Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Positively Izzy is a companion novel to Invisible Emmie, which I quite enjoyed.  (My girls loved it, which means I’d better get Izzy reviewed tonight and into their hot little hands pronto.)  Emmie is a side character in Izzy; her friend Bri (the brain) and dramatic, somewhat scatterbrained Izzy share center stage.  Their school’s talent show is approaching, and Izzy can’t wait to perform while Bri is reluctantly filling in for someone last minute.  What they do leading up to and during the show is the essence of the story.  Add an Emmie-like twist, and you’ve got a solid graphic novel about stretching yourself and venturing out of your comfort zone (as well as expanding your circle of friends).  I imagine that my (and your!) elementary and middle school girls will love it!*

*There are two bits to take note of, if you like to have conversations with your children about the choices made by the characters in the books they’re reading.  It’s mentioned that one of the girls sneaks out to go to her friend’s house and read the friend’s dad’s dirty magazines; it’s almost mentioned in passing that one aunt lives with her partner and kids.  Do with that what you will.

I generally don’t mean to imitate people I’m with on a regular basis–I really don’t–but if their accents and/or manner of speaking are noticeable, I do it unconsciously.  This is why listening to an 18-hour audiobook that takes place in the South is dangerous; for the last week or two, I’ve been tamping down the urge to twang and yet hearing it come out in my voice anyway when I’m, say, reading to my kids.  And since my linguistic roots are in RI and UT, I doubt anything coming out of me would be anything but annoying to people actually from that part of the country.

Such was the recreational hazard that came with listening to Annie Barrows’ The Truth According to Us, a novel of Depression-Era West Virginia, but I didn’t care, because I LOVED the voices. (I’m glad I listened to it rather than reading the physical book, and that’s a rare feeling for me.  Try the audio if you can!)  There were several, almost like a radio play, and it totally worked–especially since bits and pieces of the story are told in letters.

Aannyywwaayy…if you’re wondering why I haven’t gotten around to talking about the plot yet, it’s because I can’t decide what’s a spoiler and what’s not.  In a book that’s well over 500 pages, do events from, say, 100 or so pages in count?  This book is about the daughter of a wealthy senator who gets booted out to support herself on a WPA job, as well as the family with whom she boards–only it’s really more about the family than it is about her, except that it’s more complicated than that.  I’ve seen Willa compared to Scout Finch, and the comparison isn’t terrible; the rest of the characters are really just too hard to describe without giving anything away.  What I can say about The Truth According to Us is that I stopped counting the number of times I laughed out loud, but there are depths of pain to balance out the humor.  The ending is satisfying but surprising, or at least it was for me, and the story will stick with you long after you’ve reached the last page.   Read it, listen to it, whatever, but it’s worth experiencing either way.*

*There is some language–just so you know.  

I’ve been purposely skipping over The Girl Who Drank the Moon for months.  (It’s been on my shelf since shortly after it won the Newbery Medal, of course, and that was over 18 months ago.)  I’d look at the spine without enthusiasm and think–it’s long, and it’s not really my thing anymore, and I’ll just pick something else right now, because I was so sure I wasn’t going to love it.

Yeah, I was SO wrong.  As wrong as I was about Holes and Maniac McGee, both of which I put off reading because I didn’t think I’d terribly enjoy them.  The Girl Who Drank the Moon sucked me in on the first page and had me fast by the fifth.  It had the jump-into-a-frank-conversation-among-major characters vibe that Robin McKinley’s books do, but Barnhill’s style is wholly her own.  Girl/Moon weaved smoothly among related and converging stories, and it did so in such a perfectly paced way that it didn’t suffer one bit from being read in small increments over a longer period of time.  (Do you know how RARE that is?)  Every step built the story, moving it forward to completion, but not one left me frustrated and impatient for this or that plot piece to resolve.  (Also an incredibly rare occurrence.)  The characters were well- and compassionately drawn, the resolution felt perfect–I seriously just LOVED THIS BOOK.  Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve felt that way about a fantasy author I’ve never read before?

So.  Just read this book, okay?  It’s got a witch, and a swamp creature, and a Simply Enormous Dragon (or is he?), and there is sorrow and hope and loss and joy and a particularly handy pair of boots.  Think, perhaps, of the heart of The Tale of Despereaux and the unexpectedness (and some of the humor) of The Princess Bride, but a story all its own, and you have an incredibly deserving Newbery Medal winner that is also well-loved by its intended audience (yet another comparative rarity!).  Who could ask for anything more?

My just-turned-9-year-old has been begging to read Raina Telgemeier’s Drama for probably a year; she checked it out of her school library this past week, and I promised I’d preview it and make a decision as soon as possible.  (I’ve been putting her off because I knew it was a bit different thematically than Telgemeier’s other books.)  I’ve been slogging through it all weekend, and hallelujah!  I finished it this morning.

My decision, of course, is to hand it off to my two eager older girls; there’s nothing in it that warrants keeping it from them.  I did talk with them both about it, because one of its major themes is being gay as an early teenager.  The jist of the conversation was this–it’s absolutely true that you’re still a regular, normal person when you’re gay; it should never affect how you’re treated by the people around you.  In our faith, however, we don’t believe in acting on feelings for the same sex, because we believe doing so severely limits our ability to carry out our purpose upon this earth.  We believe that we are here to become more like Christ ourselves and to help others come to earth and become more like Christ as well.  A big part of that is forming families and having children.  That doesn’t mean that we’re snotty and tell those who disagree that we know better; it means that we are comfortable, ourselves, with what we believe, we act according to our beliefs, and we respect the right of everyone we meet to do the same.

That said, as much as I’ve enjoyed Telegemeier’s other books, I’m pretty ambivalent about this one.  The actual theater bits–everything related to the play itself–were a blast.  The I-like-this-boy-no-that-boy-no-the-other-boy, not to mention the I’m-acting-weird-because-I-feel-a-certain-way-but-haven’t-expressed-it, were incredibly, spot-on junior high for me, but I AM 39 YEARS OLD.  I DON’T WANT TO BE BACK IN JUNIOR HIGH.

Seriously.  Very true to the period of life, GREAT for the intended audience, but not anywhere I want to be.  Telgemeier’s other books dealt with themes I could still relate to; Drama is fairly stage-of-life specific, and I am just so DESPERATELY glad not to be in that stage of life anymore that reading about it was okay at best.  Surely I’m not the only one with no desire to revisit that time of life?

Anyway.  There you have it–and now my girls will have it.  Let’s just hope I don’t dream about being 12 again tonight…

I told myself yesterday that I was going to push through Raina Telgemeier’s Drama today (I’m maybe halfway) and review it tonight.  How much time does it take to read a graphic novel, after all?  I could do it!

I could have done it, yes.  But I’m reading it because my girls are going to be reading it, not because I’m terribly into it, and at the end of today I found it far more enjoyable to work on the current 3,000-piece puzzle with my hubby and listen to the BYU game.  (He did a lot more watching.  Listening and focusing on the puzzle works for me.)  Perhaps on Monday I will have slogged through Drama; for now, however, I’m headed off to my bedtime routine.  Have a good night all!

Something about the description of Peter Heller’s Celine grabbed me, strongly enough that I entered for and ended up winning a free copy.  I don’t read many  mysteries, but the idea of a P.I. from an old-money New England family who specializes in reuniting birth families?  It drew me in.  I have three elementary schoolers and a starting-next-week-preschooler, however, so my early copy has been sitting on my shelf for months.  I was delighted when I finally realized that my library had it in e-audio, which meant I could listen to it on the elliptical (and while sorting laundry, or doing dishes) and skim my hard copy for anything I missed.  (The narrator took some getting used to, but I did get used to her eventually.)  I’ve been doing just that all week, finishing up last night while I was getting ready for bed, which means that at long last I get to review it for your reading pleasure.  (You’re welcome.)

First of all, if my dad were 15 years younger, I’d give him this book in a heartbeat.  Heller writes with deep appreciation of both New England and the Mountain West; my dad has lived in and loved both places.  (I’ve lived in both places, but I’m not outdoorsy enough by nature to have developed his appreciation of Utah and the Uintahs.)  Setting, particularly of the nature and small town variety, is part of Heller’s story.

As far as his writing in general, Heller seems to eschew conventional transitions, which felt occasionally odd but more or less successful, in its own way.  His characters’ “Hah!”s of laughter translate better in an audio format–I didn’t love them on the page.  Overall, his style is different from my usual preferences, but it ultimately felt like part of the novel, so–hey.  It worked.  Certain side characters were fond of the F-word, which did bother me, but thankfully not the main characters.  (There are enough instances of language that you should go into it expecting same, but not so many that it felt like the entire book was peppered with profanity.)  There was a page and a half somewhere in the middle of the book that grated on me–Heller was describing a beautiful woman from Celine’s point of view in a way that struck me as wholly male, not at all female–but thankfully it was an isolated incident.

Lastly, the story itself–which just kept drawing me in more deeply.  Celine and Pete’s journeys, Hank’s journey, and the case itself weave in and out in a way I appreciated more as the story went along.  I found myself continually hoping it was the start of a series, which speaks volumes all by itself.  If the premise of the book intrigues you and you can deal with a certain amount of language, you won’t be disappointed–even if you’re more of a crime drama watcher than a mystery reader, like me.

Several parts fruit being made into jam

Almost two weeks of sudden early mornings after a summer of sleeping in a bit

One beast of a 3,000-piece puzzle

One audiobook

One 3-year-old who likes to wander into Mommy and Daddy’s room at 2 AM

(I seriously almost missed tonight’s post as well.  I shall attempt better concentration!)

I was ridiculously excited when Alan Alda’s If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?:  My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating showed up on my phone.  (I love that digital holds are automatically borrowed from the library when they become available.)  After the sad strangeness of my last audiobook I was looking forward to something funny, and really, how can Alan Alda not be funny?  (He can’t not.  Period.)  What I glossed over slightly in my mind was the subtitle, which states exactly what the book is; rather than a memoir, it’s a book about what he’s learned about empathy and ‘theory of mind’, especially as they relate to communication in general and communication in science in particular.  It’s amusing, yes, because it’s by ALAN ALDA, and he reads it himself, but it’s informative enough that it wasn’t quite as distracting on the elliptical as I wanted it to be.  If I had it to do over again, I’d read it instead of listening to it.

I’d still absolutely read it, you understand.  Both because it was incredibly interesting and because, well, ALAN ALDA!

Once upon a time we acquired a 50 lb box of red potatoes.  Reds are our favorite potatoes, you understand, but the box was acquired at the beginning of summer, which meant that soups and a multitude of other hot things weren’t going to be eaten much for the next few months.  In those months the potatoes sprouted and grew alarmingly, and yesterday morning I decided to tackle the potatoes and try a slow cooker recipe I’ve been eyeing, thus killing two birds (or hundreds of potato sprouts) with one side dish.

The good news?  Pretty much everyone in the family happily ate these Slow Cooker Cheesy Bacon Ranch Potatoes (shocking, I know, but some of my kids still have a barely-there relationship with spuds in general).  I didn’t bother measuring anything other than the amount of potatoes, I didn’t put the last bit of cheese on top or garnish with chives (it was one of those days), and yet–success.  The bad news?  Well, let’s just say that potatoes that far gone into growth mode take a lot of work to render usable.  If your potatoes look like normal potatoes instead of Christopher Lloyd in the “Back to the Future” movies, you’re good.  The next time you need a side dish, give these a try!

Seriously.  In the last week or so we had a death (my uncle) and a funeral, a faceplant off the swing resulting in a doctor visit to check for a broken nose (my youngest), a wedding/ring ceremony/reception (my niece’s), a previously undiscovered cousin (long story), a day at the waterslides with my brother and his youngest (the kids and me), and the start of school for my older three (including my son’s first day of first grade).  That would be why I missed on Sunday, and that’s why this blog post is going to be impressively brief.  I tried these Peach Oatmeal Muffins for dinner tonight, since I have peaches to be used from my parents’ peach tree, and they were–okay.  Texture-wise, they were all an oatmeal muffin should be; flavor-wise, well–they needed more of it.  I may try them again, but the spices need to be at least one-and-a-halved, and the salt could probably use upping as well.  What lovely peach recipes do you make?