Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

On Sunday night I finished Yolanda’s Genius, a Newbery Honor book from 1996 (that would be the year I graduated from high school, by the way). And I’m finding reviewing it to be a complicated process, partly because I’m not–quite–sure just how much I liked it.  (Let’s face it–I don’t exactly have regular problems forming and sharing opinions…)  Here goes nothing, I guess!

1)Basic Plot:  Yolanda’s family moves from Chicago to a Michigan suburb because her mother fears for her children’s safety; even the suburbs, however, have their dangers.  Yolanda is tasked with both protecting her little brother and finding a way to convince their mother that he’s actually a musical genius, all while settling in and learning how not to let her mistakes get in the way of making a friend.

2)Writing style:  My preferred writing style is more on the ‘lyrical’ end of the spectrum; Yolanda’s Genius is more just–straightforward.  (Not necessarily simple.  The Book of Mormon scripture where Nephi glories in plainness comes to mind, actually.)  It works for Yolanda, and while it doesn’t seem particularly moving at first, there are passages that I found myself overwhelmed with emotion while reading.  In fact, I started this book several years ago and put it down because of how successfully the author described the pain involved in one of her key plot points.  It may not be my usual style, but there’s definitely something to it.

3)Resolution:  While somewhat improbable, the ending was satisfying.  So was the middle, actually.

4)Point to Ponder:  Can a white woman successfully write a novel from the perspective of various members of a black family?  If I don’t think so, does that mean I automatically think that a black woman can’t successfully write a like novel about a white family?  I’m inclined to think it’s a bit less about race and more about culture; I would feel more comfortable writing a novel about a black family who grew up in an area and circumstances familiar to me than one about a white family from a distant, wildly different culture.  Some aspects of culture are probably tied to race or ethnicity, but I don’t believe all of them are.  I did wonder, though.  What do you think?

5)Bottom Line:  I actually think this one is worth your time.  I didn’t find Yolanda to be completely likable, but I was certainly cheering her on (mostly) before the book was halfway over.  And for parents and teachers who find Andrew’s loss to be almost unbearable, don’t worry–it comes out okay in the end.

Today, I am grateful.

I am grateful for my mother, my mother-in-law, my sister, and my sisters-in-law.

I am grateful for my aunts, those on earth, those beyond the veil, and those by marriage.

I am grateful for my mother-friends.

I am grateful for the women who have mothered and mentored and loved me.

I am grateful for the grandmothers that I hope to know better in the next life, and for my abuelita who made my grandfather’s last years happy ones.

I am grateful for my four beautiful children.

I am blessed.  And I am grateful for it.

That’s the thing about having a baby.  You make your go-to easy meals over and over again when you’re pregnant, because there is just no energy to be had (not to mention no desire to spend more time with food than absolutely necessary).  Then you have a newborn, and until the baby starts feeding itself, you still need easy meals.  Except that by this time, you’ve exhausted all of your regular options and you’re kind of desperate for new recipes that are magically easy and delicious, because dinnertime has become a terrifying juggernaut of MAKE DINNER SHOWER THE GIRLIES CLEAN UP THE KITCHEN AS YOU GO AND FEED THE BABY FOR HOURS ON END!  (And if all of those things don’t happen in a timely fashion, either the girlies are in bed late on a school night and grouchy in the morning, or I’m using my precious and limited child-free time to do dishes, dishes, dishes.  Or the baby is screaming.)

Anyway.  In my seemingly endless quest for easy meals, I came across this recipe for One Pot BBQ Chicken Pasta on one of my Pinterest boards, and thought–hey!  I can do that!  And so I did.

I didn’t necessarily do it well, though.  I didn’t read closely enough to realize the bacon was supposed to stay in the whole time, which might have changed the flavor (although I may still be an advocate for removing it and adding it at the end, for the crispiness).  And I forgot to turn down my burner after my meat was definitively browned, which meant my onions and garlic and chicken weren’t really cooked to perfection.  I also used whole wheat pasta, which almost overpowered the other flavors, sad to say.  (I just really, really love regular pasta.  I’m trying to lean healthier, though.)  I also wish I’d used evaporated milk instead of regular, and possibly upped the milk and lessened the water (I use bouillon cubes and water for the chicken broth).  Creamier would have been nicer.

What I’m really saying is that I will try it again, but I’d like to execute the recipe better and tweak a few things.  No one complained about it, though, which is a nice thing.  Now–what are YOUR go-to easy recipes?

(Please share.  I’m feeling a little desperate about the whole thing.)

Yes indeedy, folks, I have FINISHED this year’s Newberys!  (Not that it’s been hard; remember, this was the year of two verse novels and a graphic novel.  I think I’ve mentioned my ambivalence about that.)  Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming took forever to come in at the library–it won more than one award this year–but come in it did, and I finished it on Sunday.

And what did you think?, you ask.

Hmmm.

Woodson certainly writes beautifully enough to pull off this kind of a verse novel–make no mistake about that.  She captures certain moments of her life in vivid perfection.  The longing of a girl that left behind family in both Ohio and South Carolina to end up in Brooklyn was poignantly illustrated, even as those illustrations showed us the ultimate adaptability of childhood.  I fully enjoyed the book, in fact; I do, however, wonder if it would be better termed an autobiography, rather than an autobiographical novel.  Memoirs allow for a bit less cohesiveness, and while Brown Girl Dreaming did have a message, it also had a more meandering plot.  (I possibly felt that the end was a bit more meandering than the rest of it, but that was an impression; I’m not sure I can back it up with specifics.)

Incidentally, I read an article that questioned the necessity of ‘Brown’ in the title; the author wondered if its presence would prevent it from reaching the full audience it deserves.  I’m not sure I agree with that concern; I may not be a brown girl (meaning I’m awfully white for even a white girl–it goes with the hair), but the title didn’t particularly affect how I felt about it going in.  I might agree, however, that ‘brown’ is unnecessary.  I’m honestly not sure.

Ultimately, Brown Girl Dreaming is well-written, and there were things I really enjoyed about it; I’m certainly glad I read it.  On the other hand, I wonder if it might not be too autobiography-ish for its intended audience.  Her girlhood was heavily influenced by the politics of the time–will girls nowadays care enough?  Time will tell, I suppose.  I’m not sure I loved the complete package of the novel enough to tell the world they all have to read this book, but for those who enjoy memoirs, verse novels, or history, it’s well worth your time.

You know what good friends do?

Good friends come when you’re sick, even when there’s a possibility their family’s recent virus might have been different than yours, leaving them (and their kids!) at risk of getting the evilness that hit you like a ton of bricks.

Good friends organize May the 4th parties with activities for their kids AND yours, AND they make sure you have pictures of them to blog about even if it turns out you’re just too dang tired to ask your husband how to post them.  (And make no mistake, he’s the technology behind this blog.)

And good friends show up at your door with ice cream after you cried on the phone to them during a difficult day with your overtired 8-year-old. And Snickers bites.  And Grape Vines.  (She despises grape flavoring.  She also brought ice cream for my hubby.)

Good friends are one of the greatest blessings in this life.  Make sure all of yours know how awesome they are.

My parents are in town for a couple of days on their way to my sister’s house in Colorado, and by a happy coincidence, my hubby got one of his occasional free-new-movie-and-treat deals from work for last night.  When you have a newborn, you really don’t get out much, which is why, even sick, I was completely thrilled at the opportunity.  Of course, there was this conversation:

Hubby:  It’s the Avengers.

Me:  Okay.

Hubby:  Have you seen the other Avengers movie?

Me:  No.

Hubby:  Have you seen Thor?

Me:  No.

Hubby:  Thor 2?

Me:  No.

Hubby:  Captain America 1 or 2?

Me:  No.

Hubby:  ANY of the other movies?

Me:  No.

Hubby:  Hmm.  Okay….

(In my defense, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him; he sees movies without me all the time while he’s working on stuff downstairs, but I almost never see movies without him.)

Happily, however, it didn’t seem to be a big deal that I hadn’t seen the other movies.  I did have to lean over and ask, “Who’s THAT?” a few times–Hawkeye is a character on M*A*S*H as far as I’m concerned, and a black widow is a spider–but I used to watch “The Incredible Hulk” with my brother when I was VERY young, and I remember the taglines for the Captain America movies.  (I’ve also seen “Adventures in Babysitting,” giving me a nodding acquaintance with Thor.)  Either way, it wasn’t hard to pick up on the plot, and it was fun to see the oddly assorted group of heroes saving the world.  Some of the crashing got a bit dicey with the sinus headache I was flirting with, but at least the noise hid my occasional coughing fits.  It was, overall, a fun movie–and it was sheer bliss to be out with my husband for once.  Wahoo!

I sometimes manage to elude the bugs that cycle through my kiddos; not this time.  This one has a throat-tearing cough plus a couple of days’ worth of fever, which doesn’t often happen at my house.  My hubby has been helping out, and my girlies both prayed for me last night (which made me feel loved while simultaneously making me wonder if me whispering constantly is freaking them out).  What always kills me about being sick is how much I miss things that I take completely for granted most of the time.  Oh, to breathe through my nose and swallow without discomfort! What really kills me, though, is not being able to sing to my kiddos at night.  I don’t have a great voice, but I do like to sing them a song at bedtime.   The last two nights Middle #1 has sung to me instead.  Which is sweet, mind you.  I just wish I could return the favor.

(By the way, on the topic of singing…ever since I had children, whenever I see even a clip of “The Sound of Music” I find myself wondering how it would be to sing to my kids and sound like THAT.  Because it doesn’t get much better than Julie Andrews, friends.  It just doesn’t.)

I went through my old haven’t-tried-yet recipe cards from my Taste of Home magazines after the baby was born and pulled out a small stack that I felt I could realistically make with an infant around.  They had to be relatively easy, of course, and not require a lot of work right before dinner; one of those recipes was this Bacon-Colby Lasagna, which called for relatively few ingredients and could easily be made ahead of time.  I tried it on dance night last week, which meant that my oldest didn’t try it, but the boy was a fan.  Middle number one was deep in the sleepy throes of a virus and had zero appetite, so it’s hard to say what she thought of it; my hubby liked everything but the actual lasagna noodles (“I don’t love big noodles”), and I thought it was pretty good.  I did throw some Worcestershire sauce into the sauce for added flavor, and I cut the bacon to 3/4 of a pound (I just couldn’t bring myself to use an entire package for the one pan-full I was making).

Here’s the thing, though.  If there’s meat, cheese, and a tomato-y sauce, it’s hard not to like something as far as I’m concerned; that said, my husband summed up my feelings perfectly when I told him what was in it.  “I’m not sure that’s the best use for bacon…”

I couldn’t agree more.  Sure, the taste was pleasing.  You couldn’t necessarily taste the bacon as bacon, though; instead, it just added a smokey, savory element to the sauce.  It likely made the lasagna more filling as well–meat does–but I ended up feeling that it was a lazy choice.  Why not season the sauce for the smokey/savory effect?  (Do you know how much bacon is per pound?!)  It would be MUCH more economical (not to mention ultimately more successful).  I have better things to do with 3/4 of a pound of bacon then mix it with a pound of ground beef in a tomato sauce, and Mel’s Cowboy Spaghetti sauce has better flavor.  I did like it, and it made enough that I froze a second meal’s worth, but I probably wouldn’t bother making it again.

I’m still scarred enough from a month’s worth of Dracula that even after reading Hidden, I picked another short book for my fourth book this time around.  Ellen Conford’s Dreams of Victory is 102 pages long, at least in the Apple Paperback version (which totally took me back to childhood, by the way).  I went into it figuring it’d be an okay read and I’d probably get rid of it when I was done.

I did not expect it to be quite so funny.

By the time I was halfway through, I’d resigned myself to keeping it around; I laughed out loud (literally!) multiple times.  Victory is a likable 11-year-old with a penchant for really big daydreams, living a fairly normal life in what was then the present (it was written in 1973).  I knew I’d lost the battle over whether it will continue to take up space on my shelves around the time of her school play.  Victory is cast as ‘Litter,’ to be swept off of the stage at the end, but what really got me was the overall performance:

Smog forgot almost all of his lines and most of the time just stood there and looked dirty.  He had a very strange costume made of some                  filmy gray kind of material, and half the kids thought he was Tinkerbelle.

I was entertained.

Which is why I find myself unable to get rid of this short, kid-friendly tale of a girl who spends the whole book imagining she is good at other things before realizing what her true talents are.  It’s out of print, which isn’t surprising, but it’s available used on Amazon for a song (sadly, it doesn’t appear to be in the Salt Lake County Library system).  I think it’s more than worth it.

As much as I kind of enjoyed reading Dracula, it was ridiculously discouraging for me to spend a month on one book; it doesn’t happen super often.  (Of course, I generally average shorter books than Dracula.  And, to be fair, I’ve had several non-fiction books that have taken me months.  I wasn’t reading them exclusively at the time, though.)  Which is why, after I finished it, I grabbed the shortest library book I had, for the sheer pleasure of finishing something else in the same night.   It was a beautiful thing!  I love reading books, but–because of my out of control library habit–I also love finishing books and returning them to the library.  And there really was a feeling of–I’m back!  I can do this!  I can finish books again!

Okay, yeah, I get that not everyone is going to share my enthusiasm.  And that’s okay.  Some people run marathons, which I cannot share any enthusiasm for.  We all have our things.

Whether or not we’re into the same things, however, doesn’t change the fact that Hidden:  A Child’s Story of the Holocaust is well worth your time.  As mixed as my feelings may be about it, graphic novels are here to stay, and they can attract kids that other formats might not.  Hidden is a graphic novel about a grandmother sharing her Holocaust experiences with her granddaughter; the details of the art aren’t my favorite thing about the book, but it’s a skillfully told story nonetheless.  It walks the line between telling the truth and not overwhelming its young target audience rather well (and that’s not a line that’s easy to find).  I tend to avoid Holocaust fiction–there are too many good memoirs out there, waiting to be read–but I made an exception for this one.

I’m glad I did.