Mother Reader reviewed this book, by Jennifer L. Holm and Elicia Castaldi a while back (and very kindly she put it in her best of 2007 list so there was a link! Thanks!) and something about what she said compelled me to put this one on hold at the library. (I’m really just too cheap to buy books. Sigh.)

Anyway, Pam’s right. It is one of the best little books I’ve read this year. It didn’t take long… it’s, well, A Year Told Through Stuff, and reading reciepts, text messages, notes, letters and school assignments doesn’t take long. But it’s amazing. Amazing that we get to know and feel with Ginny without the traditional text to guide us. The basic “plot” is a simple one: Ginny goes through school, gains a dad (her mom remarries), deals with friends, deals with school, deals with brothers, and survives. But Holm and Castaldi make the ordinary (a simple request from mom for Ginny to clean her room, for example) extraordinary.

Some of my favorite moments: the bank statement every month. No matter how much Ginny deposits and withdrawals she always ends up with $5. The receipt for the salon and the plumbing after Ginny tries dying her hair. The Adventures of Harry and Ginny comic strips (drawn by Ginny’s older brother).

This poem:

There’s nothing quite like
the first day of school,
with all those
newly waxed floors
and hopeful faces.
You can’t help but think
you’ll get a fresh start
and be the girl
everyone thinks is cool.
not the one who got whacked
by a softball in gym
and had her nose
swell to the size of the
Empire State Building.
There’s nothing quite like
the first day of school,
you think,
and then Brian Bukvic
shouts,
“Hey Banana Nose!”
and you know you’re
back in school.

Actually, I loved all the poems in the book. (Read the one Mother Reader quoted; it’s hilarious.)

I handed it to M when she came home from school yesterday, and she finished it an hour or so later. She loved it, too. Though probably for different reasons. She related to the friendship issues. She loved the science fair project. She enjoyed getting to know Ginny.

As did I.

Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes. Yes, he really is wonderful (most of the time). And no, I don’t plan on giving him up. 😀

My birthday was nice. I got a surprise phone call from a dear friend whom I haven’t seen in four years and spent a while chatting with her. And while I didn’t get a “buttload of books” like Andi wished, I did win two from Book Binge. I wasn’t the original winner, but she never responded, so whomever she is I have her to thank for my two “birthday” books. I originally chose the two Judith McNaught books, but I realized that reading 1400 pages in two weeks — on top of everything else — was a bit much, so Holly very nicely let me switch. I chose Colleen Gleason‘s Gardella vampire books, which have been on my TBR list for a while now anyway. I also received Cinder Edna (which is really hard for me to say) from a good friend here in Kansas. It’s a delightful alternative telling of Cinderella… it’s nice to know I’m not to old for picture books!

Other than that, we just had a little party at home. I made my cake, a chocolate-marshmallow confection that was a bit too sweet for my taste. (Good to know; I’ve been meaning to try out that recipe for a while.) Here’s the bonfire I had to blow out (we only had a 3 number candle, so we attempted to make a 5 out of regular candles):

And I got a lovely pair of earrings from my girls, money from my in-laws, and this from my parents:

So it was a very nice birthday.

Now back to what we usually do around here.

An Open Memo to Publishers and Literary Scholars

RE: Dead Authors’ Unpublished Works

Dear Sirs and Madams:

I have just finished what has been promoted as Louisa May Alcott’s “first novel written at seventeen” and as “the book ‘Jo’ wrote”. If I understand the Afterword correctly, this novel was discovered intact among Alcott’s papers. I imagine the scholars who discovered this were incredibly excited and thought that the rest of the reading public would be awestruck at a “new” Alcott novel.

I hate to say this, since Alcott is a respected author, but: it was horrible. Maudlin. Trite. The characters were mere caricatures. (Noble True Love, Long-Suffering Poor Governess, Prideful and Haughty High-born Lady, Older Haughty Lady Who Learns a Lesson, Less-Worthy Love Interest, etc.) The plot was predictable and underdeveloped. Sure, there was some intellectual curiosity about it: one could tell, reading the book, that Alcott’s early influences were Dickens, Austen and the Bronte sisters. But really, the manuscript should have been left where it was found: in the red notebook among her papers.

As you well know, the process a book takes from an idea to publication is a long and arduous one. Many revisions and edits are necessary to make a good final draft. When an author has died, that process cannot be completed, for obvious reasons. Thereby, any works that are published after said authors death can never be as good as anything that author published in life. (There are exceptions, true, but they are rare.) While you may think that fans of the author may want, for completion’s sake, to read everything that author ever wrote, please refrain from publishing unfinished works. We really don’t want to remember Lloyd Alexander or Madeline L’Engle (or any other deceased author for that matter) for the first drafts of novels they had saved on their computer drives; we want to remember them for the works they finished and polished and published and won awards for.

I am sorry for this aberration in Alcott’s published repertoire. It would be much better for the reading public to read and enjoy her original published works, the ones in which she had control of the writing process, and ignore this travesty.

Thank you.

Jerry Spinelli has written books that I’ve really liked; I thoroughly enjoyed both Stargirl and Maniac Magee. So I was looking forward to reading Eggs, Spinelli’s almost latest book. (Love, Stargirl just came out, too.) While I respect Spinelli’s writing, and while I admire that he’s willing to tackle a subject like dealing with human fragility in the face of death of a loved one, I’m not sure I liked this book all that much.

I’m not saying I disliked it, though. I think what I had was a complete non-reaction. It was neither here nor there; it was neither liked nor disliked. It just was. (Maybe that’s appropriate?)

Anyway. David, a 9 year old boy (who didn’t act like a 9 year-old in my opinion) whose mother has recently died, hates life. Hates that his grandmother is trying to make him make friends. Hates that his father is always gone to his job in Connecticut (“200 miles away!”). Hates his new town. Just hates. (It’s actually pretty grumpy reading.) Until he meets Primrose, a 13-year-old girl with family problems of her own. She is annoyed by her mom, who is, by all accounts, pretty out of it. Neither of them wants a friendship, yet they end up as friends. Neither of them wants to admit that they need the other, so they spend most of the book fighting. (There’s a lot of arguing and fighting in this book. I suppose that’s typical.) And in the end, they realize, well, that life is okay.

And that’s pretty much the whole plot. Since there wasn’t much story, I really wanted to like the characters. But I didn’t particularly like David; he was too grumpy, too mean, his emotions too raw for me. I liked Primrose better, but not by much. She also was quite mean, often teasing and provoking David for no apparent reason. I felt sorry for David’s grandmother and Primrose’s mom. The mother-figures in this book were either spineless or crazy, which bothered me. The only character I really liked was Refrigerator John; he was at least interesting, though I can’t say why. He didn’t really do anything; he was just there as a sounding board for Primrose and David. And an effective one at that.

There really isn’t much more to say about this one. I was complaining to M about David always being grumpy and mean, and she told me that “9-year-old boys are just jerks, Mom.” So, maybe it’s an accurate portrayal of a kid going through the grief process. I just wanted a more enjoyable and compelling one.