Month: August 2015

The Wonder Garden

Leave a comment

by Lauren Acampora
First sentence: “John likes to arrive first.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There’s a bunch of f-bombs, but not as many as you’d think. Also some mild drug use and off-screen sex. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

If I had to choose a favorite way to read short stories (other than not at all), I prefer them to be interconnected ones. Ones where it almost seems like I’m reading a novel. So, I was immediately made curious about these with the words “intricately interwoven stories”. Yes, please.

And, at first I enjoyed this. One minor character from the previous story would show up as the protagonist in the next, giving layers to what had previously went on. Some stories were odd (the insect installation), others kind of weird (the accountant-turned-hippie). I don’t know if I was truly enjoying it, but I was interested.

But about 2/3 of the way through, it fizzled. I was tired of trying to remember which story what protagonist showed up in. I was bored with the way it interconnected. And the stories weren’t enough to keep me interested; I just couldn’t find myself interested in their lives, and the words just weren’t pulling me in.

It could totally be me: short stories and I aren’t always the best of friends and I may have just not been in the mood for this. But, it is possible that it may have just worn out its welcome.

The Joy of Living

Leave a comment

by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
First sentence: “When you’re trained as a Buddhist, you don’t think of Buddhism as a religion.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s pretty complex, and somewhat dull, so it’d probably appeal to those who have the patience for it. It’d be in the religion section of the bookstore.

This was for another bingo square. I initially picked it up to cover “a religion you don’t know about” (hard for me, actually) but ended up using it as “popular psychology” because this was less about Buddhism and more about the scientific benefits of meditation.

And there are many: Rinpoche draws upon Western studies proving that the brain is calmer and that people are healthier when you meditate. And he explores some of the Western preconceptions about meditation: how we’re often intimidated by it because it seems so, well, unattainable.

He gives some practical advice for meditating: shorter times, more frequently during the day. And I’ve tried to take some of what he said to heart. During my last “down” time (I suffer from intermittent depression; it’s not chronic, but it is there and it is real), I worked on being attentive to my feelings and breathing through the sadness. I won’t say it worked well (or even much at all), but I did manage to come out of the funk faster than in the past. I need to get into the habit (again; I used to meditate more often) of stopping and unplugging and just Be longer.

I did find that a lot of this was familiar to me through my experiences with yoga over the years. A truly mindful yoga practice (of which I am not doing right now; I still go to yoga, but it’s more about the physical movement rather than a mindful practice) will incorporate elements of Buddhist meditation, I think.

It has made me curious about Buddhism, though. I think I’m going to hunt down and read more.

Audio book: Something Fresh

Leave a comment

by P. G. Wodehouse
Read by: Jonathan Cecil
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! (Though it looks like this one is out of print…)
Content: There’s really nothing. Some smoking. A few words of mild swearing. I’d give it to a high schooler who was interested in Downton Abbey. It’d be in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

Ah, Wodehouse. I had a square on my bingo card that was “Published exactly 100 years ago.” I did some research, and when I discovered that Wodehouse had a book I’d never read out that year, I jumped at the chance.

There’s a lot going on plot-wise in this one, though it mostly surrounds a scarab that is inadvertently stolen from an American millionaire, Mr. Peters. His daughter, Aline, is engaged to the Hon. Freddy Threepwood, the son of the Earl of Elmsworth, who is the one who walked off with the scarab. So, Peters hires Ashe Marson (and Aline hires Joan Valentine) to pose as his valet and get the scarab back. Unfortunately, at the castle, the Earl’s secretary, the Efficient Baxter, is super suspicious and is thwarting all attempts to return the scarab to its rightful owner. There’s several side love stories as well as a bunch of ridiculous relatives as well.

Silly, no? Well, it’s Wodehouse.

There were several audio versions of this, and I picked one at random, not knowing what to expect. I wasn’t terribly impressed; it was hard to tell, sometimes (especially since Wodehouse does rapid-fire dialogue), who was talking. And Cecil’s American accent was HORRIBLE. Awful. Seriously. As was his women’s voices. (Sometimes, he wouldn’t even bother with changing his voice for the women.)

In spite of that, Wodehouse’s writing made me smile (I wonder: how much I’d have laughed if the narrator had been better?), the characters were sufficiently silly, and the plot was sufficiently ridiculous. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Blanding’s Castle.

Goodbye Stranger

2 Comments

by Rebecca Stead
First sentence: “When she was eight years old, Bridget Barsamian woke up in a hospital, where a doctor told her she shouldn’t be alive.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy picked up at Children’s Institute
Content: There’s one swear word. And several situations that are more middle school than elementary school. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore, but I’d give it to a fifth grader, especially as they’re approaching middle school.

I’ve been thinking about how to start this. It’s not an easy book to categorize: is it a book about friendship? Yes. About growing up? Also yes. About bullying and the shame girls feel about their developing bodies?Again: yes. About first love and that line between friendship and something more? Yep.

But it’s also more: it’s about doing the wrong thing and making it right. About figuring out who you are in the wake of change. And it’s all done with Rebecca Stead’s beautiful writing.

The story is nominally about three friends — Bridge, Em, and Tab — who have been friends since the third grade. They made a pact to always stick together and never to fight, which is easy until seventh grade. Then Em begins attracting the notice of older kids and boys, and, well, likes it. Tab becomes enamored of a feminist teacher and dives headfirst into the world of equality and civil disobedience. And Bridge is kind of stuck in between. She doesn’t really want to grow up (I can relate), and yet she’s kind of interested in it as well. She picks up a pair of cat ears on a headband and wears those through the fall and winter because they felt “right”. She’s not quite sure who she is, or where she fits.

There are plot points, and chapters written in second person by a “mystery” high school freshman narrator (I figured out who it was fairly quickly. Yay me!), but mostly the book is about every day little things as Bridge is trying to figure out where she fits in this weird middle school world.

I loved it, and I think I did for one reason: I saw both myself and my daughters in this book. I saw the awkward 7th grader I was, and realized that Bridge was okay in her journey, because I survived. I saw M and C in the friends, and the ups and downs of their middle school experiences. And I saw A, as she starts middle school next year, and was reminded (again) of all the changes that will come her way. And for that, I loved this. I loved the smallness of it (and the diverseness: Bridge is Armenian and Tab is Indian) and the hopefulness of it. And I loved that the friends did, in fact, make it work out.

I thought it was marvelous. I just hope it finds the kids who will think that too.

Appleblossom the Possum

Leave a comment

by Holly Goldberg Sloan
First sentence: “One moment she’s calm and cozy with a knee in her nose and a tail around her neck.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy acquired at CI3 and signed by the author (squee!).
Release date: August 11, 2015
Content: It’s pretty basic: simple language (though there are a few difficult words thrown in), and a lot of white space and illustrations. It’s probably appropriate for a strong 2nd grade reader and up. I think it’d make a great read-aloud for younger children, as well.

The store’s publisher rep warned me, when she highlighted this book (and I got all excited), that this is a departure for Sloan. And she’s right: talking possums is a bit of a departure for Sloan. But that’s really the only departure; many of the themes — of family and resilience — are the same.

Appleblossom is the youngest of Mama Possum’s first litter (which is why Appleblossom and all her siblings have A names). She’s happy when she’s younger, hanging out with her brothers and sisters, and learning acting lessons from Mama. It was scary, especially the lessons about People monsters and Dog monsters, but she knew she had her family with her. And then the day came that Mama left. (It’s the wild. It happens.) Appleblossom and two of her brothers — Antonio and Amlet (because Hamlet isn’t an A name) — decide that they don’t really want to go off on their own so they stick together in their neighborhood. And then tragedy strikes: Appleblossom falls down a chimney into a house. With a Dog.

First off: I think this is one of those books that would be better read aloud. The way the book is written feels like a story one would tell around a campfire or at bedtime, rather than a book to lose yourself in. The language Sloan uses to describe the people world, and the characters of the possums — the brothers end up meeting their dad, Big Poss — as well as the simple adventures the possums have all lent the story an air of whimsy that lends itself more to reading aloud.

Given that framework, it’s a wonderful tale. It’s full of adventure and humor and charming artwork. I think (even though I didn’t absolutely love it like I did Sloan’s other books), given its intended audience, it’s absolutely perfect.

First Sunday Daughter Reviews: August 2015

Leave a comment

Amazingly enough, there has been reading done this past month! (Maybe I shamed them into it?)

C’s rehearsal schedule had a lot of down time, so she picked up these to re-read:

She says that she still doesn’t like the last one as much as the first, but that she got the symbolism and what Collins was trying to “say” better this time around.

She also convinced A to read them. (She finished Hunger Games, and is halfway through Catching Fire… which she’s not sure she “gets”. She was asking me the other day what the point of that book was.)  A also started a book group with some friends. Their first book is:

She says that the people in it are super stupid, which is driving her nuts. I tell her that it’s a good discussion point for her book group.

Hubby also took her to a local comic book store, and a very lovely employee (she said she liked helping the girls because she was a geek girl herself) picked up a couple issues of this for her

Which she really liked.

E – that’s what I’m going to call our foster daughter – went to debate camp, and has been spending her time on the internet doing research for this year’s debate season. She picked up this one for her birthday, though, and said it was a lot of fun

And K went to the library, and brought back some graphic novels. Her favorite one (which she won’t let anyone else read) was this:

She REALLY liked it. A lot.

What are your kids reading?