Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

War Games by Audrey and Akila Couloumbis is my second experience this year with a fiction writer writing a nonfiction family story, and both times the reading was a bit of a struggle for me. To be fair, I’ve never preferred novelized nonfiction, but it also feels like the middle grade fiction writers in question seem a bit stilted when writing something true. I guess it could be just me, but…

Anyway.

War Games is technically co-written by a Newbery Honor winner and her husband, whose story it is; it takes place at the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Greece during WWII. Petros–the character based on Akila Couloumbis–is struggling with typical frustrations, such as wanting his big brother not to treat him like a baby, as well as wartime difficulties, such as destroying or burying everything in their house that would give away the secret that he and his siblings were born in America. When his family learns that a German commander will be coming to board with them, complications abound, especially since returning members of the Greek army keep showing up at their farm. I honestly wonder if I’d have been more captivated by this story were I a boy who related to the things Petros, his cousins, his friends, and his brother do; as it was, it was an interesting story but slow going. I think, though, that if the premise interests you, you should try it yourself rather than take my word for it. If you do, tell me what you think!

Okay, I haven’t been doing individual reviews for every Babysitters Club or Baby-Sitters Little Sister graphic novel, but Karen’s Birthday: A Graphic Novel tugged at my heartstrings. All Karen really wants for her 7th birthday is her family all together, but her divorced parents (both of them remarried) misunderstand what she’s asking for. I hurt for Karen in this one–and wanted to shake her parents in a “has it not occurred to you to wonder if THIS might be the problem?” kind of way–but the ending was both realistic and positive. Elementary schoolers straddling two families should definitely read this one.

Seriously, though. Even the kiddos slept in this morning–or read before coming in. Sleeping past 7:30 is lovely! AND it means more energy for things like reviews, which is why you’re getting my thoughts on Eoin Colfer’s (yes, the Artemis Fowl guy) The Dog Who Lost His Bark this morning.

I should maybe start with the disclaimer that I don’t actually LIKE dogs. I’m a cat person now and forever–and a bunny person, I guess, because we have three–and I spent my childhood more or less HATING dogs. On the other hand, Colfer’s novel is about a puppy, and baby animals are generally cute; most importantly, my kiddos are indiscriminate animal fans. I opted, then, to read The Dog Who Lost His Bark aloud to my 8-year-old.

It was actually a surprisingly short read-aloud. P.J. Lynch’s tearjerker illustrations take up a good bit of space, and it’s not a terribly long book anyway. As a parent, I saw the truth about Patrick’s family situation almost immediately; when it finally came out near the end of the novel, my 8-year-old yelled “I knew it,” so it’s probably not hard for anyone to see it coming. That part rang true for me. Unfortunately, Patrick’s winning over of Oz, a puppy who’d been abused and abandoned, felt less true. The music angle didn’t seem enough to explain how Patrick won Oz’s trust, and the shortness of the novel made the process seem very brief indeed. I think I was hoping for that to be the focus of the story–a hope the title supports, I might add–but instead, Patrick’s family situation is really the main event. Dog lovers and kids facing family upheaval should check this one out, but it’s less of an “any age will love this book” kind of experience.

So–on the 21st I managed dinner in the crockpot (which involved an early trip to Ream’s in my pjs) and exercising and a quick shower before going to the temple and then walking to pick up my kiddos; my 13-year-old’s band concert was at 7 that evening, but my oldest had dance until 6:15, call time was 6:30, and we had to pick up a friend, so it was hectic. Wednesday morning I took my littles to school, dropped the 13-year-old at the orthodontist, dropped my hubby at Target to meet his ride to the airport (work trip), picked the 13-year-old UP at the orthodontist, dropped her at school, and finally made it home. I had a meeting at 7 Wednesday night, so I had to drop my littles at a friend’s house before dropping my big girls at YW and heading to my meeting; thankfully it ended shortly after 8, so I got the littles in bed as quickly as I could. Thursday was early day and there were difficulties with my oldest, and then that oldest got her wisdom teeth out Friday morning. The 13-year-old got woozy and eventually passed out at the sight of her sister and the leftover blood in her mouth, so I had to get my neighbor to babysit the teenagers while my son and I picked up prescriptions, frozen fruit without seeds, and a birthday present for the party he was invited to that night (from 7-9!). We had to hurry then to be ready for piano lessons, but we managed…my hubby got home around 8:30, I retrieved the boy, and we all made it to bed eventually.

Saturday morning we had to get up and clean the church at 8; when we were done I switched laundry and then headed to a Relief Society breakfast/service project that started at 9. By the time I was home it was a try-to-do-Saturday-things-in-half-the-time sort of day, and we ended up having Family Scripture Time after dinner. Yesterday was Fast Sunday, my hubby got called to team teach youth Sunday School with me, and a RI friend came for dinner–which brings us to this morning. My hubby and I went to apply for passports before he left for work–we grabbed crickets for Palmer on the way home–and then I took the three younger kids to Costco, where we priced items for Stake Women’s Conference as well as shopped, and then they watched a movie while I took my oldest to her feedback appointment (the follow up to her psychological testing).

Yeah, it’s been a week. That being the case, instead of reviewing one of the two books that I’ve actually finished in the last week, I’m giving a shoutout to Caroline Carlson’s The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy. (Yes, I know that link goes specifically to the first book–it seemed the sensible thing.) I’m not marking them as read on Goodreads–I listened to them at double speed, sometimes in the shower, which means I definitely missed some details here and there–but they were so much fun to listen to that I wanted to blog about them anyway. Picture a mashup of Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies, and a light-hearted British girl-away-at-school-corresponds-with-friend story, and you’ll get The Very Nearly Honorable League…; as long as you don’t think too hard about pirates and the incredibleness of the whole premise, it’s a rollicking good time. (WITH the friendship and nice-underdogs-against-tyranny themes of the Harry Potter books.) If you and the readers in your household love adventures, pirates, or not-high fantasy, don’t miss Carlson’s trilogy!

Because really, I’ve got to get at least one more review done or I’m going to go nuts. And this one shouldn’t take long, because I felt sort of meh about the book–although that may be mostly that I’m a 43-year-old English major. Elementary school-aged graphic novel fans might love it, you know? And I’ll try and comment on my children’s reactions after they read it. In the meantime, Cyndi Marko’s Sloth Sleuth popped onto my radar because my youngest read her ‘Kung Pow Chicken’ series (I can’t remember how THAT popped onto my radar–oh, well!), and when I saw Sloth Sleuth listed as her newest book, hey–it seemed like fun. And really, the premise IS fun–a mysteriously hidden island full of shady characters plus a policewoman and a librarian, and a sloth investigating a crime wave in the middle of them all. The sloth alternates between periodically falling asleep and acting like a seasoned investigative operative, and there are gadgets. My problem with it all is that it seems more like a string of fun scenes and things threaded together rather than a cohesive mystery with strong characterization. Do I think its intended audience is going to care? Not necessarily. On the other hand, the more completely put together the books we give our children are, the more they’ll learn about successfully expressing themselves well–so there’s that. I’m going to try and get my friend Britt to read it and offer her opinion; in the meantime, let me know what YOU think!

I spent all day Friday thinking we were having company for our St. Patrick’s Day dinner–and then, once we’d cleaned up the table and worked on the dining room overall, I discovered that they couldn’t come after all. At least we got a cleaner dining room out of it? but I would have spent much of the day in the kitchen anyway. We had our usual Saturday breakfast on Friday morning, because on Saturday morning we had a family-party-style bridal shower to go to, and then there was corned beef to go into the crockpot, dishes to be done, a green jello cake to make (with green apple jello, because I don’t prefer lime), Irish colcannon to make, and green beans to add at the last minute. Between that, a trip to Walmart, and piano lessons, I was pretty nearly beat by the end of the day…which might explain why I failed to notice that my oldest was still up after 10:30. I hurried her off to bed, but she apparently forgot to take her pills, which came back to bite her on Saturday night.

To be fair, Saturday was a big day anyway–the party/shower was crowded and loud, my hubby got after her on the drive home because she wasn’t paying attention while changing lanes, and then she and her brother had the first segment of family scripture time–but she had such a concerning meltdown at her friend’s house that he texted me about it. (She told us she was going to his house to cheer him up because HE’D had a bad week.) I was at the adult session of stake conference, so I was texting my hubby, who was home with the kids, and it was–stressful. Sunday was more relaxing, thankfully, but my focus was on family time and a bit of exercise, which is why you get a post today. Lucky you!

Anyway. Last Sunday night–as in, a week ago yesterday–I was reading aloud to my youngest and reached the crisis point in the book we’ve been reading FOREVER. Whereupon my crazy 8-year-old declared that we were stopping there, I said “WHAT???”, and even my hubby–he was working on a puzzle a few feet away–pointed out that HE was kind of curious about what happened next. I still don’t know why she wanted to stop–was she afraid of how it would turn out, or just getting wiggly?–but I overrode her, and so we finally finished Alison McGhee’s Pablo and Birdy I’ve been meaning to review it ever since, but life keeps happening; on the other hand, it’s due and not renewable tomorrow, so here we are.

Part of me wants to start my review by saying that the first two-thirds or so of the book was slow. The fairer part of me, however, acknowledges that my 8-year-old is surprisingly particular about when and how often she’s in the mood to be read aloud to, and you really can’t accurately judge the pacing of a book when your reading sessions are so short and spread out. What I can say is that Pablo, who was rescued from the ocean as a baby, is reaching his double digit birthday and wants desperately to know more about his background. And Birdy, the parrot who was found with him when he was rescued and has been with him ever since, is starting to act strangely. Families who have been touched by adoption will likely empathize with Pablo’s frustration, while animal lovers will fall in love with Birdy. I wouldn’t necessarily label myself as either, and yet I was fighting tears by the last 20 pages. The ending is bittersweet but hopeful, and while this book took my daughter and me a maddeningly long time to get through, it’s going to stay with me for a while. If you read it, let me know what YOU think!*

*Okay, that felt like an abrupt ending, but I didn’t know where else to go that wouldn’t land me in spoiler territory. AND I’m tired. Sorry!

That’s the kind of creativity we’re working with today, folks. Through a combination of getting to bed late and having trouble falling asleep (I’m looking at YOU, time change), I’m kind of ridiculously tired, which means that my current writing capabilities could accurately be described as functional. Nevertheless, I finished listening to Katherine Center’s Happiness for Beginners an hour or two ago, and I’ve decided that powering through with my review is the only way to go right now. (I’m several books behind.) Katherine Center’s books serve as thoughtful comfort reads for me–they have happy, satisfying, but realistically imperfect endings, and I’ve always been a sucker for books that emphasize personal growth. In this case, our main character (Helen) is a 1st grade teacher who’s been divorced for a year and badly wants to reinvent herself. Her method of choice is a three week backpacking trip in the wilderness, but her expectations for the trip take a hit when she realizes that her younger brother’s best friend is going on the same trip. Difficulties ensue, disasters are dealt with, family rifts show signs of being mendable, and self discovery abounds.

The ending also involves a bar mitzvah and an unfortunate cooler.

If you’re having a stressful week–for example, if your struggling child had to take her driver’s test and you worried about it all day, and then she failed and was blessedly okay about it (definitely an answer to prayer), or if you’re the PTA treasurer and you’ve been involved with the PTA fundraiser last week and this week, or if you’re short on sleep–Happiness for Beginners is a solid choice; it’s cozy without being solely fluff.

Also, by coincidence, my sister just finished it, too. Go figure!

Uri Shulevitz’s Chance: Escape from the Holocaust (Memories of a Refugee Childhood) appeared on my radar after I read a couple of Shulevitz’s picture books with my kids; I went to put another one on hold, saw that title listed as a new release, and thought Absolutely! Holocaust narratives have fascinated me for decades, and this one promised a score of illustrations to boot, given that Shulevitz is a Caldecott medalist. I’ve had it around ever since my library finally received it, and when it kept missing its chance for the top spot in my TBR queue, I decided to risk trying it as a read-aloud with my 13-year-old. It was a stretch, I knew–not only does she prefer contemporary realistic fiction, she does NOT prefer books about war–but there were some graphic novel-style panels included in Shulevitz’s illustrations, and so I decided it was worth a try.

I kind of knew it was a doomed effort.

To be fair, we did get through more than one reading session, but ultimately she admitted she wanted to bail, as it ‘wasn’t really her thing.’ By that time, however, we’d gotten through the first hundred pages or so (because illustrations), which meant that I had a solid start , which meant it was much easier to go ahead and let it top the queue so I could just finish it on my own. And while it was a bit of a logistic challenge–it’s not picture book sized, but it’s bigger than your average hardcover nonetheless, and HEAVY, and my sometimes-carpal-tunnelly wrists didn’t love me reading it in bed–it was totally worth it. It may be big, but with the illustrations (and the impressively large font size, which my eyes loved), it’s not nearly as lengthy as it looks, and Uri’s memories come with observations that are usually fascinating and sometimes hilarious. His family fled Poland for the USSR fairly early in the war, which is likely why they survived. They lived in Turkestan longer than any other place there, managed to journey back to Poland after the war ended, and wound up in Paris for another longer stretch. They endured significant hardships, but of a completely different variety than the Polish Jews who ended up in concentration camps; in fact, the only WWII narrative I’ve read that bears any significant resemblance to this one is Esther Hautzig’s The Endless Steppe.

Bottom line? I recommend both books. Because it’s my blog, and I can.

In other news, I took my kiddos (plus one) to our PTA-sponsored skate night on Friday night, and then the rest of the weekend was sort of all about trying to manage our transition to the time change. (Partly because lack of sleep does bad things for my already-struggling teenager’s mental health, and I wanted to mitigate that as much as possible.) Oddly enough, while losing power late Friday night until around 1:40 Saturday morning was annoying, it made it easy to declare that we were just living our whole Saturday as if the time change had already happened. (Because I hate setting clocks, so why do it twice in twelve hours?) My deepest sympathies to all families with (and teachers of) small children this week, though. Because the struggle is real.

In this case, that means reviewing when I can and not beating myself up when I don’t get to it at the time of day in which I have the concentration for it. I’m finding that worry for my girlie is taking up a lot of mental space, and since this week and next are our PTA fundraiser, I’ve been at the school first thing in the morning yesterday and today, and I’ll likely continue to be there through next Thursday. (I’ve also been hitting the laundry pretty hard.)

Anyway. Today you get my review of Linda Sue Park’s Prairie Lotus, which I put on hold in audio back when it was one of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature winners in 2021. I finally let it come to the head of my queue, and after listening to it, I’m reminded of just how much I enjoy Linda Sue Park at her best. Hanna is a driven sort of heroine–think Joan Bauer-esque–whose continual experiences with racism and prejudice are infuriating. Her victories are always liberally mixed with compromise, and yet her school experiences are fabulous nonetheless; what happens afterward dips into even more serious territory, and yet Hanna emerges triumphant in the ways that matter most. Park intentionally evokes Laura Ingalls Wilder even as she gives us a wholly different experience of the American frontier, and in doing so, reminds us to pay attention to the stories of those around us, especially those whose stories are not always told.

Don’t miss this one.

It was an up and down sort of weekend, with the high of my youngest girlie’s baptism, with family and friends and love, and the low of my oldest girlie struggling so severely with depression. (Even though she played a harp solo AND sang with my middle girlie and two of their cousins at the baptism.) I lack the emotional energy to go into any of it more thoroughly–except that there was frustration in getting the keys to the church where we had our luncheon and my brother-in-law went in through an unlocked window–and so I’m stopping there and giving you a quick book review.

I went looking recently for audiobooks that I haven’t already experienced but are fluffy enough to listen to when I simply can’t concentrate on anything weighty; I ended up with Jenn McKinlay’s Paris Is Always a Good Idea. Overall, it fit what I was looking for nicely; you could certainly tell where the story arc was going, but the journey there had plenty of discovery going for it. Beginning with Chelsea’s tantrum over her father’s abrupt decision to remarry (after knowing the woman in question for only a couple of weeks), it follows her attempts to regain her younger–and therefore more open and loving–self by retracing the trip through Europe she took after graduating from college. This retracing, of course, primarily involves her reconnection with the three men she dated on that trip, one each in Ireland, France, and Italy. Now, if you’re expecting a self-examination in which she realizes that a)her father is an adult with more experience of life than she actually has or b)her father’s new relationship and her relationships with her European men have much more in common than she cares to consider, well–you’ll be disappointed. (Also, the eventual sex scene did not flow with the rest of the novel, instead feeling like something obligatory that needed to be checked off a list of novel musts by the end.) On the other hand, if you want some banter, some entertaining situations, and some vicarious time in Europe–not to mention some deeper consideration about how the death of a loved one changes you–this is a solid choice. Was it perfect? No. Was it fun? Absolutely.

In other news, I’ve spent my day doggedly trying to be productive in a quiet sort of way; laundry is going, my dishwasher is finished, dishes requiring handwashing have been dealt with, and the bag of clothes going to a friend in the neighborhood with a daughter a year younger than my youngest is full. (I also shoveled this morning, which was a solid job.) Exercising is next on my list, so I’m signing off. Let’s hope this is the start of a good week!