Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)

 

Much to my mother's surprise, I have always been a bit of a classics rebel. I picked this one up for book club and must say, I'm glad I did. I borrowed a tattered old copy from one of my nieces - which seemed appropriate and added to the nostalgia of this story. 

I'm sure I'll have more to say after our book club discussion. These are my thoughts so far:

The feminist part of me bristled at a lot of it, but there is something lovely and magical about it that kept me reading....kind of like Anne of Green Gables. My husband, on the other hand, has it on his 'Books I Regret Reading' list. LOL I did appreciate the cautious approach to marriage and the idea that it isn't the answer to everything. Apparently, Louisa herself was fiercely independent and never did marry.

I've never watched any of the movies. I think I should!

Goodreads says:

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,” including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

Train to Somewhere (Eve Bunting)

Oh my gosh. This is so heartbreaking! We read this, hoping all along the way that Marianne would meet her at one of the stops.

She never did.

And it ends like that.

My class sat and stared at me. Then someone said, "That's it?"

Interesting to read a story that doesn't end happily! We thought maybe we could write an ending so that it actually feels like it ends.

I don't think it's a bad thing for kids to read books like this though. It certainly brought out some emotions. It started a great discussion about adoption and orphans and appreciating our parents. And it sounds like we will have a good writing project! We also had a good discussion about historical fiction.

Goodreads says:

Marianne, heading west with fourteen other children on an Orphan Train, is sure her mother will show up at one of the stations along the way. When her mother left Marianne at the orphanage, hadn't she promised she'd come for her after making a new life in the West? Stop after stop goes by, and there's no sign of her mother in the crowds that come to look over the children. No one shows any interest in adopting shy, plain Marianne, either. But that's all right: She has to be free for her mother to claim her. Then the train pulls into its final stop, a town called Somewhere . . . 

Jacob Have I Loved (Katherine Paterson)

I got this book out after reading Bridge to Terabithia (again) for my grade three book club. Katherine Paterson is quite a renound author, but I haven't really read anything else of hers. I decided I should. I was interested in seeing what she did with the Jacob and Esau reference. 

Is the Jacob and Esau story a foundation for a meta narrative? I had no idea. Seemed intriguing though. She certainly does weave plenty of biblical reference through this entire story. 

As I read, I wondered if this would be a good story to do for grade three book club. There were enough odd moments (huge crush on someone who could be her grandpa? Her senile grandmother accusing her mother endlessly of being a harlot?!) that made me realize it wouldn't be appropriate. As a matter of fact, as I read I started to hate the main character. I wondered how in the world the book became a Caldecott winner. However, as I kept on, I realized there really is beauty in the story. She touches on some themes in an amazing way.

Main themes seem to be finding yourself and sibling rivalry. Sara Louise hates her twin sister. She seems justified. Her sister smart quite unaware of the rivalry. She just goes about doing what she does...totally irritating Sarah Louise, who never resolves the problems with her sister. It makes it so that their sisterhood isn't at all one of those wonderful friendships. Not at all. Actually, Sarah Louise's negativity and loathing really began to wear on me. At the part where she is complaining to her mother about her mother's choices in life, I realized that she  really needed to quit projecting her unhappiness on to everyone else! Happily, she does seem to figure this out for herself. She finally realizes that she needs to do what makes her happy and goes away to school. She's wants to become a doctor, but it is a time when women are really only expected to be nurses. She ends up in a small mountainous community, being the only medical professional, and ends up marrying. In her new life, she leaves her family behind, even unable to return fo funerals. Frankly, I knew if she did go back, she would go straight back to her miserableness.....so I understood her not going.

The story comes full circle when she delivers twins, spending her energy saving the life of one while the other waits in a basket.....just like when she was born. I feel like she would have made the connection and perhaps had some healing as a result of the experience.

There is magic and wisdom in this story. It would be great to read it with middle school students or even with adults....especially my church friends.

Goodreads summary:

Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated . . . With her grandmother's taunt, Louise knew that she, like the biblical Esau, was the despised elder twin. Caroline, her selfish younger sister, was the one everyone loved.Growing up on a tiny Chesapeake Bay island in the early 1940s, angry Louise reveals how Caroline robbed her of everything: her hopes for schooling, her friends, her mother, even her name. While everyone pampered Caroline, Wheeze (her sister's name for her) began to learn the ways of the watermen and the secrets of the island, especially of old Captain Wallace, who had mysteriously returned after fifty years. The war unexpectedly gave this independent girl a chance to fulfill her childish dream to work as a watermen alongside her father. But the dream did not satisfy the woman she was becoming. Alone and unsure, Louise began to fight her way to a place where Caroline could not reach.Renowned author Katherine Paterson here chooses a little-known area off the Maryland shore as her setting for a fresh telling of the ancient story of an elder twin's lost birthright.

Sisters (Raina Telgemeier)

I've seen books by this author in a lot of places. They're blogged about a lot. They are in all the bookstores. They have been begging me to read them. I finally got to it!

This one is a graphic novel (I get the feeling most of Raina Telgemeier's books are graphic novels). They're a quick read. I have to force myself to slow down and look at the pictures as well as read the words.

This book is easy to follow. The main character has flash backs to when she wishes she had a sister, to when her sister was born, etc. The flashback pages are yellow. In my dimly lit bedroom it took me a little bit of time to clue into that! It makes it easy though.

I had to really chuckle at the snake issues in the book. The younger sister wants a snake - but the older sister is afraid of snakes. The younger sister gets one anyway. (I hate snakes....I couldn't live in a house with a snake or travel in a van with a snake....she totally won my respect there. I wouldn't have done it!) They call it "the incident".

The vignettes are real and relatable. I had to laugh at the section where they want a pet. They try fish. Fish die. They get another one. Finally, after a few tries at keeping fish, they decide to try something else. This is juxtaposed by the announcement that they're going to have a little brother. I thought that was pretty funny next to the pet conversations.

All in all, it's a fun book. It is a great read for girls who have a sister, or wish they had a sister, or wish they didn't have a sister.

Monkey Me and the Pet Show (Timothy Roland)

 

This is an interesting story. It's about two siblings who are twins. The boy can't control himself sometimes. When he gets really excited he jumps up and down and runs around and generally acts crazy - and turns into a monkey. It made me wonder if this is a commentary of sorts on the tendancy of more boys to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls. The sister in the story always tries to get him to settle down and act in socially acceptable ways - but he just can't help himself. He acts like a monkey - and actually does turn into one, thanks to a banana he ate at a science lab.

 

The story is cute and the pictures are simple. It is part of a new series of easy chapter books that Scholastic has published. My class loves them.

 

Goodread summary:

When Clyde gets excited, he brings a whole new meaning to "monkeying around!"
This series is part of Scholastic's early chapter book line called Branches, which is aimed at newly independent readers. With easy-to-read text, high-interest content, fast-paced plots, and illustrations on every page, these books will boost reading confidence and stamina. Branches books help readers grow!
Clyde is an energetic student who just can't sit still. When he gets too excited, he transforms into a real monkey! When the class bully challenges Clyde's "monkey me" to the pet talent show, he has no choice but to participate. But when the other pets start to disappear, Clyde uses his inner monkey to save the day.

Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson)

I learned about this book from a Nerdy Book Club post by Donalyn Miller. I've seen a lot of tweets about it as well. It seemed like a book that I needed to carve out some special time for. I was fascinated that the entire book is written in verse. How weird could that be? It wasn't weird. It was beautiful and had magic. As Donalyn Miller said, "Jackie catches words, blows on them, and floats them on to me." 

I wanted this book to go on forever. I tend to be a fast reader. This book made me want to slow down and savor every word. Seriously.

Goodreads Summary:

Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse.  A novel in verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become. 

I got this book from the library and must apologize to the librarian for all the pages I had to turn down. They were the pages I just couldn't quite let go of yet.

I loved the image this stirs.
p. 131 sometimes, no words are needed
Deep winter and the night air is cold. So still,
it feels like the world goes on forever in the darkness
until you look up and the earth stops
in a ceiling of stars. My head against
my grandfather's arm,
is a blanket around us as we sit on the front porch swing.
Its whine like a song.

You don't need words 
on a night like this. Just the warmth
of your grandfather's arm. Just the silent promise
That the world as we know it
will always be here.

I hope I can help all my students feel like this about school:
p. 158 first grade
My hand inside my sister's hand,
We walk the two blocks fo P.s. 106 - 
I am six years old and
my sister tells me our school was once a castle.
I believe her. The school stretches for a full city block.
Inside
marble stairs wind their way to classrooms filled
with dark wood desks
nailed down to dark wood floors polished to a high
and beautiful shine.

I am in love with everything around me,
the dotted white lines moving
across my teacher's blackboard, the smell of chalk,
the flag jutting out from the wall and slowly swaying 
above me.

There is nothing more beautiful than P.s. 106.
Nothing more perfect than my first-grade classroom.
No one more kind than Ms. Feidler, who meets me
at the door each morning,
takes my hand from my sister's, smiles down and says,
Now that Jacqueline is here, the day can finally begin.

And I believe her.
Yes. I truly believe her.

Jacqueline Woodson is a Jehovah's Witness and that plays a role in the story. It was a unique view into a religion I really don't understand.
p. 162 flag
When the kids in my class ask why
I am not allowed to pledge to the flag
I tell them It's against my religion but I don't say,
I am in the world but not of the world. This,
they would not understand.
Even though my mother's not a Jehovah's Witness,
she makes us follow their rules and
leave the classroom when the pledge is being said.

Every morning, I walk out with Gina and Alina
the two other Witnesses in my class.
Sometimes, Gina says,
Maybe we should pray for the kids inside
who don't know that God said
"No other idols before me." That our God
is a jealous God.
Gina is a true believer. Her Bible open
during reading time. But Alina and I walk through
our roles as Witnesses as though this is the part
we've been given in a play
and once offstage, we run free, sing
"America the Beautiful" and "The Star-Spangled Banner"
far away from our families - knowing every word.

Alina and I want
more than anything to walk back into our classroom
press our hands against our hearts, Say,
"I pledge allegiance..." loud
without our jealous God looking down on us.
  Without our parents finding out.
Without our mothers' voices
in our heads saying, You are different.
Chosen.
Good.

When the pledge is over, we walk single file
back into the classroom, take our separate seats
Alina and I far away from Gina. But Gina
always looks back at us - as if to say,
I'm watching you. As if to say,
I know.

Jacqueline also struggles with comparing herself to her brilliant sister:
p. 169 gifted
Everyone knows my sister
is brilliant. The letters come home folded neatly
inside official-looking envelopes that my sister proudly
hands over to my mother.
Odella has achieved
Odella has excelled at
Odella has been recommended to
Odella's outstanding performance in

She is gifted
we are told
And I imagine presents surrounding her.

I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist
twirl across the page.
When they settle, it is too late.
The class has already moved on.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them
then blow gently,
watch them float
right out of my hands.

I was really taken by her ability to describe her difficulties with reading.
p. 226 reading
I am not my sister.
Words from the books curl around each other
make little sense
until
I read them again
and again, the story
settling into memory. Too slow
the teacher says.
Read faster.
Too babyish, the teacher says.
Read older.
but I don't want to read faster or older or 
any way else that might
make the story disappear too quickly from where
  it's settling
inside my brain,
slowly becoming 
a part of me.
A story I will remember
long after I've read it for the second, third,
tenth, hundredth time.

I know this story! It's called Stevie. 
p. 227 stevie and me
Every Monday my mother takes us
to the library around the corner. We are allowed
to take out seven books each. One those days,
no one complains
that all I want are picture books.

These days no one tells me to read faster
to read harder books
to read like Dell

No one is there to say, Not that book,
when I stop in front of the small paperback 
with a brown boy on the cover.
Stevie.

I read:
One day my momma told me,
"You know you're gonna have
a little friend come stay with you."
And I said, "Who is it?"

If someone had been fussing with me
to read like my sister, I might have missed
the picture book filled with brown people, more
brown people than I'd ever seen
In a book before.

The little boy's name was Steven but 
his mother kept calling him Stevie.
My name is Robert but my momma don't
call me Robertie.

If someone had taken
that book out of my hand
said, You're too old for this
maybe
I'd never have believed
that someone who looked like me
could be in the pages of the book
that someone who looked like me
had a story.


One fascinating part of the story was the aftermath of segregation. During her time as a child there wasn't segregation, well, sort of. I wish I was more like Jacqueline Woodson when it comes to change. I'm a little more like the grandma sometimes though, a little afraid to step out. And when I do step out, I do it pretty quietly. I don't like that about myself.
p. 237 what everybody knows now

Even though the laws have changed
my grandmother still takes us
to the back of the bus when we go downtown
in the rain. It's easier, my grandmother says,
than having white folks look at me like I'm dirt.

But we aren't dirt. We are people
paying the same fare as other people.
When I say this to my grandmother,
she nods, says, Easier to stay where you belong.

I look around and see the ones
who walk straight to the back. See
the ones who take a seat up front, daring
anyone to make them move. And know
this is who I want to be. Not scared
like that. Brave
like that.

Still, my grandmother takes my hand downtown
pulls me right past the restaurants that have to let us sit
wherever we want now. No need in making trouble
she says.  You'll all go back to New York City but
I have to live here.

We walk straight past Woolworth's
without even looking in the windows
because the one time my grandmother went inside
they made her wait and wait. Acted like
I wasn't even there. It's hard not to see the moment - 
my grandmother in her Sunday clothes, a hat
with a flower pinned to it
neatly on her head, her patent-leather purse,
perfectly clasped
between her gloved hands - waiting quietly
long past her turn.

Loot (Jude Watson)

This book was recommended to me by one of my former students - a number of times! He stopped me in the hall one day and said he had a great book for book club. Then a couple days later he asked if I had read it. Then again in a couple days. And again. Finally I figured I better get the book!

The story is about a boy who is raised by his dad who lives life as a criminal. He is killed and in his dying words he leaves advice to follow. The rest of the book is a series of twists and turns as a gang of would-be kid criminals go about securing a fortune. Cliff hangers run amok. They are everywhere! 

I can see why kids would love this book. What kid doesn't love kid heroes who get through any tight situations. I found it a little far fetched and figured it could have been told in half the number of pages.....but I do have to give the author credit. It is a fun read!

Definitely best for middle elementary or middle school. A little too complicated for my grade three students, I think.

Crow Lake (Mary Lawson)

I loved this book. This is a simple yet beautiful story. I found myself slowing down as I read to be sure I didn't miss any subtleties. The complexities of family relationships and perception as they move through life with all of it's tragedies and changes were very real. This is a book worth reading again. 

Re-read Sep 2021: It's very much about understanding one's past and figuring out how to shuffle those memories and affects into one's present. The main character really struggles with understanding her past after trauma as a child and how to include her past in her current life.
The copy I had was from the library and someone prior to me had scribbled notes in the margins. I wish I could figure out what the notes meant. It really gave me pause for thought as I was reading.

Interestingly, many of the passages I marked to record, were the ones I had marked last time.
I loved this book just as much the second time as I did the first.

Goodreads Summary:

Crow Lake is that rare find, a first novel so quietly assured, so emotionally pitch perfect, you know from the opening page that this is the real thing-a literary experience in which to lose yourself, by an author of immense talent.

Here is a gorgeous, slow-burning story set in the rural "badlands" of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape. For the farming Pye family, life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, and terrible events occur-offstage.

Centerstage are the Morrisons, whose tragedy looks more immediate if less brutal, but is, in reality, insidious and divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matt's protegee, her fascination for pond life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope but seems blind to the state of her own emotional life. And she thinks she's outgrown her siblings-Luke, Matt, and Bo-who were once her entire world.

In this universal drama of family love and misunderstandings, of resentments harbored and driven underground, Lawson ratchets up the tension with heartbreaking humor and consummate control, continually overturning one's expectations right to the very end. Tragic, funny, unforgettable, Crow Lake is a quiet tour de force that will catapult Mary Lawson to the forefront of fiction writers today.

--------------------------------------------------------

Good quotes: 

p. 3

My great-grandmother Morrison fixed a book rest to her spinning wheel so that she could read while she was spinning, or so the story goes. And one Saturday evening she became so absorbed in her book that when she looked up, she found that it was half past midnight and she had spun for half an hour on the Sabbath day. Back then, that counted as a major sin.

---

Just after Laurie Pye runs away from his abusive father:

(P. 216) Nothing to do I with us. That is what I thought. I didn't know that the Pyes' story was already starting to converge with our own. No one knew. We were all bumbling along, the Morrisons and the Pyes and the Mitchells and the Janies and the Stanoviches and all the others, side by side, week in, week out, that our paths similar in some ways and different in others, all apparently running parallel. But parallel lines never meet.

----

P. 221 Laurie was just one more dropped stitch in a family tapestry already full of holes.

---

p. 272 On shuffling the past in with the present:

But although I had not wanted him to come, granted that he was here I found that I wanted him beside me. I wanted him to be a buffer between me and the rest of them. He was my present. If he was there, then perhaps the past would not spread out in the night and overwhelm me. Besides, I thought, A shade defiantly, what right had Matt, of all people, to pass judgment? Silly, I know. It would never occur to him to judge me.

---

p. 282 Daniel said, "Well, I agree with you about one thing, Kate. I do think there's a tragedy here. But I don't think it's what you think it is."

.......He wiped his hand on his shirt and retrieved his coffee and said, "You'll say I don't understand, just like you think Marie doesn't understand, but I think I do. Some of it anyway. Your family's had a real struggle, all those generations and everything, all of you striving toward this great goal. And Matt's obviously brilliant, anyone can see that. So I can see it was a disappointment. He had his chance and he blew it, Which is a real shame."

He gave me a brief, almost apologetic smile. "But it's just a shame. It's not a tragedy. It makes no difference to Matt is. Can't you see that? No difference at all. The tragedy is that you think it's so important. So important you're letting it destroy the relationship the two of you had."

He must have seen my incredulity, because he hesitated, eyeing me uneasily. He said, "I'm not trying to say it doesn't matter to him, Kate - that he's miraculously discovered that he loves farming, so it's all turned out for the best, or some crap like that .I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that from what you've told me about him and what I've seen of him, my guess is that he came to terms with it a long time ago. The problem is, you didn't. And as a consequence, he's lost what he had with you. That's the real tragedy.

Strange how parts of your brain can continue to function normally when other parts have come to a dead stop. I could hear Matt and Simon's voices; I saw the car getting nearer; in the distance a couple of crows were quarrelling; my brain recorded it all faithfully. But within me, for a long moment, there was total silence. A paralysis of the mind. And then gradually things started up again, and with the return of conscious thought came an absolute flood tide of disbelief, confusion and furious resentment. Daniel, of all people, an outsider, a guest, who had dragged the story out of me, who had known Matt scarcely twelve hours. That he could look at our lives and casually, carelessly, knowing nothing about it, come to such a conclusion. I could hardly believe that I had heard time right - hardly believe that he had said it.

---

p. 289 I suppose the real question is not why I saw it then, but why I didn't see it years ago. Grand-Grandmother Morrison, I accept that the fault is largely mine, but I hold you partly to blame. It is you, with your love of learning, who set the standard against which I have judged everyone around me, all my life. I have pursued your dream single-mindedly; I have become familiar with books and ideas you never even imagined, and somehow, in the process of acquiring all that knowledge, I have managed to learn nothing at all.

---
p. 290

I would like to be able to say that I threw myself into the spirit of it all, but the truth is, I still felt a bit dazed. A bit abstracted. It's going to take time, I guess. If you've thought a certain way for many years, if you've had a picture in your mind of how things are and that picture is suddenly shown to be faulty, well, it stands to reason that it will take a while to adjust. And during that time, you're bound to feel...disconnected. Anyway, that was how I felt, and still feel, to some degree. What I would really have liked to do was sit quietly somewhere, preferably under a tree, and watch the goings-on from a distance. In particular, watch Matt. Let my eyes absorb this new view of him, this new perspective on our lives.

The Boy in the Box (Cary Fagan)

I kept calling it my dam book. It took me so long to get into it! I have so many books I want read right now - and this one was blocking the way to all those books...like a dam! I had heard a lot of good about it and so I didn't want to give up on it, but I just couldn't get into it. I don't know if it was my own lack of focus or weak reading muscles, or just the demands of everything else during the holidays, but it took me forever to get through the first 100 pages. That was when I really got into it. If I was bold enough to give the author some advice, I'd recommend he tighten up the beginning of the book. It basically describes Sullivan's boring and sad life, for 100 pages. After page 100 he runs off with the circus. It becomes very compelling and easier to stick with! 

 One sad aspect of the book is how Sullivan is kind of nobody. He has a best friend, Norval Simick, but they aren't the kind of friends who hang out at each other's house and are friends on Facebook. They just knew each other at school. Besides the bully, Samuel Patinsky, no one else seems to even notice when Sullivan is gone. They have a cold and impersonal assembly to tell all the kids that he has "died" and then they raise the flag to full height from half mast, and on life goes. Even though Samuel is a bully, it seems like it's the one ray of hope that at least someone knew him - even if he was a bully to him. His parents don't even go looking for him. And the owners of the circus are just plain mean. The only hope is his little sister - and he hasn't always been that nice to her. It is a hopeless situation!

Knowing there is a second book is the only thing that stopped me from throwing the book against the wall when it ended, or didn't end, as in this case. I had many thoughts about what the author was trying to teach in this book. Perhaps a lesson could be to be sure to express your concerns to the people around you, rather than assume no one cares? Or perhaps it could be to be sure to tell people you care while they're around you? Or perhaps it could be to learn to be happy in the moment? Or then again, maybe it could be that sometimes it's worth sacrificing everything to start a new and meaningful life? I loved what "Stephanie" said on Goodreads about the book:

In fact, Sullivan and his story are so bland that they’re not really the focus of the book. The book’s focus, really, is how the other people in his life react to his disappearance. His only friend, Norval, for example, develops a strong friendship with repentant school bully Samuel Patinsky because of Sullivan’s disappearance; and without Sullivan to bully, Samuel finds himself reassessing his king-of-the-schoolyard ways. Sullivan, in a way, is almost an anti-character. It’s not Sullivan, really, that moves the book along: it’s his absence. It’s a risky approach, and to be honest, it was until the last quarter of so of the book that I actually began to appreciate what Fagan was attempting to do here. In large part I think this was because I felt somehow that the writing had a sort of dead, toneless feel to it. No matter the neat plotting and tidily distinguished characters propping up the big top of the narrative, the book just felt flat to me, and I found that I was trying to convince myself to care.

Here entire review is here. It's really quite good. This book brings up so many questions!! There are many quotable parts of the book that are great fodder for discussion.

There are moments in lifew hen, even as you are determined to do something, you know that it is wrong. You may not know why and so you dismiss the feelingas cowardice or laziness or some other personal failing, rather than for waht is is - a warnng from some deep part of the brain. (Chapter 7, page 83)

I loved the way the author described performing:

There is a moment, just before curtain, when a transformation takes place, when players leave behind their ordinary beings and become their larger, dramatic selves. It happens whether the stage is large or small, the audience a handful or in the thousands. It happens whether the actors are famous or unknown. And although he could not have described it in words, Sullivan felt it happen. He even saw it in Master Melville's face just before going on - he became eager, smiling and confident.

It reminded me so much of life as a teacher. It's like performing!

Sullivan is talking to Mistress Melville, the female head of the circus bunch, about his act they have put together:

"You thought of this because I Look so ordinary. Because it seems like there's nothing special at all about me." (Chapter 19, p. 222)

She goes on to say that the audience will love it and that they love seeing something who makes mistakes, who is accidental, who then surprises them with his skill. She was right. Perhaps we love that kind of thing because we all feel a little ordinary and have a hard time showing the greatness that really is in each of us. I MUST read book 2 now. If only I could figure out what book 2 is!

UPDATE: I emailed Cary Fagan and happily, he responded very quickly! The second book is due to be out in February. I think I will go pre-order it! It is called The Show to End All Shows

A House in the Sky (Amanda Lindhout)

I remember this story well when it was in the news. There were contradictory stories - that Amanda Lindhout was living happily and married to a Muslim in Samalia. I knew there was probably much more to the story. There was.

Goodreads summary:

The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace.
As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.” On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road.
Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives “wife lessons” from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured.
Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity.

I listened to this book on CD. I found myself feeling a bit of the emotions Amanda must have felt. Then I would feel shameful thinking how could I ever think I even had an idea at all what she went through. I find the whole middle eastern world fascinating yet frightening. 

This story is compelling. It drug me through the emotions of being a hostage. It broke my heart and it frightened me. It's stunning what humans will do to each other, and it's stunning what we can overcome.


National post photo:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)

It always feels good to read a classic. I have wanted to read this book for a while, so my month to pick the book club book seemed like the perfect opportunity. It is kind of like The Seinfeld Show - a book about nothing. Nothing spectacular happens. It's just the story of a girl who isn't very well off who just struggles and continues to make it in life. There is a tree that grows near her house - one tree amidst all the cement. The tree survives and thrives despite people neglecting it, abusing it, even trying to ruin it.....just like Francie and her family always survive.

I really liked that the mother is a strong character in this story, as is Francie. I loved that they realized that the way out of their struggled was through learning and through reading.

There are some strange characters in the book. Francie's dad is a lovable, handsome and fun guy - but never much of a provider for the family. His mother had three sons. Two died and one got married - which was about as good as dying to her. She was kind of bizarre:

Johnny, Francie's dad, is an interesting sort. He's a drunk who makes his money singing. He never really did want a family, but he does stick around mostly. His mother had all boys and had a hard time not having them around. When Johnny and his wife announced they were having a baby she wailed, "Now she's got you good. You'll never be able to come back to me."

Odd. Sort of. Some mothers have a hard time letting go of their boys.

I loved all the talk of school and learning and reading.

Katie deeply wants her children to have a better life than hers. On her mother's advice, she reads to them every day from Shakespeare and from The Bible. It does make a difference in Francie's life - although not always positive. Sometimes it causes her to be too different from her friends.

Francie finds a school she wants to go to instead of the one in the district where she lives. She and her dad conjure up a "white lie" so she can attend that school.

"It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable." (chapter 23, p. 176)

One chapter that really struck me was when Francie decides that she will never have female friends. This decision is thanks to a bunch of women who taunt and shun and make fun of a girl who has a baby out of wedlock. Francie even shuns this girl by looking at her cold-faced when she smiles at her. However, when the women inadvertently injure the baby by throwing rocks at the mother, Francie is horrified.

p. 237 (chapter 30) Remember Joanna. Remember Joanna. Francie could never forget her. From that time on, remembering the stoning women, she hated women. She feared them for their devious ways, she mistrusted their instincts. She began to hate them for this disloyalty and their cruelty to each other. Of all the stone-throwers, not one had cared to speak a word for the girl for fear that she would be tarred with Joanna's brush. The passing man had been the only one who spoke with kindness in his voice.

Most of the women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman....whether it was by throwing stones or by mean gossip. It was the only kind of loyalty they seemed to have.

Men were different. They might hate each other but they stuck together against the world and against any woman who would ensnare one of them.

Francie opened the copybook which she used for a diary. She skipped a line under the paragraph that she had written about intolerance and wrote:

"As long as I live, I will never have a woman for a friend. I will never trust any woman again, except maybe Mama and sometimes Aunt Evy and Aunt Sissy."

And she never did.


There's something magical about this book. I think anyone could read it and find themselves in it. It's a story where women stand up for themselves. It's a story where extended family sticks together. It's a story where despite the odds, they do slowly get ahead. There are no quick fixes. There is a lot of heart ache, hard work, patience and going without along the way.

It's definitely a book I'd recommend!