Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I finished listening to Finding Esme while cutting apples for applesauce this morning, and while I really am at a loss as to how to review it, I also need space on my library card–which means that rather then let the reading experience settle for a while before evaluating it, I’m rushing in regardless.

Wish me luck.

To begin, I am SO VERY TIRED of illustrators who create a cover for a book without any sense of what the book’s really like. You’d think Esme was a book with a spunky, inquisitive heroine who goes off in search of adventure, based on the cover, and that’s not at all how it feels. (Seriously, people. Tone. It’s not just for English majors.) Esme is gritty, grieving, and emotionally somewhat lost; she and her best friend are both struggling with difficult family situations and poverty, although Finch’s struggles are more stereotypical. Enter a mystical southern element–Esme’s grandmother can find things that are lost, things people are looking for, and Esme has started to feel that same gift within her. Add friendship difficulties, some moonshining, various levels of tragedy, and a slew of different kinds of people to deal with (and learn from), and you get a mix of a few too many themes in a single book that’s frequently heartbreaking and less about the found dinosaur bones than one might suppose from the description and first line. I’m not saying there isn’t a followable plot thread–there is–but it’s bumpy with varioius additions and subtractions. If you like poignant (although slightly scattered) stories involving difficult families, Finding Esme may be for you; if you’re looking for a tightly woven or adventurous story, probably not so much.

Your call.

Welllllll…it turns out that our internet problem was actually an electrical problem–or something, because this is emphatically NOT my area of expertise–and getting it fixed involved a fried (quite literally) modem, a hole melted into a power strip, concerning noises and foul-smelling electrical smoke, and a midnight visit from Rocky Mountain Power. Good times! Between that and household things and our fall break trip to Idaho to visit family, I clearly got VERY behind on my posts. Here I am, however–eating lunch, pear crisp in the oven, and ready to review Karen Hawkins’ A Cup of Silver Linings, which has been sitting by my keyboard, patiently waiting its turn.

Full disclosure? I liked The Book Charmer better, probably because books. Silver Linings, however, was still a thoroughly enjoyable read, and those with an affinity for plants (or tea!) will be delighted. (That’s the rest of my family, not me. Or, perhaps, my dad.) There’s not much romance in this one; instead, Sarah and Ava’s relationship is almost a main character. The other relationship at the forefront is a grandmother/mother/daughter one, with Julie’s (the mother/daughter) death forcing Ellen (the grandmother/mother) and Kristen (daughter/granddaughter) to learn to truly know and compromise with each other. The pacing of that felt slightly off to me–the compromise comes late but in surprisingly full force when it does–but grief messes up the regular order of things, so it may be just as realistic that way. Regardless, the Dove Pond series is a solid I’m-waiting-impatiently-for-the-next-one series for me, and since the teaser at the end suggests the imminent return of a previously absent Dove sister to town, I’m especially looking forward to the next one.

I’m more or less past my “capable of full concentration and coherent writing” time of night, but I still have ALL THE BOOKS waiting to be reviewed, and so I give you Dragonbreath #2: Attack of the Ninja Frogs. Full confession: this has been sitting on my bookshelf since my son finished the first book in the series, and I pulled it off to read mostly because he checked it out of his school library and I felt so guilty I told myself to JUST READ IT ALREADY. (Clearly the caps are a symptom of the time of night; also, I did WANT to read it, but then, I want to read all the books. I just made myself read THAT one, right then.) Ninja Frogs was definitely better than its predecessor–introducing a series is tricky, I imagine–and I enjoyed it thoroughly, managing to actually read it in just two evenings. (Not that it’s long or anything–evenings have just been busy of late. I managed it mostly because my Wednesday meeting was canceled.) Danny and Wendell are back, but Wendell’s befriending of a girl has Danny in fits–until her pursuit by ninja frogs puts him in a full-out ninja-induced euphoria. Reality is different from the movies, of course, but there still manages to be quite an impressive climax! Reluctant readers ought to eat this up.

Because I do, folks. I started out with three baskets full, but I’m down to one basket, one gallon Zip-Loc in the freezer, and a partial gallon Zip-Loc in the fridge waiting for me to pour the rinsed, partially full strainer into it. My neighbors have more, too, but I don’t know that I’ve got room for them!

Anyway. I’m taking a break from the grapes and my laundry because I absolutely cannot let myself get MORE behind on book reviews–and so I give you the latest Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel, Kristy and the Snobs. It’s written by one Chan Chau, and I would assume that she’s taking over the reigns from Gabriela Epstein (although she’s only done one previous one), except that Goodreads is listening Epstein as the adapter of Good-Bye, Stacey, Good-Bye, which is due out in February. (Who knows?) Her art, as always, differs slightly from her predecessors, but I got used to it pretty quickly. As far as the plot goes, Kristy’s family’s ailing dog is poignant, but the “Snobs” and Kristy’s behavior left me wanting a bit more discussion (and maybe a consequence or two?) before it was wrapped up. (The elements of the whys and the changes of heart are THERE, mind you–they just feel a bit rushed through.) Intended readers, however, may not care–neither of my older daughters mentioned anything about it–and so, once again, I’d recommend this one to fans of the series in either its new or its original incarnation.

And now, back to the grapes.

AND the laundry.

Okay, I didn’t post on the 7th because our internet was down all day, and I couldn’t really work around that! As for the 9th, well–the day was just packed. There was laundry and apple picking and more laundry and feeding people and more laundry and finding room for the apples, not to mention stake conference over Zoom. Today doesn’t exactly feel carefree, either–this morning I scrubbed the tub and puttered in my kitchen to fairly good effect, not to mention working on my too-tipsy mailbox, running over to the elementary school with a forgotten Chromebook, and putting the bedspread back on my bed. My oldest and I hit the orthodontist this afternoon, and in addition to more feeding of the people (because they always want to EAT, dang it!), we’ve been reading library books that need to go back tomorrow and doing all of the other various things one does of an evening with one’s children when one’s poor husband is working miserably long hours for the third week in a row.

Anyway.

On the other hand, I’m here today, and I get to review Marjorie Agosin’s (imagine an accent over that last i) The Maps of Memory: Return to Butterfly Hill. Like its predecessor, it combines oddly whimsical illustrations with difficult details about both life in a dictatorship and life in the aftermath; Celeste learns more about her parents’ experiences while she was in Maine and, in a surprising postal twist, gets the opportunity to look for some of the disappeared. We see friendship, hardship, PTSD, and hope, and while there’s a slight awkwardness in the writing style that I tend to attribute to being translated from another language, Maps of Memory is a book you want to keep reading. In the meantime, freshly picked grapes are calling me, so have a good night all!

I honestly don’t know how farmers’ wives did it 150 years ago. How would you deal with the fruits and veggies that were ripe and needed processing in addition to laundry by hand, cooking with a wood stove, washing dishes by hand…ugh. (No wonder families kept kids home from school to help out.) And here I am, stressing because I have apples and grapes and maybe more tomatoes!

Anyway. I did miss Friday because of the apples, though…the kids and I picked Friday morning before piano, since last week was SEPs and no school on Friday, and I made a pot of applesauce and a crockpot of apple butter before dinner. (Before MY dinner. I put the kids in charge of regular food, and they finished eating before I finished filling up the crockpot.) On Sunday we had dinner in Clearfield, and watching General Conference required all of the concentration I could spare, anyway! Now, however, I’m sitting here with at least three books waiting to be reviewed, and I have fruit leather plans for after my Tuesday trip to the library. Before that trip, however, I’m opting for a review of Sunny Makes a Splash, because my 12-year-old and I have both finished it, and the sooner it goes back, the sooner she can find something else to (re)read over breakfast!

If you haven’t read Jennifer L. and Matthew Holm’s “Sunny” graphic novels, they’re fun and deal with some interesting issues that have been facing kids for generations. (They’re set in the 70s, so the issues kind of have to be ones that have stuck around.) Their latest is the fourth of Sunny’s stories, in which Sunny gets her first paid job and is thinking about dates (albeit mostly in a removed-from-herself kind of way), her mother is struggling to deal with that, and her grandfather…well, I won’t spoil that part of the plot! Sunny is relatably ordinary, which makes her an especially fun character to read about, and her grandfather is entirely lovable. You don’t NEED to have read the previous books to enjoy this one, but why not experience the whole series? It’s a solid read for latter elementary through middle school.