Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Wednesday just wasn’t going to happen, folks. I wrote PTA checks in the morning and then drove two children to different Sandy locations at different times, grabbing library holds and lunch at McDonald’s in between. And then, what with grieving children, crazy schedules, and being sad myself, there was just not enough coherent thought to be had to attempt a blog post.

Today, though, I am DETERMINED to manage one, even though it’s late enough that my powers of concentration are questionable. (As in, it’s almost 7. I’m old and tired, okay?) Much of my determination comes from the fact that after this morning’s PTA meeting–and a hot date with a terrifying kitchen sink–I finished listening to Gennifer Choldenko’s Al Capone Throws Me a Curve, which I’m assuming is the last in her ‘Alcatraz’ series, and I really don’t want to get further behind on my book reviews. (It’s an italic-y kind of evening.)

I have a lot of emotions about this one.

On the one hand, I struggle with a well-intentioned character continually being put into impossible situations, and there was plenty of that to be had here. On the other hand, given Natalie’s autism and the time and place involved, those situations didn’t feel nearly as contrived as they might have. And while the climax of the story seemed incredibly farfetched to me, it was still satisfying in a way that made this book my favorite since the first one. There is learning and growth in all kinds of places, and more understanding and difficult-but-successful communication than ever before. (Possibly? It’s been a while since I’ve read, say, the second book…) Bottom line? If you’re into the series at all, don’t miss this one.

Piper, of course, still drives me absolutely crazy.

Today I was supposed to work on our PTA’s fundraiser paperwork, but none of my numbers matched, and it was apparent even before my hubby left for work that Peter–my favorite bunny, our smallest, shyest, most nervous, and more recently frail bunny–was not going to rally. At first I avoided his box while I worked on what paperwork I successfully could; when I’d finished much of it and taken a break for lunch, I checked on him and suspected that he was fading. I moved him onto the couch next to me and petted him while I read, listened to my audiobook, and played aimlessly on my phone, and he died 15 or so minutes before my older girlies got home from school.

It was a quiet, somber experience, sitting alone with our poor sick Peter while he passed, and as my children got home we snuggled–and some of us cried. It isn’t easy to lose a pet at any age.

Before he passed, though, I finished reading a new graphic novel I checked out for my raccoon-obsessed 9-year-old–The Racc Pack, by Stephanie Cooke (with art by Whitney Gardner). It was more thoroughly entertaining than I’d expected, if more action than character drama: hungry raccoon brothers, a nefarious business owner who refuses to donate his edible castoffs and guards them against any and all interested parties, and a mysterious housecat with a suspicious agenda. I don’t know that my 14-year-old will be as interested–she prefers animals to be animals, not talking, clothes-wearing protagonists–but I’m anticipating much excitement from my third grader.

And today, that’s not a bad thing.

And that includes if you’ve been cheering up all the kiddos and need something fun yourself, fellow parents. Tonight I accidentally broke the heart of my youngest by telling her I was ready to tuck her in without remembering that she hadn’t yet given her birthday present to Daddy–and while I IMMEDIATELY assured her that I’d forgotten and of COURSE she could give him her present first, the tears were slow to stop. My son was upset that I told him to get off his kindle, even though it was after 8:30 and he knows I don’t want him on it after 8–he being the child who is most likely to be upset when I’m upset with him, even when I’m upset because he’s doing something he knows I’ve told him not to do. (Wouldn’t it be easier to just NOT do the thing you’ve been told not to do? Or be apologetic about it?) And my 14-year-old was super excited about the treat she made Daddy for his birthday, and when he was casual in his reaction, she was convinced he didn’t like it and we should throw the rest away. Oh, the drama! Don’t you wish you lived at my house? (And since I wrote this paragraph, my oldest came to me in tears to tell me that she forgot to eat lunch even after I’d reminded her twice. Because of course, after watching “The Return of the King” with friends and getting home after midnight last night, her emotions are on the volatile side.)

Luckily, however, I did finish a feel-good graphic novel this morning–Jennifer L. and Matthew Holm’s Sunny Makes Her Case (the 5th in their “Sunny” series). In it, Sunny’s friend Deb makes the middle school cheer team, but Sunny’s somewhat adrift, not being overly athletic. When her friend Arun says he wants to start a debate club, though, she ends up finding a thing of her own that she hadn’t expected to. The story is based in part on Jennifer Holm’s own debate experiences growing up, and that just added to the book’s appeal, which is already considerable. The Holm siblings are a joy to read, folks. Don’t miss this one!

To be fair, it was only unexpected because Donut the Destroyer didn’t seem like my thing, mostly because the other graphic novel I’ve read by Sarah Graley (Glitch) wasn’t so much my thing. Donut, however, actually cracked me up. It’s a lot like Lumberjackula in some ways, only instead of pursuing a different interest from her parents, Donut is the child of villains but wants to become a hero. The good? She makes a couple of solid friends at her new school. The bad? Her old best friend still wants her to be a villain.

The great thing here is that most middle school students can relate to Donut’s dilemma on some level–friendships change as we grow, and there will always be someone (perhaps several or even many someones) who ends up wanting something different for (or from) us than we want to be (or give). Donut’s parents are wacky, on the creepy side, and yet loving and supportive in their own way, and that makes her chosen path doable, but some of her obstacles are significant. What I enjoyed most is the juxtaposition of typical tween troubles (and lessons) with slyly subverted villain/hero roles; I’m expecting my kiddos to get a kick out of this one.

On the homefront, we took cousins with us to Classic yesterday and the older three kids slept late this morning; tomorrow is my hubby’s birthday, but with dance and flag football practice in the evening, celebrations may be postponed ’til the weekend. If this is your spring break as well, we hope you’re enjoying it!

I hope everyone had a good one. We spent Sunday afternoon and evening in Clearfield with family, and Saturday was a mix of my son’s intro to flag football (we got texts about teams Sunday) and Prom for my oldest. In the meantime, I finished reading Faith Erin Hicks’ One Year at Ellsmere, which seems to have been published previously as The War at Ellsmere. It went almost shockingly fast–as in, I tucked it into the bathroom drawer but also read it in bed a bit one night and was therefore done in two days–and up until the fantastical deus ex machina (which is briefly foreshadowed early on), it’s a standard poor-kid-in-a-rich-school-with-mean-queen-bee story. That doesn’t mean it’s not a fun read, I have to say–Faith Erin Hicks has chops–but only the plot logistics really need to be discovered. Still, I imagine my graphic novel lovers will be fans, right? And there’s certainly a DON’T BE MEAN message, which is always a good thing in this world.

In other news, my son had his first flag football practice tonight, and since it’s at a totally fun local park, his siblings and three cousins came along to recreate while he was practicing. Which means people should sleep well tonight, right? Let’s hope I do, too…

It’s proving a more formidable foe than I had hoped, folks. Still, I have at least ONE more review in me, so here goes…

Jen Petro-Roy’s Good Enough was the latest read-aloud for my 14YO and me–not that I’ve reviewed the book we read together before it. (I don’t want to talk about it.) I was a bit surprised that she picked it over the other choices I gave her–it had the potential to be sadder than she prefers–and she was worried after our first session about just how sad it was, but by our second or third bout of reading, she was completely hooked.

Honestly, so was I.

We meet Riley as she checks into the hospital for an anorexia recovery program; she is (not surprisingly) angry and defensive and unhappy. Experiencing her recovery with her was an interesting experience, especially compared to the last novel I read about an anorexic in recovery; being twelve, Riley acclimates, adapts, and transitions into recovery far more quickly than Anna, the married main character of The Girls at 17 Swann Street. She does, however, have to deal with parental frustrations and school difficulties that make her looming discharge scary in different ways. Thankfully, amid rallying friends and growing skills Riley’s stay ends on a hopeful note, which (together with the occasional laugh-out-loud thought that apparently characterizes Petro-Roy’s heroines) makes Good Enough a satisfying read; the most important thing about the book, however, is the message of the title itself. Our girls are growing up in a terrifying world, and unless we can teach them how beautiful and perfectly imperfect each one of them is, we risk losing them. (This is why I [with limited exceptions] oppose cosmetic surgery.) The beauty of Riley’s journey lies, more than anything else, in watching her fight towards that conclusion.

If you are or have a teenage girl, don’t miss this one.

That’s how I’m feeling about this morning, folks. (Also about Peter. He really does continue to recover, although he’s still not at all his old self.) I’ve done enough laundry during the week that I have time this morning–I’m hoping–to do multiple book reviews, which is good. I’m certainly not going to manage SIX, which is the number of books I can think of that I’ve finished and are waiting to be reviewed, but more than one ought to be within my grasp! (One hopes. Although one did not get to bed as early as one should have last night, so the tired is now one’s enemy.)

My most recent completion involves the second book in a series by Heather Vogel Frederick that both of my older girls have started; I can pass it along as soon as I’ve reviewed it, and thus it’s doubly first in line. Frederick’s ‘Pumpkin Falls’ mysteries take place in New Hampshire, which is automatically a draw for me–although Truly, the narrator/main character, struggles with moving there. (She lacks a proper appreciation for New England, but I’ve got enough for both of us.) In Yours Truly, she experiences her first sugaring season through her new friends, but cut sap lines are fast causing a town feud; on the home front, the way her male friends are flocking around her visiting cousin makes her feel invisible. I honestly found Truly on the whiny side in this one–as well as a fairly awful big sister–but I can appreciate where she’s coming from, and thirteen is a rough age. She and her friends are an engaging (and enterprising!) group, however, and I think middle graders should enjoy this one.

We had on-and-off snow at the first of this week, which provoked some whining and complaining from those who prefer spring and summer to fall and winter; I, on the other hand, enjoyed wearing long sleeves and made soup for dinner. And while I can’t guarantee that this Chicken Tortilla Soup is the “best” that it claims to be–I’ve possibly only had one other recipe for it–I did find it thoroughly enjoyable.

It would, of course, have been better if I’d actually had cilantro; the majority of my kiddos are ambivalent, however, and I didn’t want to go to the store. I did saute the onions and garlic in olive oil, eventually adding in the can of mild green chilis, because it’s just the better way to do things. (I also used chicken that had been cooked previously, because hey, I had frozen cooked chicken.) Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe, and while I didn’t have avocados or guac to top it with, the chips, cheese, and sour cream still made for an enjoyable dinner. Give it a try! (Although you’d best do it quickly, depending on where you live–there’s only so much more soup weather to be had until fall.)

Two of the six of us attended church in person today–and hopefully behaved, given that it was the middles and they used to fight constantly. My youngest still sounded gunky, although she said she felt better than she had the previous several days (this morning she said she felt good, and I dubbed her sufficiently less gunky that I sent her to school), my hubby was tired and struggled to get going, and my oldest and I have been gifted the gunk of my youngest. Thank goodness for modern cold medicine! My ears are still blocked, though, and THAT’s driving me crazy.

We did manage to watch “The Quiet Man” together yesterday, which my parents (especially my dad) like watching around St. Patrick’s Day; it’s got some very awkward moments for modern times, but my oldest got a kick out of it. Sadly, my favorite of our bunnies isn’t responding impressively to the medicine the vet prescribed, and while we’ve had him inside and all done some snuggling, I suspect we’re going to have to put Peter down. I lost pets as a child, but this is pretty much a first for my children–and it’s not like being an adult makes it easy.

Moving right along, then, since I’m struggling with that topic. I have a ridiculous quantity of books waiting to be reviewed, and as I was dealing with this week’s crop of library books that are due and not renewable, I realized that one of them fell into that category. If I review it today, it can come back straight into my children’s hands, right? And ironically, it’s a collection of comic short stories–which our family could probably use right now.

Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever. boasts at least four Newbery winners among its writers; it’s also a fantastically funny collection of short stories written entirely by women. I’m not sure why there are people in our culture that believe women can’t be as funny as men–seriously, have they SEEN Carol Burnett in anything?–but they’re out there, and this book aspires to prove them wrong.

It succeeds.

Funny Girl features a wide enough range of stories to appeal to just about anybody, but I had definite favorites. Raina Telgemeier’s comic made me grin maniacally, while Ursula Vernon is just plain always fabulous; Carmen Agra Deedy’s story, especially, was a completely fantastic surprise (I hadn’t heard of her before now). If your day needs lightening and you’re looking for a laugh, look no further–and don’t ever let anyone tell you (or anyone else, for that matter) that women aren’t funny.

So–I stayed up 10-20 minutes later than I should have last night to finish a book, and I was TOTALLY going to review that book this morning, but then today (because my youngest was home sick, just like yesterday and the day before) I finished the read-aloud I’ve been doing with my third grader, because she needs to do a book report on it this coming week, and so I’m reviewing that instead. (I don’t think that officially qualifies as a run-on sentence, but it’s not a terribly pretty one. Sorry.)

Another funny story–I’ve had Champion: The Comeback Tale of the American Chestnut Tree checked out of the library for ages and ages, and it wasn’t until this past month that it occurred to me that my youngest, who is rarely in the mood for read-alouds (except, you know, when she IS), loves science, and perhaps shorter nonfiction is the way to go with her. I tried her on the first chapter, she wanted to keep going with it, and her teacher even confirmed that it’s fine for her to do her nonfiction book report on a book I read aloud to her–and so, the rest is history.

I, on the other hand, don’t particularly love science; if I have to choose a branch of it to learn about, however, I’ll pick biology every time. (And run screaming in the opposite direction if chemistry ever comes up.) What really got me, though, is my childhood memories of walking in the woods with my father. I remember him stopping to point out American Chestnut stumps to me, and explaining that even though fresh saplings were growing out of them, they wouldn’t grow into adult trees because a blight had invaded American forests years before, killing off the species, and new growth would eventually fall prey to it. Even as a girl, I felt a pang for those little doomed saplings; my father pointed out the (relatively) long, narrow leaves to me, with their distinct saw-toothed edges, and they became one of the species of tree that I noticed and identified automatically during subsequent treks in those woods. I can’t remember how Sally Walker came onto my radar, but when it ultimately registered that she had a book about American Chestnuts–which apparently weren’t completely gone after all?–I checked it out and brought it home to hang out with my other library books.

At the start, Walker’s prose skewed young for me, which partly explains why the book sat on my shelf for so long; when I finally committed to it, however, I found that the young aspect seemed to peter out. (My guess is that her writing voice does skew young, but once you get into scientific theories, experiments, and programs, the vocabulary involved counteracts that tendency.) What was left was a tale of botany and genetics that fascinated me; scientists are approaching the problem from three distinct directions, and yet those directions will likely need to converge into a multipart solution if there are ever to be adult American Chestnut trees in our forests again. (When I say “our,” you understand, I’m speaking as a native Rhode Islander–there weren’t American Chestnuts here in Utah even before the blight.) My daughter listened, and even though she wiggled through parts, her clarifying questions made it clear that she understood most of what was going on.

Sadly, I don’t suppose Champion is quite the book to lure in science-haters; on the other hand, those interested in forests, trees, American history, and science in general will likely be engrossed by its story. In the meantime, I found it interesting–and it brought back precious memories of my pre-dementia father that I treasure.

Now we’ll see how my daughter does on her book report.