Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Okay, so I don’t have any personal experience being a Patricia.  (Which is okay, because I’m okay not being one.)  I was just thinking last night, however, about a sort of coincidence.  It seems odd that there are 3 different authors named Patricia who can (easily) move me to tears.  (I mean, is it that common of a name?)  I LOVE Patricia Reilly Giff and get all teary-eyed just thinking of Pictures of Hollis Woods; I can’t make it halfway through Patricia Polacco’s Thank You, Mr. Falker without bawling like a baby; and Patricia MacLachlan’s books (think Sarah, Plain and Tall and Baby) never fail to move me.

It was one of hers I just finished, actually.  Fly Away is new this year, and it’s a lovely little tale of a family visiting a great aunt at a time when the nearby river is flooding and threatening her home.  It amazes me how MacLachlan can create real and detailed characters in such a brief novel (I’ve certainly always been a wordier sort).  I was attached to all of them so very quickly, and once I was halfway through, there was absolutely no stopping until I made sure it came out to my satisfaction.  How does she do this in 108 pages–in a very large font?  It’s a mystery to me.  That, however, is not the point.  The point is that all three Patricias are well worth reading, and you should check them out as soon as you can!