Review of Charles and Emma, by Deborah Heiligman

Award Winners, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Nonfiction Review, Romance, Science, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Charles and Emma

The Darwins’ Leap of Faith

Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2009. 268 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Winner YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award
2009 National Book Award Finalist
2010 Printz Honor Book

Okay, when this book first came out, I wasn’t too interested. I grew up in a conservative Christian family, and didn’t exactly see Charles Darwin as a hero. Then the book kept winning awards, and got strong comments from the judges in School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books. I thought I really should read it. Then I met Deborah Heiligman at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference. When I found out why she wrote it, I knew I had to read it. I purchased a book and got her signature. However, it still took me until this year, when I was taking a class on the Printz Award, to finally get it read.

Deborah explains in the Acknowledgments at the back of the book how her husband got her interested in the story that would become this book:

“Jon’s been writing about science and evolution since we met. I had just graduated from college with a major in religious studies. We started talking immediately — about science and religion and writing and pretty much everything else — and we haven’t stopped since.

“One day, about seven years ago, Jon said to me, ‘You know, Charles Darwin’s wife was religious.’ I looked at him. He continued, ‘And they loved each other very much. She was afraid he would go to hell and they wouldn’t be together for eternity.'”

Evolution is supposed to be opposed to Christianity, right? So how is it possible that Charles Darwin’s wife was deeply religious — and yet the two were very much in love.

Deborah Heiligman tells the love story of Charles and Emma Darwin beautifully. It’s clearly a work of nonfiction — she relies heavily on letters and journals and notebooks written by the two of them — but it reads like a novel. Of course, in a story book, the marriage probably wouldn’t have worked. I found it especially interesting that Charles’ father advised him not to tell his new wife about his doubts about religion. But Charles couldn’t hide them from her. And she loved him anyway and even edited his books, including The Origin of Species.

This book tells the story of how Charles Darwin’s scientific theories developed, but it especially shows us the man who loved his wife and children very much. And whatever your views, you can’t help but fall for the man presented here, and the wife who provided exactly what he needed to be such a distinguished scientist.

This book is wonderfully presented. I like the quotations at the head of each chapter and the way Deborah Heiligman has arranged the facts in such an interesting manner. This book presents a compelling story that is all the more amazing because it’s true.

“You will be forming theories about me & if I am cross or out of temper you will only consider ‘What does that prove.’ Which will be a very grand & philosophical way of considering it. — Emma to Charles, January 23, 1839”

DeborahHeiligman.com
HenryHoltKids.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own book, purchased at ALA Annual Conference and signed by the author.

Review of One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp

Christian, Musings, Nonfiction Review 0

One Thousand Gifts

Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

by Ann Voskamp

Zondervan, 2010. 237 pages.

This is a book about gratitude, a book about counting your blessings. A lot of it I felt was affirmation of what I already knew. I read it slowly, pausing when others had it on hold, so I had to turn it back in to the library for awhile, and also pausing when I’d put it in my pile to post a quotation on my Sonderquotes blog.

Basically, the author writes about how her life was transformed by looking around her and counting one thousand gifts in her life. And then she continued on.

Now, I have a blog, Sonderblessings, devoted to counting my blessings. But in some ways lately, I’d gotten a little off that. My health has been bad since my stroke last summer, and I’m feeling a little lack of focus lately. But when I read the last chapter, something resonated.

I particularly liked the poem she quoted from Teresa of Avila, and what Ann Voskamp said after quoting it:

“That’s His song! I rejoice in you. Come rejoice in Me. The song that plays the world awake, the song that fuels joy: Enjoy Me. Enjoy Me!

“Is there a greater way to love the Giver than to delight wildly in His gifts?”

This last chapter also references some themes that God had been speaking into my life lately. God loves us enough to sing over us. God talks of Himself as our Husband. (When I don’t have a husband any more, all the more reason to turn to God.)

You need to read the book for the full context, but I was delighted to find this section here:

“We fly into the light splitting back the dark. I press my cheek into the cold of the windowpane, wanting the whole of the erupting horizon. Happiness burns like a longing, and over the wing and the whir of the propellers, forty thousand feet over earth, I can hear Him, singing, waking the world. He’s singing that song! The one I really didn’t believe He sang! ‘He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs’ (Zephaniah 3:17).

“He sings love! In the air, over the world, I can see the song, the ardency of the notes pulsing in colors. The curve of the world burns ruby, a jewel prying open the day. And I can see in: Love is the face at the center of our universe. A sacred Smile; Holiness ready to die for intimacy. . . .

“I was afraid? I would have let fears that He wasn’t close, wasn’t passionately caring, wasn’t tenderly tending, keep me from seeing this sunrise bleeding love up over all the world? Now that would have been crazy! Look at that love that orchestrates red over water, that arranges light to play ocean in shimmering lines, that composes sky to gradate, scale of luminosity. And all for us — in this moment! He chose me — us! To be his bride! True, that’s the intellectual premise of the Christian life, but only as the gifts are attended, not as ends but as means to gaze into the heart of God, does the premise become personal, God’s choosing so utterly passionate. So utterly fulfilling.”

And the key to all of this? Counting the gifts God was giving to her. Noticing them. Listening, looking, and seeing God’s love and God’s generosity pouring down.

So Ann Voskamp has given me a focus for the year. Enjoy God. She’s shown that a simple idea like that can transform your life.

onethousandgifts.com
aholyexperience.com
zondervan.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of To Timbuktu, by Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg

Graphic Memoir, Nonfiction Review, Travel, True Stories 0

To Timbuktu

Nine Countries
Two People
One True Story

by Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg

Roaring Brook Press, New York, 2011. 492 pages.

This book reminds me of Mo Willems’ You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons. Both are about overseas adventures taken by people fresh out of college, complete with plenty of illustrations. To Timbuktu, however, has more text, since the cartoonist, Steven Weinberg, teamed up with a writer, Casey Scieszka. It’s less light-hearted because of having more text, but it also gives a lot more information about their cross-cultural experiences.

Casey and Steven met as students abroad in Morocco. They decided, after graduation, that they would go overseas together. This is the story of their adventures.

I think they had the most fun in China, where they spent the first six months and both taught English. That section is especially fun, with the descriptions of the kids and their antics trying to teach. After that, their time was a little less structured. Casey had a grant to study Islam in the schools in Mali, and Steven was working on his art.

The story is fascinating, and you’ll learn a lot about the countries they visited. Okay, I confess: I didn’t even know that Timbuktu was in Mali, let alone what living there is like. I didn’t know there’s a language spoken in Mali called Bamankan, or much about Mali at all.

I actually met Casey Scieszka at ALA Annual Conference a couple years ago when I was fangirl-ing her Dad, and I liked her very much. They said at the time that she was writing a graphic novel. This isn’t really a graphic novel; it’s an illustrated memoir. But it’s heavily illustrated, and that makes it all the more fun. After all, since they visited these cultures I know nothing about, it’s nice to have pictures to help understand.

This is an excellent book for anyone who’s ever dreamed of picking up and traveling around the world. You can enjoy their experiences without having to get hot and dirty.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/to_timbuktu.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Wilder Life, by Wendy McClure

Audiobooks, Biography, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Travel, True Stories 0

The Wilder Life

My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie

by Wendy McClure

Performed by Teri Clark Linden

Brilliance Audio, 2011. 9 discs, 10 hours, 43 minutes.

This audiobook was a fun one to listen to while driving to work and back. It felt a little on the long side, but I handled that by giving myself breaks of a few days in between discs. The narrator sounded a little too much like a teenager to me, actually sounding a whole lot like Natalie Moore, who narrated Dairy Queen. However, I got used to her voice and rationalized that the author was indeed a lot younger than me, so it was okay.

The book is about Wendy McClure’s childhood passion for the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her quest to revisit the world of the books by seeing all the Little House sites peppered over America.

Now, I’ll confess right up front that I never read the Little House books myself. I think I read the first one, Little House in the Big Woods, on the urging of Karen Iwata, my best friend in second and third grades, but I thought it was frightfully boring. Those pioneer books didn’t grab me. I remember I also gave up on Caddie Woodlawn.

However, when my sons were growing up, my husband read them all the Little House books, which he had read and loved when he was a child, and I listened in and found them not so bad at all. What’s more, we had visited the home in Missouri where Laura lived as an adult and wrote the books.

And I certainly know about loving childhood books! Some day, some day, I will visit Prince Edward Island, where Lucy Maud Montgomery set her books. Hmm. Maybe I should write a book about it when I do. Though at least Laura Ingalls Wilder had many, many home sites, so Wendy McClure did have a book-length story to tell.

I found the book all the more fascinating because right now I’m in the middle of researching my family history. I keep thinking of the old picture I saw of my grandma as a baby with her brothers in front of their sod house. I remember her telling me, “Just like Laura Ingalls Wilder!” She and my grandpa were actually born in Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma — so quite near the original Little House on the Prairie. What’s more, lots and lots of my ancestors were pioneers and farmers, moving steadily west, so the world of the Little House books is really quite close to the story of my own roots — and that made Wendy McClure’s visiting the home sites all the more interesting to me.

And I have to admit, Wendy McClure knows how to make the tale interesting. She tells about each place she visits, the people she sees, and what she felt to see them. She explores lots of her feelings about the books and about the places, many of which any book lover can easily relate to. She also throws in facts about Laura and her family, but sprinkles them nicely so we don’t get bored.

In short, I recommend this book for anyone who loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, or just anyone who loves going back to the children’s books they cherished as a child. The story doesn’t have a lot of tension or a driving plot, but that actually makes it nice listening for a commute. And, hey, anyone who gets a chance to do a Little House road trip, following the steps of Laura Ingalls Wilder (and Wendy McClure), will definitely want to have this for the ride.

www.terriclarkvoiceover.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Mathematics 1001, by Dr. Richard Elwes

Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Mathematics 1001

Absolutely Everything That Matters in Mathematics in 1001 Bite-Sized Explanations

by Dr. Richard Elwes

Firefly Books, 2010. 415 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: # 5 Other Nonfiction

Boy, I wish I’d had this book 25 years ago, before I started grad school in Mathematics! Come to think of it, I would have loved to have it as an undergrad, to get a much wider grasp of the subject. As it is, when I began reading this book, a couple pages or a section a day, I decided this was a book I had to own, and I ordered myself a copy.

Now, I grant you that I have no idea if this book will be interesting to any of my readers. I found it absolutely fascinating. In grad school, I got an inkling of the things mathematicians study, but this book presents an overview of the subject in all its splendor.

Dr. Elwes is brilliant at giving the reader the broad perspective, with enough details to fascinate, rather than confuse. Many of the topics cover the foundations of an area of mathematics, and others cover unsolved problems, and everything in between.

When I put this book on hold and my copy came to the library, I was delighted with the topic I happened to open to when I was glancing through it:

Librarian’s nightmare theorem

“If customers borrow books one at a time, and return them one place to the left or right of the original place, what arrangements of books may emerge? The answer is that, after some time, every conceivable ordering is possible. The simplest permutations are the transpositions, which leave everything alone except for swapping two neighbouring points. The question is; which more complex permutations can be built from successive transpositions? The answer is that every permutation can be so constructed.

“In cycle notation, (1 3 2) is not a transposition, as it moves three items around: 1 to 3, 3 to 2, and 2 to 1. But this has the same effect as swapping 1 and 2, and then swapping 2 and 3. That is to say, (1 3 2) = (1 2)(2 3). The librarian’s nightmare theorem guarantees that every permutation can similarly be expressed as a product of transpositions.”

Is that not a delightful merging of my two fields of study? (Don’t answer that!)

I highly recommend this book for any student considering math as their future field of study, as well as anyone who ever enjoyed studying math. For that matter, this book would also be good for anyone who finds math at all intriguing. If you can resist it, go ahead. But if reading the paragraphs above makes you happy, you’ll find a thousand more where that came from.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/mathematics_1001.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com.

Review of Sex, Mom, & God, by Frank Schaeffer

Biography, Christian, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Sex, Mom, & God

How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics — and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway

by Frank Schaeffer

Da Capo Press, 2011. 298 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 Biography

Sex, Mom & God continues along the lines of Frank Schaeffer’s earlier book, Crazy for God. Frank’s parents, Edith and Francis Schaeffer, were my own parents’ heroes, and in these books, Frank Schaeffer reveals that his upbringing was even more extreme than my own. Much more, in fact.

Frank Schaeffer has ended up with a theology much more liberal than my own, but I still appreciate his words in this book. Be careful when you revere Scripture so much, you don’t stop to think if the God you worship would really be behind what you think Scripture is saying.

I do have a very high respect for the Bible. But I still think we would all do well to listen to Frank Schaeffer’s words about any holy Scripture:

‘There is another choice: To admit that the best of any religious tradition depends on the choices its adherents make on how to live despite what their holy books “say,” not because of them. “But where would that leave me?” my former self would have asked. “I’d be adrift in an ocean of uncertainty.” Yes, and perhaps that’s the only honest place to be. Another name for uncertainty is humility. No one ever blew up a mosque, church, or abortion clinic after yelling, “I could be wrong.”’

The book is also entertaining, though I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it. He tells what his mother told him about sex, her take on what the Bible says about sex, and what he learned for himself. The stories about what his Evangelical culture said about sex still give me a fascinated horror. But what can I say? I really like the perspective he has ended up with in writing this book, somehow laughing at the crazy ideas we humans come up with, yet as his subtitle says, managing to love women and Jesus anyway.

I also love it that he shows so much love and respect toward his Mom, who now has Alzheimer’s. He makes it clear that, no matter what her theology, her heart was kind and loving.

A very interesting book, especially for those who grew up Evangelical. I suspect it would also be interesting for those who think that Christians are narrow-minded. Frank Schaeffer definitely does not take a narrow-minded approach himself.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/sex_mom_and_god.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Naked Spirituality, by Brian D. McLaren

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Naked Spirituality

A Life with God in 12 Simple Words

by Brian D. McLaren

HarperOne, 2011. 280 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Other Nonfiction

I would love to go through this book with a small group Bible study. The subtitle tells us what the book is about. Brian McLaren uses 12 simple words to focus on what’s most important in our life with God. Though coming from a Christian perspective, he tries to transcend religion and talk about what is important in a relationship with God.

He talks about four seasons in our spiritual lives, seasons that we cycle through more than once. For each season, he chooses three words that represent our relationship with God. I think you’ll get an idea of the content of his message if I present the four seasons and the words he looks at for each season, with the practices they represent:

Simplicity: The Springlike Season of Spiritual Awakening

Here: The practice of invocation and presentation, awakening to the presence of God
Thanks: The practice of gratitude and appreciation, awakening to the goodness of God
O: The practice of worship and awe, awakening to the beauty and joy of God

Complexity: The Summerlike Season of Spiritual Strengthening

Sorry: The practice of self-examination and confession, strengthening through failure
Help: The practice of expansion and petition, strengthening through weakness
Please: The practice of compassion and intercession, strengthening through empathy

Perplexity: The Autumnlike Season of Spiritual Surviving

When: The practice of aspiration, exasperation, and desperation, surviving through delay
No: The practice of rage and refusal, surviving through disillusionment
Why: The practice of lament and agony, surviving through abandonment

Harmony: The Winterlike Season of Spiritual Deepening

Behold: The practice of meditation and wonder, deepening by seeing
Yes: The practice of consecration and surrender, deepening by joining
[. . . ]: The practice of contemplation and rest, deepening by being with

Here are some words from the Preface:

“This is a book about getting naked — not physically, but spiritually. It’s about stripping away the symbols and status of public religion — the Sunday-dress version people often call ‘organized religion.’ And it’s about attending to the well-being of the soul clothed only in naked human skin. As a result, it must be a vulnerable book, tender in tone, gentle in touch. You won’t find much in the way of aggressive arguments here, but rather shy experience daring to step into the light. It’s an honest book, and I hope a practical one too, perhaps with some awkward spiritual parallels to what they used to call a ‘marital manual.’

“You won’t need to agree with all the planks of my theological platform. I am a Christian, and all I write flows from my experience in that rich tradition, but you may be of another tradition entirely or of no known tradition at all. Instead of seeking theological agreement, this book invites you to experiment with the naked experience of God that provides the raw material from which all worthwhile theology derives.”

Here’s what he says about developing the spiritual practices:

“In the coming chapters, I would like to introduce you to twelve spiritual practices that have passed the simple, doable, and durable test for me. They are part of our ancient traditions, and they can provide twenty-first people like you and me with a basic curriculum for our spiritual novitiate. You can think of them as twelve stretches for runners, twelve moves in martial arts, twelve basic positions in yoga, or twelve warm-up exercises a musician might employ. You can do them in groups, and I hope you will, but you can begin on your own, in private, today. Like learning your first few chords on a guitar, you’ll find it amazingly easy to begin to play with these practices. But like expanding on those basic chords in order to become a guitar virtuoso, you’ll also find these twelve practices endlessly engaging and challenging.”

This is a book I’m going to want to read again, and I’d love to go through with a small group. Because it’s about practices — about living out your life with God.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/naked_spirituality.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brene Brown

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Gifts of Imperfection

Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life

by Brene Brown, PhD, LMSW

Hazelden, 2010. 135 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Other Nonfiction

This is a lovely inspirational book, especially for people like me who are learning to outgrow perfectionism. It’s a book about owning our own stories and loving ourselves, even though we are imperfect. I savored it slowly, and lots of quotes from the book ended up on Sonderquotes, because they really spoke to me and the life I want to live.

The author was doing studies on negative emotions like shame, fear and vulnerability. As she was studying shame resilience, she noticed patterns in people who live wholehearted lives.

“I heard stories about the power of embracing imperfection and vulnerability. I learned about the inextricable connection between joy and gratitude, and how things that I take for granted, like rest and play, are as vital to our health as nutrition and exercise. These research participants trusted themselves, and they talked about authenticity and love and belonging in a way that was completely new to me.”

This book covers what she found, in nice, practical tips. It’s a personal book, because she tried to put the principles she learned into her own life and family. After she did, she says:

“I was healthier, more joyful, and more grateful than I had ever felt. I felt calmer and grounded, and significantly less anxious. I had rekindled my creative life, reconnected with my family and friends in a new way, and most important, felt truly comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life.”

She explains Wholehearted living in the first paragraph of the main text:

“Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”

There is lots and lots of good stuff in this book. Here’s a section I particularly liked:

“Love and belonging are essential to the human experience. As I conducted my interviews, I realized that only one thing separated the men and women who felt a deep sense of love and belonging from the people who seem to be struggling for it. That one thing is the belief in their worthiness. It’s as simple and complicated as this: If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.

“When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness — the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging. When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving. Our sense of worthiness — that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging — lives inside of our story.”

At the start of the book, the author talks about the concepts of love and belonging, and what she learned when she researched shame, which we all have. Then she goes on to chapters that cover Guideposts of Wholehearted Living, complete with ideas for cultivating them and building them into our lives. These Guideposts are:

1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
2. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism
3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth
8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”
10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control”

If this sounds as lovely to you as it did to me, I promise that you will find inspiring and helpful words in this book.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Other Books from 2011

Animal Characters, Biography, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Nonfiction Review 0

I currently have 43 reviews I’ve written that are waiting to be posted, a stack of books waiting for me to review them, and more books I’ve read in 2012 now piling up. I began Sonderbooks when I was working half-time, and I reviewed everything I read (at least everything I enjoyed). I hate it when I can’t keep that up! However, now I’m working full-time, and last July, I had a stroke. Since then, I need more sleep than I did before. I also had more reading time, so I simply got farther behind. Worse, I still have not recovered. Last Thursday, I had a Transient Ischemic Attack (a mini-stroke) lasting only three seconds. But it means the Coumadin I’m taking is not effectively keeping me from strokes, and what’s more, now I feel awful and only lasted a half-day at work today. I’m up writing this in hopes it will make me tired enough to get some sleep when I go to bed.

Anyway, enough complaining! All that is to say that I read some great books that are sitting here waiting and waiting to be reviewed. I’m going to list them now with brief reviews, because they deserve attention and readers. But in the interests of catching up, I’m not going to give them their own pages on Sonderbooks. (Sigh.) I’ll go until my laundry’s done and see how far that takes me.

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, by Jeanne Birdsall

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2011. 295 pages.

These first two books, I grant you, I read without having read the books that came before them. I read them anyway, because they were on the Heavy Medal blog’s Mock Newbery Shortlist. This book comes after The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks on Gardam Street.

Quite some time ago, I tried to listen to Penderwicks on audio and got several chapters in, but finally decided I simply couldn’t stand listening to the grandmotherly voice of the reader. Reading The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, at first I heard that same voice in my head and was very put off, but as I persevered, I got more into the story.

The basic story is the classic one of four sisters having fun together. In this book, the oldest sister, Rosalind, is having vacation separate from the younger three. So Skye is concerned about being the OAP (oldest available Penderwick). As someone from a big family, that bothered me a bit that one of the children should feel so responsible for her younger siblings. Parents, that is your job! Though their Dad is going on his honeymoon, so he’s not there, but they are staying with an aunt, for goodness’ sake!

However, that, too, I was able to get past. Once I settled in and enjoyed it, it was a lovely vacation story about three sisters having vacation adventures with their friend, a boy, and new friends they met in Maine. I have to admit I would have loved to read these books with my kids — if I had had daughters instead of sons. This is a nice solid middle grade story, but I do think better for girls than boys.

The Trouble with May Amelia, by Jennifer L. Holm

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2011. 204 pages.

The Trouble with May Amelia is a sequel to Newbery-Honor-winning Our Only May Amelia. This is another solid choice for middle-grade girls, this time historical fiction set in Washington State in 1900. With this one, I was put off by the present tense voice, which I’m prejudiced against, and I didn’t already know the characters like most readers would have. However, I was still quickly pulled into the story.

May Amelia’s the seventh child and the only girl in a Finnish family whose father believes that Girls Are Useless. May Amelia wants desperately to believe that she’s not, but there are some things she’s not good at — like cooking and mending. The book covers plenty of entertaining adventures of pioneer life on the Nasel River.

Then a man comes around who’s got an investment that’s sure to make the family millions. May Amelia’s father has her translate. She does her best, and the reader can see that she does yet be fully aware of impending doom. In fact, lots of troubles befall the family, but through it all we’ve got an upbeat, very fun book to read. I am looking forward to reading Our Only May Amelia when I get there on my quest to read all the Newbery winners and Honor books.

The Story of Charlotte’s Web: E. B. White’s Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic, by Michael Sims

Walker & Company, New York, 2011. 307 pages.

This one’s for adults. It’s a biography of E. B. White, and especially focuses on the parts of his life that contributed to the creation of his masterpiece, Charlotte’s Web. I wasn’t surprised to learn of the in-depth research he did on spiders while writing the book, and am all the more impressed by how well he wove those things into the story. I also was not surprised to learn that he had always loved farms and farm animals. That certainly is also obvious in his book.

Those who love children’s literature in general and Charlotte’s Web in particular will enjoy this book.

The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale, by Carmen Agra Deedy & Randall Wright, Drawings by Barry Moser

Peachtree, Atlanta, 2011. 228 pages.

Here’s another solid middle-grade choice, this time for boys or girls. This one’s definitely for people who like animal stories. It has a similar flavor to The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo.

The book is set at an inn which still exists today, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, at the time when Charles Dickens was a frequent guest. The main character is a street cat, Skilley, who loves cheese — and The Cheshire Cheese has the best cheese in England.

A resident mouse, Pip, and Skilley come up with a plan. Skilley will catch mice at the inn, but then he will let them go. In return, they will bring him cheese, and they will be allowed to stay at the inn. But this cozy plan has trouble when another street cat is brought into the inn. On top of that, there’s someone in the attic who claims the fate of the entire country rests upon his own fate. Meanwhile, Charles Dickens is looking for an opening for his novel about the French Revolution….

That’s all I have time for tonight, but I hope maybe I’ll have won these books some readers. Happy Reading!

Review of Traveling With Pomegranates, by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Traveling With Pomegranates

A Mother-Daughter Story

by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Viking, 2009. 282 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Biography

Sue Monk Kidd does meditative books very well. She catches you up in her musings and helps you reach life-changing insights along with her.

In this book, she pairs up with her daughter and both of them will speak to your soul.

This book covers some journeys the two took together, to Greece and France and home to South Carolina. The travels were momentous for both women. The first journey happened when Sue was turning fifty and Ann was graduating from college and growing up. So Sue was dealing with aging and maturing as a mother. And Ann was dealing with her life direction.

They both write in such a way that I felt I shared in both journeys. And both are dealing with a calling to write. Here’s a passage that Sue wrote:

“Perhaps she fought any urge to be a writer out of a need to separate herself from me and my path, the same way I separated myself from my mother and her path. When Ann went to college, I felt the invisible way she broke from me, in that way mothers feel barely discernible things. Even now, as we weave this new closeness, I do not mistake the separate core in her, her own nascent true self, and I watch how she protects it, even as she struggles to unfold it. Do her intuitions about writing come now because she has finally found enough of her separate self to entertain them?

“In my case, losing the small, true light was more like turning my back on it and finding something manageable. Becoming a nurse seemed more doable and sensible. You graduated and took a board exam. When you said, ‘I’m a nurse,’ you knew what you were talking about. You had proof. Nobody would register me as a writer. Would I be a writer if I never published anything? Would I be one even if I did? And the real question: how likely was it to happen? At eighteen, I couldn’t find the courage. I took all that passion and sublimated it into nursing. Until, at twenty-nine, it simply refused to go there anymore.

“I wonder if that’s the perennial story of writers: you find the true light, you lose the true light, you find it again. And maybe again.”

Later, back home in South Carolina, Ann writes:

“One day I thought: what if I approached learning the craft of writing as if it were an apprenticeship? Just do myself a favor and accept that it’s going to be a process, a slow, laborious process. In the Middle Ages, an apprenticeship lasted seven years. That was believed to be the minimum amount of time it took to learn a craft. I started to think of myself as an apprentice. I would tell myself, Relax, you’ve got seven years.”

That’s just a little taste of the luxurious explorations these women do, bringing the reader along into symbolism, and archetypes, and mother-daughter bonding. I read this book slowly and meditatively, a little at a time, and stretched out the enjoyment all the longer that way. A lovely book. You’ll feel you have two new friends when you finish.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/traveling_with_pomegranates.html

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Source: This review is based on a book given to me by the publisher at 2010 ALA Annual Conference and signed by both authors.