Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I know, I should have posted on Wednesday, but I was too busy making pies. (And getting ready to go spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws–even packing for one night is an undertaking for a family of six!) Maybe I’ll get around to posting those pies later–although I’m not sure I did last year, come to think of it–but I finished Scary Stories for Young Foxes while we were up in Clearfield, and so I decided to do that review tonight.

I suppose I ought to acknowledge from the get-go that I wasn’t particularly excited to read this one, Newbery notwithstanding, because scary stories are really just not my thing. Oddly enough, it’s not because I find them frightening, for the most part–I’m more of a home-alone-in-the-dark-and-the-house-is-suspiciously-creaking kind of person when it comes to being scared–but because I don’t generally find them enjoyable. If the point is to be scared, but it’s a story and so I’m not all that scared, well…see what I mean?

I should have had more faith in the Newbery committee. While I would never have picked up Scary Stories if it hadn’t been a Newbery Honor book, I have to acknowledge that it was a spellbinding read. Mia and Uly were such real characters, and the way the author wove his threads together was masterful. It’s certainly not a book for the faint of heart–it takes place in nature, and nature is not a thing of sweetness and light–but it’s powerful. (A bit too powerful for a parent, in a way. It would have been a less heartwrenching read if I were the age of its intended audience.) I’m not going to give this one to my animal-loving girlie, because she doesn’t deal well with the realities of nature and animal consumption by other animals; my older girlie, however, might quite enjoy it. Either way, it deserved to win.*

And by the way–although gratitude should never be a ‘by the way’–I am grateful, for so very many things. I am richly blessed in family, I am safe and warm and as comfortable as one can be after a day or two of eating far too much, and I am watched over by a loving Heavenly Father and by my Savior Jesus Christ. My heart is full.

*If you have a minute, google Christian McKay Heidicker and listen to his Newbery acceptance speech. It definitely added to my reading experience.