something like this:

Hey, I’m pretty sure my sister enjoyed that and lent me a copy–yup, there it is on my shelf! Sweet! That sounds like a good Sunday option, and once I listen to it I can give her copy back to her, making something else that will no longer be in my house! And HEY, my niece is headed up that way for Thanksgiving, which means that I can just add it to the pile of stuff I already have for her and it will leave SOON! This is a win-win-win! Oh, and WIN, because the Goodreads Library Challenge for November is to read a book recommended to you by a friend or family member–SCORE!

Yeah, there really were that many exclamation points in my head. Sorry.

Seriously, though, it felt not just fortuitous, but downright serendipitous. And it was short–it took me a whopping two days to listen to it. Back to my sister it goes! As for what I thought about it–I enjoyed it, overall. I got teary once or twice, and I took it at face value as a family’s record of an amazing experience, told as accurately as a small child can actually tell it. My one issue was the father’s persistent efforts to prove his son’s story–constant reminders of “he couldn’t have known that” or “I know what he’s taught in Sunday School, and it doesn’t cover that and WE never mentioned it to him.” The father is a pastor, and I understand where he’s coming from, but I don’t believe those efforts are going to work the way he wants them to. Maybe they will help convince a few on-the-fencers, but in my experience, people who don’t want to believe are going to find a reason not to believe, while people with an open mind will respond just as well to the story itself, making so many reminders unnecessary (and repetitive).

Still, it was a nice Sunday read. And it can go back to my sister now. AND I commented on the Goodreads thread for November. Win-win-win!

There’s a reason Robert McCloskey’s Homer Price is still in print, despite debuting in 1947. Some books grow dated, while others simply become ‘vintage’, so to speak; Homer is the latter. I started listening to this myself, but I stopped before I was halfway through and started over, reading it aloud to my children instead.

They got a serious kick out of it.

There’s something timeless about Homer’s adventures here–the superhero who’s quite normal in real life, the competitive balls of string, even the never-ending doughnuts (which reminded more than one of us of the “Curious George” episode where he gets his zeros wrong and then tries to hide all the extra doughnuts around his apartment before the Man with the Yellow Hat comes home). McCloskey’s quiet but unmistakable humor was still completely accessible to my children–so much so that they took the (intentionally) ridiculous song from the last story, made up a tune for it, and serenaded my hubby when he got home, watching for him from the windows and bursting into song the minute he walked through the door. (He was entertainingly baffled. It’s not a song that makes any kind of sense out of context.) If you’re looking for a great read-aloud for (at the very least!) 2nd through 7th grade, this is your book; as a bonus, it should appeal equally to boys and girls.

Of all ages.

I love Maine, folks. I mean, I really love Maine. The rocky coast, the miles of forest, the wind and the water and the mist–I love it all. And not only does Cynthia Lord’s Touch Blue take place in Maine–on an island, no less!–it’s also by a Newbery author AND features a foster sibling (I had one of those!). It was a foregone conclusion for it to end up on my to-read shelf; the only surprise is that it’s taken me this long to get to it.

Good things come to those who wait, however, and I did really enjoy this one. Tess’s small island school lost 5 students when her friend Amy’s family moved to the mainland, and now the state is saying it’s too small to keep open. The island’s solution is for certain families to take in foster children, and Tess’s family is excited to welcome Aaron, a 13-year-old who isn’t nearly as excited to meet his third foster family in three years. Touch Blue walks an interesting line between an improbable positivity (with at least one highly unlikely circumstance) and a gentle awareness of the plight of a foster child; it’s more realistic but less piercing than Pictures of Hollis Woods, with a simplified but still honest view of parents who have lost custody of their children and the children who are forced to deal with the fallout. I kind of wanted the story’s bully to get a bit more of what was coming to him, but overall this was a truly enjoyable read with a hopeful but realistic ending. My emotionally astute 10-year-old just might be getting this for Christmas!

Okay, that sounds cheesy, but seriously–I have my computer back! WITH all my tabs!

On a different note, tonight’s broadcast with Elder Gong, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was a neat way to spend an evening together as a family. (Okay, so the littles lost interest and were diverted with sticker books and small screens, but they were there!) I’m excited for our new children-and-youth program, especially since one more of my children will be old enough come January. AND the Gospel Living app that’s coming around then…I might actually manage to use my phone for my schedule one of these days!

I’m also tired, though, so goodnight, folks! Pleasant dreams!

My computer died, folks. DIED. That’s why you got no post on Wednesday, and that’s why this post is going to be short–I’m stuck on a laptop keyboard (I loathe laptop keyboards) with limited abilities as far as open tabs are concerned. (Those who know me know just how very tragic this is.) On the other hand, I had to post, because I finished a graphic novel that my girls are going to want. Surfside Girls: The Mystery at the Old Rancho is a normal sequel–evolving relationships among the main characters and a new mystery, but more of the same “two girls solve a mystery with the help of ghosts” formula. This is the tween version of a beach read, perhaps; it’s definitely a fluffy graphic novel, but it will interest its target audience. I appreciated the focus on California’s Mexican heritage, and the art is fun. The ghost/human boyfriend/girlfriend dynamics are a little odd, but again–I don’t think the target audience will complain.

That’s that, folks, because LAPTOP KEYBOARD. Goodnight all!

On Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, I usually post “In Flanders Fields” as my FB status; in the past I’ve also blogged about it, one way or another.  Today, however, seems like the right day to write a hard review.  I received an ARE of The Girl Who Smiled Beads from Penguin Random House almost two years ago; I finished it last week (because, again, life).  I’ve been hoping that a few extra days of distance would help me organize my thoughts for this post, but–how do you review a memoir like this?  How do you pass judgement on someone’s experiences and how she chooses to recount them?  What, really, am I to say?

I suppose I start by saying that this is the second memoir of a Rwandan genocide survivor that I’ve experienced.  (Read seems such a blah word under the circumstances.)  I was in a book club that picked Left to Tell:  Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust more than a decade ago, and it was painful and powerful and (ultimately) hopeful in a way that affected me deeply.  1994 was middle high school for me, and current events were not so much my thing; Left to Tell was my introduction to an event that my parents almost certainly mentioned but that I was oblivious to.  The Girl Who Smiled Beads, however, is told from an entirely different perspective.  In many ways, Clemantine’s story is as much a refugee’s story as a survivor’s story; she and her older sister were sent to their grandmother’s for safety, and then–one night–their grandmother told them to run.  They escaped Rwanda with a mass of others and spent the next 6 years in refugee camps and cheap apartments, suffering, travelling–and surviving.  Their journey to America was convoluted, and so are their experiences there.

So is life, when that is your childhood.

Ultimately, I view the world differently from Clemantine; how could I not?  Her memoir, however, is exactly what it says it is–A Story of War and What Comes After.  She is scarred in ways that I cannot comprehend, and she understands that scarring, understands that she is a person in emotional turmoil.  I cannot pass judgement on the decisions she has made, the conclusions she has drawn, and the life she now lives, because I cannot imagine what such experiences would do to my own inner self, how they would scar my outer world.  I can say that I was expecting a more straightforward memoir of her experiences during the crisis; instead, I found an introspective journey that felt almost uncomfortably intimate at times.  (I can also say that I hope she finds more and more peace as time goes by.)  Clemantine’s book is an experience that will touch you–and not an experience you can easily forget.

This fall, Ben Hatke combined two of his graphic novel heroes in Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl–and it was fun.  There were shifting group dynamics to resolve, artifacts to find, and earth to save (from giants and monsters, no less!).  I sort of wish I’d read the other books more recently–the details of all of the robot and creature friends were awfully hazy in my head–but the story still came through.  (Jack and Maddy’s mom also had a slightly bigger role, which was nice.)  Overall, this is a satisfying graphic novel in its own right and a success at uniting two different stories into one big adventure.

And my kiddos are going to love it.

I received a complimentary copy of Paula Knight’s The Facts of Life well over two years ago.  The thing is, I read it then, too–in March of 2017.  I’d gone to Idaho for a week because my kids and my brother’s kids (who live there) shared the same week of spring break that year, and I finished it while I was there.  Instead of bringing it home and reviewing it, however, I lent it to my sister, who moved shortly thereafter; that complimentary copy is at her new house, somewhere, and I’ve been putting off reviewing it ever since, because I don’t love doing it without a copy of the book at hand.

Today, however, is the day (and please forgive me for the lack of detail, given the lapse in time involved).  I so appreciated Penn State University Press for the chance to read Knight’s memoir; I’m actually a big fan of the whole idea of the Graphic Medicine Series.  What better way to make stories accessible to readers who aren’t feeling 250 pages of text but need to know they aren’t alone, or want to learn more about the struggles others are facing?  I’ve never struggled with true infertility, but I spent a few years of my life desperately wanting to begin our family while knowing that we weren’t in a stable enough place to do so.  My sister and sisters-in-law were having children all around me–I once called my 50+ widowed aunt and told her that I needed to talk to someone that I knew wasn’t pregnant–and I watched them and listened to them and ached.  (And occasionally cried.)

Paula Knight’s experiences, however, didn’t mirror mine.  Her youth in the 1970s gave her a different kind of curiosity.  As for her attempts at motherhood, well–miscarriage is its own kind of pain, and (unlike my mother) I don’t have a great deal of experience with it; I just hurt for her.  Most significantly, her post-miscarriage conclusions and decisions were wholly different than anything I’ve ever spent time thinking about.  All in all, it was an interesting memoir–and a poignant one–but not one I related to as much as I thought I might.  (It’s also quite graphic–appropriately so, given the subject, but I felt like I needed to be careful with it around my young children.)  This is an empathy building, worthwhile reading experience, though.  If you try it, let me know what you think!

I finished Curse of the Harvester (Dream Jumper, Book #2) tonight, partly so that I could review it and pass it off into my children’s hot little hands tomorrow; I imagine they’re going to love it.  As for me?

Ehh.

I’m not the intended audience, you know?  The flatulence gag did absolutely nothing for me, and a bunch of dream-jumping-action-sequences linked by random “tests” and villains that are abruptly introduced and barely explained does not actually constitute a plot.  The ending didn’t help, either; it implied more books to come, and yet it’s been a couple of years and nothing else appears to be coming.  (Honestly, the ending-with-no-subsequent-books might also annoy my children.)  On the other hand, they’ve already read the first book, so whatever, right?  It’s not like graphic novels are a significant time investment.  I probably would have chosen to read it anyway, because SEQUEL, but you’ll have to make that call for yourself.