Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I just–as in, about 4 minutes ago–finished another Battle of the books book to pass on to my 5th grade son, and I figured I’d review it quickly so I could do just that! I wasn’t familiar with Kate Messner’s “History Smashers” series before I got the BOTB list, but overall, I’m impressed–History Smashers: Pearl Harbor is informative, accessible to its target audience, and full of well-integrated sidebars and comic panels. I learned some interesting things, and I’m hoping my son will, too; at the very least, I’M excited about the rest of the series. If you have a middle grader interested in history–or a middle grader that you want to GET interested in history–this one’s a solid choice.

In the meantime, we are most definitely grateful for the precipitation, dinner was lovely, and I’m really looking forward to bedtime. Goodnight all!

Welp–a week happened. Whoops! I suppose I was preoccupied with a friend’s family struggles, a Sunday School lesson, making rolls and pumpkin bars the morning of Fast Sunday, and a funeral which the entire family I grew up in attended. (A family friend we knew in RI; he was over 80.) Here I am, though, and this morning I’m reviewing Maggie Edkins Willis’s Smaller Sister, which (after a fair amount of deliberation) I just ordered for my 13-year-old for Christmas. (I don’t think she reads my blog regularly, but if she actually does and is reading this–Child, stop now!)

I deliberated for as long as I did because Smaller Sister isn’t a light read; it deals with anorexia and disordered eating, and there are some heartbreaking mean girl experiences there for good measure. On the other hand, it deals with a sister relationship that struggles as the sisters struggle but survives, and its message about body image resonated strongly with me. My 12-year-old has always gravitated towards the emotionally complex, and positive/hopeful messages/outcomes for difficult situations? That’s something I don’t mind her rereading more than once. Our daughters–and those of us who love them–should definitely read this one.

Remember the Idaho trip we postponed because my oldest was throwing up the morning we were supposed to leave? That finally happened this past weekend, and we really did pack a bunch in. We drove up Thursday afternoon and went to DI with my parents on Friday morning; Friday evening we had salmon and lemon rice for dinner and my brother’s family came over afterwards. We had cinnamon rolls on Saturday morning, a firepit at my sister’s at lunchtime, and then pizza for dinner at my brother’s, followed by pumpkin carving. We went to sacrament meeting at my brother’s ward before getting an elliptical from my sister, which would only fit into the car if we put down enough seats that my son ended up driving home later that night with my nephew and his fiance. (AND the gecko that was that same nephew’s until he went to college, passed to my brother’s youngest boy after that, and is now ours. We’ve gecko-sat for Palmer before, but now we’re his forever family!) I drove home with the girls after lunch, and it was not the best drive in the world–I pulled over to doze twice, and my youngest was carsick enough to think she was going to throw up, although she very thankfully didn’t. We stopped at my in-laws’ for dinner and then made it home in time to get the girls to bed on time; my son rolled in around 12:30 am.

And then yesterday was Halloween. But my oldest two had friends trick-or-treating with them, and they all seemed to have fun!

Today I spent the entire morning at the school doing PTA and school volunteer work, but I did manage to finish Illegal this evening, and that was a victory–it’s been hanging around my library shelf for YEARS. (Not an exaggeration.) It’s a graphic novel by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin–illustrated by Giovanni Rigano–and to be fair, it went plenty fast once I actually read the first five pages. Illegal is the story of Ebo, an African boy who leaves his country determined to find his brother so they can make their way to Europe, their sister, and a better life together. It’s a heartbreaking picture of the impossible choices too many people must make and the unreal experiences that refugees often endure, and there’s a reason it’s being taught in schools. Illegal is a book that cannot fail to foster empathy and understanding; don’t miss it.

Have I mentioned my impulsive (and relatively recent) purchase of 50 or so books at the library sale? They were 10 for a dollar, and given my current PTA status, I figured I’d donate most of them to the school for literacy night and keep what I wanted to keep. The catch, of course, is that I wanted to read them first…

Yeah, I have problems. On the other hand, I did finish Shine! the other day, and once I review it I can pass it on to my 13-year-old before donating it for next month’s school event. (It was good enough to be no hardship to keep, but I’m trying to be sensible!) If you’re not familiar, Shine! is the first book Chris Grabenstein and his wife, J.J., have co-authored, and it follows Piper Milly as she moves from a regular school to an expensive private one when her father gets a job there. She’s sure she’s going to be miserable in what she expects to be a sea of snobs, but to her surprise, there are plenty of nice kids to offset the mean ones. Piper is torn, however, between her preference to be inconspicuous and the reality of her mother’s legacy with the school. Can she find the right place for herself while still becoming the person she wants to be?

The Grabensteins’ collaboration has likable characters, a fantastic message, and a female main character passionate about science; it’s also a thoroughly entertaining story. (Honestly, if I weren’t on the PTA board, I’d probably end up keeping it.) Don’t miss this one!

The weather has turned, folks! There was SNOW yesterday–not that it stuck here, but it sure did in other places–after most of last week being in the 70s. (Which is insulting in October, in my opinion.) It’s brisk and gorgeous and wonderful and I LOVE IT.

In other news, I don’t really know WHAT happened on the 21st, but I didn’t post yesterday because after speaking in church and enjoying the company of a RI friend who currently lives in Utah County, I still had all my exercising to do after the kiddos went to bed. By the time I was done with that, my brain was switched off for the night; on the other hand, I finished reading Laurel Snyder’s Seven Stories Up to my 13-year-old before she went to bed, and so I figured I’d just review it today. It was–different–than I was expecting. I didn’t realize that my girlie is not a huge fan of the ‘finding yourself back in time’ plot until we’d already started it (I brought it to Virginia and we started it there, so she couldn’t really ask for other options). By the time we got back to Utah she was invested enough to finish it with me, however, and so together we followed Annie’s journey back in time.

The setting was really quite interesting–a fancy hotel in the late 30s, where Molly (Annie’s grandmother) is just a girl and locked away by herself on doctor’s orders. (She’s an asthmatic who suffered a bad bout of influenza a year or two previously, and hey, the medical practices of the 1930s.) Molly’s loneliness is the catalyst for an adventure that changes hearts and alters lives, but what if Annie can’t get back home to her own life?

I quite liked this book–it was completely enjoyable–and yet I didn’t actually LOVE it. Perhaps the problem was the length; I would have enjoyed a longer, more fleshed out story because history is my happy place, and yet the length and the briskness of the pace probably works better for the book’s intended audience. This is younger middle grade, definitely, and yet it touches on enough historical topics that it has real value for that audience. I guess what I’m saying is don’t expect an immersive experience, but do expect an enjoyable story?

Hmmm. Let me know what YOU think.

In late spring/early summer of 2020 a few friends and I started to swap library books to give ourselves and our kiddos more reading options, since the libraries were closed; my friend Andrea passed along Andrew Norriss’s Friends for Life, which my oldest read and exclaimed over. She told it me it was fabulous, that she couldn’t put it down, and so when the libraries reopened and we were able to return books again–hallelujah! because we were growing ourselves quite the pile–I checked it out on my card to read eventually.

I finished it this week.

I actually ended up getting it on Audible, since audio is how I manage to get through most things these days, and the narrator only added to the incredibleness that is Norriss’s book. She had me from the first chapter, and I found myself laughing out loud periodically even while feeling a great many other kinds of feels over the course of the story. This is a book about unexpected friendships that come along when least expected but most needed, and IT IS AMAZING. Seriously. Teens should read this book. Parents of teens should read this book. ADULTS, really. Okay, EVERYBODY should read this book. I can’t really give you more of the plot without spoiling a bit of the magic of discovery, but please believe me–this should make it into your house, onto your shelf, under your Christmas tree. I’m not sure I remember the last time I loved a book this much.*

*I loved it so much that I managed a review after 9:30 at night, since it’s been an odd sort of day and my 8th grader had a band concert this evening. I’m definitely turning into a pumpkin now, though, so goodnight sweet princes!

We drove up to Logan today to visit my niece, her hubby, and my adorable great nephew, and while it was definitely a good time, the drive home was awful. You know those drives where you spend up to an hour jiggling, pulling your arm hairs, and occasionally smacking your own cheek? (If you don’t, I’m jealous. Sometimes it’s SO HARD to stay awake on the freeway on a sunny afternoon…) We made it home safely, however–I felt blessed–and I’m hoping to be in bed relatively early tonight.

Hoping.

Before I start working to that end, however, I have to review Besties: Find Their Groove before my 13-year-old dies from the horror of having to wait for it ONE MORE DAY. This second Beth-and-Chanda story is fun and should seriously appeal to its target audience; as a parent of that audience, however, I sometimes felt like I was looking at someone else’s kind of art. (I had more than one moment of “OH my gosh I’m so glad I’m not in junior high anymore!”) That said, Find Their Groove addresses more than one topic that matters, and I can only appreciate books where seeing and valuing both boys and girls for themselves is emphasized. Enjoy this one!

Generally when I talk about a book having all the feels, it involves a dramatic scene or a significant event somewhere. Lisa Graff’s Absolutely Almost, however, is a different sort of experience altogether; its feels are as quietly significant as its protagonist. Albie is the kind of kid who takes longer to understand things than most. His reading is slow, math feels impossible, and he doesn’t easily perceive ulterior motives. (His clearly kinetic learning style–the hardest to teach to in a group setting–jumps out at my teacher self.) His parents make plenty of mistakes with him, some of them truly painful, and yet they love him and improve over the course of the novel. The catalyst for the story is Albie’s new nanny, referred to with hilarious accuracy by one Goodreads reviewer as being “perilously close to a manic pixie dream babysitter.” Calista sees Albie for himself and does her best to be what he needs in a caregiver, although she doesn’t always go about it wisely. Albie’s best friend also sees Albie for himself, but Erlan’s family (with its two sets of triplets) has become the subject of a reality show, and so the logistics of their friendship have grown more complicated. There is no one pivotal scene here, no dramatic reveal that changes everything, and yet Absolutely Almost is the tale of a boy’s life as it quietly grows and changes for the better–not easier, but better. It is a celebration of kindness as well as an acknowledgement of the different kinds of struggles we face, and I would honestly recommend it to everyone.

On the home front, our intended trip to Idaho this weekend was canceled due to vomit; yesterday I took the three younger kids mini-golfing for an outing, and we’re headed to Logan for the day on Monday to spend time with the great nephew we’re missing out on at the moment. Things happen, right? In the meantime, it’s 10:34 on a Saturday morning and I’m trying to decide how much longer to let the remaining sleepers sleep. What would YOU do?

One of the most miserable parenting dilemmas for all of us has to be when what’s in the best interest of one child seems to be diametrically opposed to what’s in the best interest of another. I’m grappling with that tonight, so send some prayers my way if you can!

In the meantime, yesterday I finished listening to Willa and the Whale, which my 13-year-old is looking forward to having passed to her. It took me longer than I wanted it to–partly because I kept stopping to google the interesting sea creatures it talked about–but it’s a completely worthwhile, poignant tale of a girl trying to deal with the sudden death of her mother. I especially appreciated the real-ness of the characters; none of the adults are awful villains BUT they make mistakes while trying to do their best, and Willa herself is self-absorbed in a completely natural way for a girl in her position. You’ll cheer for her, her family, and the rest of her ‘pod’ as they find their way forward through a myriad of life’s dilemmas–and if you’re like me, you’ll tear up at the end. (Maybe not just at the end.) I’m excited to see what my younger teen thinks of this one!

I finished Sue Macy’s Breaking Through: How Female Athletes Shattered Stereotypes in the Roaring Twenties today*, and I’m torn between loving how packed full of fascinating information its under-one-hundred-pages were and wishing there were an easier way to absorb it. Macy provides photos and newspaper articles from the 20s and highlights pertinent individuals; it’s all completely relevant, but it makes for all kinds of different text boxes and captions on a page. I had to decide where to pause the main text in order to read all of the surrounding information, and I found myself wishing that the book had been formatted so that a page always ended in a complete sentence. Editorially possible? I have no idea. It’s worth reading regardless; just be aware that continuous flow is not a phrase I’d use to describe it!

On the home front, my oldest had a bizarre defective tooth pulled at the oral surgeon today and did not particularly enjoy the experience. Then again, it’s OUT, and given how much pain it was causing her, she’s still happy it happened…

*And just for the record, I tried reading this one aloud with my picky-about-nonfiction-13-year-old, but I had to finish it alone.