A family decides to leave the big city for life in rural Maine. Reena and Luke are quickly indoctrinated on the ways of country life when their parents volunteer them to assist an elderly resident, Mrs. Falala. She promptly assigns them to take care of her cow, Zora, and charges them to prepare to show Zora at the fair. With reluctance, Reena assumes cow duty and with the help of locals learns the language of cows. This short novel is written in prose with a smattering of concrete poetry that makes the reading effortless. Sharp tongued, Mrs. Falala, is a character rich in depth despite only hints to her past. Reena and Luke are well-written, initially reluctant but rise to the occasion. A heartwarming story for all that just might make the reader want to spend time with cows. Another winning book from Sharon Creech.
eGalley review Publication date 8.30.16
Princess Margaret is so full of her importance. She is so much more grown up than her 5-year-old sister, Mary. She is so unwilling to befriend the bride of her beloved brother, Arthur, as only a girl can be who is “all but twelve.” She refers to her sister-in-law as “Katherine of Arrogant” and tries to ignore Katherine’s gentle kindness. Anyway, she knows that she will soon be married to James IV of Scotland and will be a queen while Katherine is still only a princess and will have to walk behind her. Two sisters and a sister-in-law. The three are destined to be queens, Mary of France, Margaret of Scotland and Katherine of England, and the three remain friends and rivals throughout their lives. The story is told through the voice of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, and as she matures and endures countless trials, and makes bad decisions, the voice changes. Slowly, gradually, she matures, comes to be a bit less self-absorbed, comes to understand the sorrows of others. Philippa Gregory does a masterful job. I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book and highly recommend it.
One year in the life of a small farming family in the Oklahoma Panhandle during the beginning of the Dust Bowl is the focus of this short novel. Amidst the descriptions of dust storms, grit and desolation, the reader is teased with visions of the rich farming community before the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Annie Bell is in her 30s and has experienced both joy and sorrow. She does not complain about her life. She chose this life and she loves her husband, but it is not enough. Annie has an affair with the mayor. Birdie is her oldest daughter who has her sights set on Cy, a boy from a neighboring farm. Sure enough, Birdie gets pregnant and Cy’s family moves away before she can tell him. Annie’s son, Frank, is mute (and we have no glimpse as to why) and he is also asthmatic. The frequent dust storms are doom to an asthmatic child so the reader can see how this will end.
This is a long book, it has to be. It spans 4,000 years. It’s not just names and dates, but filled with real people, like the royal manicurists Niankhnum and Khnumhotep, whose house was decorated with vignettes of their lives, scenes of stick-fighting, and of women baking bread and tending children. Descriptions of scenes that decorated royal and non-royal tombs provide an interesting insight to everyday life.
Fizzy is a young girl going through a lot of changes in her life. Her parents have divorced, her father remarried, and now her mother has a new beau in her life. Fizzy isn’t particularly enamored with either of these step-parents, and they aren’t necessarily supportive of her being around either. Throughout the changes and chaos in her life, Fizzy has one passion to default to for relief and creativity: cooking. She and her aunt cook constantly in preparation for a cooking competition that Fizzy desperately wants to win. School also becomes a relief for Fizzy. Through some chance encounters, she makes a quirky and supportive new best friend, and a dashing yet complicated fellow starts tagging as long as well. Over the course of a year, Fizzy realizes that life isn’t necessarily as horrible as it might seem, and that friends and family will always be there to love and support you.
Russian boy genius Yuri Strelnikov is a 17-year-old with a PhD in Physics. The Americans recruit him when it is discovered that an asteroid is blazing toward Earth on a collision course with California, exactly where NASA has assembled the best and brightest to figure a way out of this deadly impact. Yuri has only a few days to work the math, find a solution, and then convince those much older to accept his anti-matter plan. Oh, he meets a quirky girl along the way. Yuri struggles with culture shock and delights over his first girlfriend all while saving mankind.
This is the story of the end of an era. The last year before America lost its innocence, the year before everything changed. It is told, month by month, with an event that occurred in that month as the theme. And so the year begins with a discussion of politics in January, reflecting Roosevelt’s third inauguration. February it’s the Oscars and popular entertainment. March begins with the opening of the National Gallery of Art, and we learn about art, education and literature. Jump to July and it is sports. August is leisure time and travel. You get the idea. This is a great way to get a feel for what the country was like, what the people were talking about, what their interests were. I enjoyed the book and recommend it for anyone who loves history.
In the 1970s the Strugatsky brothers’ science-fiction novels were wildly popular in the USSR. This novel was their favorite, but was so politically risky that it was kept secret and only published in the late 1980s, sixteen years after it was completed. It is a dark novel about an experimental city, inhabited by people transported from many places and many times, all struggling to make sense of senseless rules. It is a nightmarish, unpleasant, gritty book. I have enjoyed other Strugatsky books, but this one was too much for me. Its satire was far too depressing, and left me feeling far too uncomfortable. Of course that was their purpose, but I just couldn’t handle it.
Six kindergarteners don’t return home from school. They are missing for eleven years. Then one night, five are returned. Blindfolded, they are dropped off in a playground in town with a map to their home in their pocket with no memories of where they have been. Now sixteen, they try to blend into families who are strangers. As memories slowly return, the police assist in determining what happened and why one of the missing, Max, did not return.
Ben was in the foster care system since he was an infant. When he was around 10, he was adopted by his speech therapist. It was a wonderful fit for both of them. However, she was elderly and had health issues. A few years after being adopted, his mother dies quite unexpectedly and once again, Ben’s future is uncertain. Before his mother dies, a cute stray dog follows Ben home from his second home, the public library. The librarian takes a caring interest in Ben where he meets the librarian’s vibrant daughter, Halley. Halley names the dog Flip and suggests Ben trains him to be a reading therapy dog. Halley, Ben, and Flip are inseparable. Halley’s family becomes Ben’s. They need Ben as much as he needs them. Halley has cancer. It is a daunting battle but Halley is very brave and positive, just as positive as Ben is in dealing with all that life throws at him.
“History is just one damned thing after another” Arnold Toynbee
These fairy tales are definitely not for children. They would be shocked to learn the real story of Cinderella, and The Three Bears, and yes, Goldilocks was a little snit. And don’t get me started on the rewrite of “The Tinderbox”. You need a strong stomach for that one. Long ago and far away, fairy tales were told to entertain adults. Let’s face it, children were not important enough to be entertained. But as the value of the child rose, the tales were tamed and manicured into the ones we find familiar. This retelling has come full circle and once again provides entertaining fairy tales for adults. Neil Gaiman, Jane Yolen, Ken Liu, Gardner Dozois, Tanith Lee, and Gene Wolfe are just a few of the authors in this anthology. I liked it very, very much.
I hate to use clichés, but there is no other way to put it. This is a sweeping novel, an epic covering two families and three hundred years. It all begins in the 17th century, with Rene Sel and Charles Duquet, two indentured Frenchmen, arriving in New France hoping to escape the poverty at home and find a better life. Their paths divide quickly, with Sel clearing his forest land, marrying a Mi’kmaq woman, and Duquet acquiring tracts of woodlands in the hope of making a fortune selling timber. On the surface, the novel is about the lives of these men and their many descendants, but the undercurrent shows the gradual and terrible destruction of the forests along with the gradual, and terrible destruction of the indigenous people.
762 wins, 88 losses, 162 no hitters, 45 perfect games, and 7,000 strikeouts – Bertha Tickey was a very special softball player. Most of her records still stand. And she taught Lana Turner to swing a bat for a movie role, and struck out Ted Williams.
Amy’s life began on a cold day in January, 1831. If eight-year-old Aurelia had not slipped out when no one was watching it might have ended that day. The sky was a bright blue, the snow deep and white, and Aurelia made her way into the woods behind the house, swung herself into a tree and dreamed of a time when she could leave Hatville Court and never come back. Then she heard the cry and had to follow it. She had to know what it was. To her amazement, there was a tiny baby, cold, naked, alone. When Aurelia ran into the house and put the baby before the fire, she could not understand why she was in disgrace, for she had helped a living soul. The family explained that all living souls were not equal, and that this baby was particularly worthless. But Aurelia insisted that they keep the baby. And Aurelia always got what she wanted. Thus, Amy grew up in a house full of enemies, loved and cherished only by Aurelia. Tragically, Aurelia dies when she is only 23 and Amy is cast out into the world alone. Aurelia left a bundle of letters with a coded key that gave Amy a bit of a treasure hunt.
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