Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

When I was a kid, I loved the soundtrack to “Fiddler on the Roof.” I sang along with it all, loving the humor of ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’ and ‘Tevye’s Dream,’ and while I only really liked the first half of the movie (the second half was “too sad”), I managed to enjoy the music without thinking about the context/deeper meaning of the song lyrics. When I got older and took more history classes, of course, that shifted; I still sang along with and loved the songs, and they still brought me some of the uncomplicated joy they had when I was a child, but the uncomplicated joy came from the nostalgia of childhood. By the time I was married and saw my sister-in-law’s high school production of it–she played French horn in the pit–I answered her complaint about why the ending had to be so sad with the observation that for Eastern European Jews of the time period, the ending is actually about as happy as it got. I thought I was appreciating the musical as an adult.

And then I had children.

The thing is, unless you’re a parent–or truly responsible for raising children–you can’t fully appreciate “Fiddler on the Roof.” Suddenly, ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ becomes the lynchpin of the story, you’re understanding Tevye and Golde in entirely new ways, and both ‘Matchmaker’ and ‘The Home I Love’ break your heart. Ultimately, ‘Fiddler’ is a parents’ musical in a way few other shows are, and experiencing the music as the mother of teenage daughters is a whole new experience.

Enter Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Family. Because as Ivan and Kinyani prepare for and experience parenthood, I think young readers will enjoy their story. I think older readers will get a kick out of it as well. But until you have actively parented–for an extended period of time–you’ll never fully appreciate the whole of it. (My hubby was in the room for much of the audiobook, and he and I were reacting in similar ways–very parental ways.) It’s a lovely story and a meaningful one, with some poignant musings about freedom and circumstance, and it’s hard for me to imagine anyone not liking it, although I’m quite sure a few someones won’t. (I’m especially looking at YOU, ridiculous people who give verse novels bad reviews on Goodreads because–essentially–you don’t like verse novels.) Those readers who encounter it as children, however, should be prepared for a whole new appreciation of it when they have children of their own reading it.

As for President Nelson? One of his most famous quotes is that “the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” “Fiddler on the Roof” quite deliberately (I imagine) retains its focus on history and anti-Semitism as a cultural and historical statement, and it’s a powerful musical because of that. Those experiencing it feel the pain and grief of Tevye’s family–indeed, of Anatevka as a whole–and such experiences are both memorable and valuable. The One and Only Family focuses, ultimately, on hope and possibility–Applegate’s reasons for doing so are beautifully laid out in her author’s note–and because of that, its power brings far more joy.

My in-laws are in China and my parents live out of state, which means that we made our own Easter dinner yesterday. It was a joint effort, and we also spent a lovely hour before church watching Easter messages and reading scriptures together. I wanted to do more this past week, honestly, but it was a crazy week, and I struggled. Friday was my two younger girls’ dance recital, and one or both of them had dance the three nights leading up to it; my son had football practice on Tuesday and Friday and games on Thursday and Saturday. My oldest worked on Saturday as well as yesterday, although my hubby and our youngest did bring her a plate of dinner at work and met a bunch of her residents during her lunch break.

Also, some significant cleaning and organizing happened, which is another reason I failed to post on Friday.

Anyway. I hope you all had good experiences celebrating the holiday. We are so grateful for our resurrected Savior!

That’s one of the things that my current Easter study guide talked about recording, and as I’ve been listening to Coyote Lost and Found–because the audio narrator is good enough to be experienced in her own right–it brought up Covid. It’s uncomfortable to be grateful for something that was so hard for so many, but Covid brought a very specific blessing to my life, and that blessing has remained.

And I am grateful.

How has the Lord blessed you?

To be fair, I’ve never loved plots that involve a character who has something she needs to say and yet can’t manage to just spit it out already; that said, both the mother AND the daughter drove me crazy for the middle of McCall Hoyle’s The Thing with Feathers. (Maybe it’s divided into sixths, and parts 3/6-5/6 made me nuts?) The beginning is poignant but promising, involving homeschooled, epileptic Emilie facing public school under orders from her therapist. (I know it’s better to say “person with epilepsy,” and I do actually understand why, but I couldn’t resist the siren song of parallelism.) She’d much rather not, but her epilepsy and her dad’s death have made her more of a hermit than her mother can allow, and so into the breach she goes.

Luckily for Emilie (not my favorite spelling of that name, btw), she’s drawn in despite her resistance, and is paired for an English project with the unrealistically incredible Chatham, who also (of course) needs tutoring to keep his place on the basketball team. (He’s gorgeous, kind, athletic, a continual volunteer–sure, he’s got some life reasons to be that kind, but still…) She develops friendships with some of the ‘lit-mag’ people as well, and things seem to be looking up–or WOULD be, except that of course she doesn’t want anyone to know about her epilepsy. Add Emilie’s unwillingness to communicate to her mother’s spectacular failures in that department, and you’ve got a parent failing to tell her child a few (mostly one) exceptionally important things while that child avoids being her real self to everyone she’s meeting. (I also want to complain about her self-absorbed wallowing and ludicrous assumptions about everyone around her in comparison to herself, except that I have some unpleasant memories of being like that once upon a time. And I didn’t have epilepsy or a dead dad to serve as an extenuating circumstance.) I was gearing up for a fairly negative review when Emilie finally had her epiphany. Thankfully, the ending fixed (exceedingly quickly, I might add) most of what was annoying me, and while the best parts happen awfully fast, it’s a positive read in the end.

Especially for teenagers, who just happen to be its intended audience.

Anyway. Today’s a ‘catch up at home’ sort of day, and so I’d better get back to it. If you need a clean read for your teen with a significant romantic element and some deeper things. give The Thing with Feathers* a try!

*Point to ponder–there are a surprising number of contemporary novels that feature Emily Dickinson’s poetry as part of the plot, and I’m torn between acknowledging the incredibleness of some of her lines and hating on her dashes…which may be ironic, as I’m no stranger to the double dash, but Dickinson’s dashes make me shudder.

First of all, there’s never enough time to try and do all the things, especially when you’re also trying to play catchup on laundry. We did spend Wednesday down in Provo, though, where we took my nephew for an early lunch and my niece (his sister) for a late lunch, as their schedules did not intersect. Other than a bathroom stop and a carsick incident on the way down, it was a nice day (if exhausting). Yesterday I spent doing laundry and tidying and such, and today is the last official day of spring break (and I’ve already taken my middles to the temple). My least favorite part about having all my kids home? Lunch. Hands down. Otherwise, I tend to enjoy it rather than not.

In the meantime, my hubby’s feeling better (he had a rough few days early in the week), but my 15-year-old is scared half out of her mind about speaking in stake conference this Sunday. Send her prayers and good vibes!

For Christmas, I promised my 15-year-old one more book when I found the right one; I also promised my (now) 10-year-old one more graphic novel when I found the right one. I’m still working on the one for the 15-year-old, but I finished Jing Jing Tsong’s Fake Chinese Sounds on Thursday and decided it would be the perfect graphic novel to join our household collection. (I’d consider it for my 15-year-old’s birthday, only she’s getting increasingly picky about the art in such cases, and I don’t think this would so much appeal to her.)

Fake Chinese Sounds is two things, really; it’s a novel about generational female relationships, despite language barriers, and it’s a novel about speaking up and dealing with racism. Mei Ying’s relationship with her Nai Nai is fantastic, and the way their relationship influences their interactions with Mei Ying’s mother is also a positive thing. The kind of racism Mei Ying deals with in school, on the other hand, is made even more frustrating by Mei Ying’s teacher’s reaction, and when you add the innocently-meant-but-still-racist comments she deals with in life’s everyday passing encounters, you have a 5th grader with a serious weight on her shoulders. How she finds her voice–and how it plays out with the kids who are bothering her–makes for great reading.

I will say that the color scheme and artistic style Tsong uses is less friendly to 45-year-old eyes; the font is sometimes awfully small, and the pages with less defined panels are sometimes slightly confusing. The art works with the story, however, and you can’t have everything, right? If you’re looking for a good graphic novel for upper elementary school through high school, you should definitely check this one out.

Yesterday morning I announced at our PTA meeting that I was willing to be president next year, which is a little terrifying (a lot terrifying?); I went straight from the PTA relo to my Red Cross appointment at the library, and when I was done there, I ate and exercised and went to pick up my youngest. The rest of the day was full as well, it being my hubby’s 50th birthday, and today was all about watching General Conference and doing chores in between times. In case you didn’t watch it today, here’s the link:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/broadcasts/watch-sunday-live-sessions-including-music-amp-the-spoken-word?lang=eng

Here’s looking forward to tomorrow!

I mean that about Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ruby in two ways, actually. First of all, the plot was not quite what I expected; whereas The One and Only Ivan and The One and Only Bob take place in the US, more in the animals’ nows, so to speak, The One and Only Ruby has much more of Ruby’s life in Africa, before she met the other animals that we’ve come to know and love. This wasn’t a bad surprise at all, and the book was every bit as moving as I anticipated it being; I just wasn’t quite expecting that direction. (It isn’t all about Africa, by the way. Ruby’s reminiscences directly relate to the part of the plot that’s happening in the present day.)

The second thing that surprised me about the book, on the other hand, is also my only real criticism of it. Ruby’s story is told gently, but it still tugs at your heartstrings. The art, however, is a little bit too–sweet. Sure, some of it should be, but I remember looking at an illustration of Ruby on a page that specifically talks about Ruby being sad and wondering why she didn’t look sad in the picture. To be honest, the illustrations just seemed like a series of cute pictures of Ruby looking, well, cute, and not the story-enhancing images I was expecting. The text, however, is certainly more than good enough to compensate for what I found lacking in the art.

In short, don’t miss this one either.

In other news, I took my youngest to the debate tournament at Cyprus High yesterday, and she and her partner did very nicely. It was a long afternoon, but hey, we survived! There’s no dance or piano this week, since it’s Jordan School District’s spring break, and I’m appreciating that. I wish I were getting more done today, since I was gone so much of yesterday–I ran errands in the morning before the tournament–but I had one child not feeling well at 4-something and another child with an eye appointment at 8, and the combination of the two left me more tired than I was expecting. Maybe tomorrow…

I finished reading Cary Fagan’s Hans Christian Andersen Lives Next Door aloud to my 10-year-old on Saturday (I started reading it to her while she was doing her sock chore, and she didn’t want to stop), and I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it. If I thought Fagan was going for realistic fiction, I’d be irritated, but I can’t quite believe he is; the idea of real people and fairy tales and how they might come together feels a little meta. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that?) Still, Andie’s fantasy feels a little off for the 21st century. (On the other hand, her poems are a hoot, so there’s that.) This story of a girl who feels her new neighbor might be the famous Hans Christian Andersen has a splash of Roald Dahl, a splash of Daniel Pinkwater, and a splash of someone else that my memory isn’t producing for me at the moment. The illustrations aren’t so much my style, but they’re fun, and the messages on friendship and people and their motivations are absolutely real. If you’re a fan of subversively fresh takes on fairy tales, give this short, quirky novel a try.

Just be ready to suspend healthy amounts of disbelief.

In other news, my oldest is over her flu but my youngest has a bad case of the coughs, so she’s home today. We did have fun playing games last night, however, and it was honestly a nice weekend all around. Cross your fingers that my girlie won’t be coughing up a lung during her debate tournament tomorrow!

My poor 18-year-old seems to have caught the terrible, awful, no good, very bad stomach flu that the other kids and I suffered through in December; add to that my littles doing all the coughing (is it allergies and colds combined? because you never can tell this time of year) and my youngest, especially, with the froggy voice and stuffy nose, and I ended up canceling piano lessons today. (Our teacher is over 80, so I’m a lot more careful than I was when it was another mom with school-aged kids.) Having kids home more than usual, however, means that multiple books were finished by multiple kids, which means that multiple books then got to go back to the library. Huzzah! Not that I’ve done so much finishing of books, mind you, but I’ve been reading aloud with kids, so there’s that. And if I follow through on my plans for tonight, it’s possible I’ll have turned off my light and phone before midnight every night this week. Wish me luck!!!!!