Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

While I love that my 12-year-old still wants read-aloud time with me, most of our reads are fiction; our tastes intersect well enough that we never hurt for options there. She tends NOT to love my preferences in non-fiction–she thinks most of them are too sad–but we’ve occasionally managed, say, one of Sy Montgomery’s animal books together. On the other hand, I’ve had Christina Soontornvat’s All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team checked out ever since it became a Newbery Honor book, because I tend not to have the brain power for non-fiction at the time of day when I can read, uninterrupted, by myself. It finally occurred to me that since all thirteen were rescued, she might be up for it; I showed it to her and asked, she assented, and off we went to Thailand of an evening.

I have to say, it made an even better read aloud with her than I could have hoped for.* She never wanted to stop when we did, and by the time the dangerous rescue was ready to begin, I ended up having to read aloud for at least 45 minutes to get to an acceptable spot in which to pause. (I was just as caught up in the story as she was, but that’s hard on the vocal chords!) Yesterday, while my littles played with friends, we got the rest of the team out of the cave so that they wouldn’t be stuck in there when she goes to Oakcrest (a church camp for girls going into 8th grade), and let me tell you, we were both fascinated. The fact that the boys were sedated and their wrists and ankles secured with zipties so they wouldn’t drag and scrape–in my 12-year-old’s words, “it makes sense, but it’s still creepy!” The dangers involved made for quite the tale, but we also both loved seeing how many people worked together to help the Wild Boars, and in how many ways. (It’s nice to give your faith in humanity a boost.) I wasn’t particularly aware of the situation at the time–my youngest was still as much toddler as preschooler, and we were at a family reunion for much of the actual rescue–and that made reading about it even more fascinating. Don’t miss this one!

*Apart from all of those Thai names. I’m sure I butchered about 99% of them.

I’m not sure whether it was the sun at Bear Lake or sleeping poorly that week, but I have had the hardest time waking up in the morning ever since we got back. (Of course, I could–as always–stand to go to bed earlier.) Here I am, however, finally awake, mostly alert, and ready to review All Summer Long, so that my 12-year-old doesn’t DIE waiting for it. (In my defense, she’s already read it about a million times, but never in COLOR. As in, she read it in black and white, and the library copy we currently have is in black, white, and yellow-orange.) The house is quiet, since that 12-year-old has yet to come upstairs and I sent the littles out to skate and scoot while the temperature is still bearable. (And by bearable, I mean it’s 82 degrees outside, and while 82 in the shade is actually pleasant without humidity, it’s 9:18 in the morning. Ugh.)

So–All Summer Long. Which has been on my list for years now, because it keeps showing up on lists of notable graphic novels and whatnot. Having read it, I can see why it’s on those lists–it does a gentle job of highlighting the changes that come with friendships (especially boy-girl friendships) as we start growing up. We also see Bina dealing with new friendship developments and a family addition while her passion for music becomes more of a force in her life. I confess, the art is not my favorite, but the story is solid and Bina is thoroughly likable; I’m looking forward to the second Eagle Rock graphic novel. In the meantime, how to keep my 12-year-old from reading this on repeat all week long? I promised her older sister that I’d keep it until she gets home from FSY and has the chance to read it herself, which means I can’t just summarily return it to the library.

Ideas?

Well, we made it home from our family reunion–my husband’s side–more or less intact. Less, maybe, because while everyone but my hubby got badly sunburned somewhere, my second girlie ended up with actual, honest-to-goodness heatstroke.

We got to Bear Lake on July 4th and promptly served our assigned meal, of which we had ridiculous quantities of leftovers (I keep forgetting, when planning, that my family and my husband’s family do not eat the same way). We took our big family picture and did some fireworks that night. On Tuesday the 5th we went to a nearby adventure park with a tube slide, a rope course, an impressive zipline, and a few other things; my son had to be dragged there (he was overtired) but loved the tube slide, while my older girls and I did the rope course and my hubby tried the slide and kept an eye on our timid 7-year-old. Wednesday was our day actually at Bear Lake, and that’s where the problems arose. My 12-year-old was out from 9:30 in the morning to about 5 in the evening; she packed a lunch and so was out in the sun all that time, with only a bottle of water (with a flavoring packet inside) and a can of soda to drink. I rented kayaks without realizing that my sister- and brother-in-law owned and brought two, and so my oldest and I brought them at least a mile by water so that they could be very sparsely used; they mostly sat there and cost me a hundred bucks, plus the headache of getting them back over land. My hubby stood too much the first part of the day and was crazy sore, and none of us reapplied sunscreen. So–lessons we learned:

1. (My son, especially) Always have someone else sunscreen your back.
2. Sunscreen might last for the time in between meals, but that’s its limit. If you eat a meal,
reapply.
3. Make sure you get both sides of your legs–thoroughly.
4. Seven-year-olds will happily play in the sand for hours rather than spend much time in a kayak.
5. My in-laws are pretty great.

Once we were all back, showered, and fed I got my 7-year-old into bed, we had shakes, and then we played games. My poor fried 12-year-old was shivering when she went to bed but woke up hot and threw up around 1 am; she went back to bed, but the next morning she full on passed out–fainted–THREE times, twice in my arms. She was given a priesthood blessing, I googled, and dehydration seemed the most likely culprit, and so she sipped water lying down and then sitting and stayed conscious after that. She and my youngest did both throw up on the way out of Bear Lake–it was a very windy canyon and they were overtired and done with life by then–but we stopped at my niece’s in Logan to rest and refill water bottles and cups that had been depleted to rinse the bucket out, and then stopped at Cox’s Honeyland, where my 12-year-old sat in the air-conditioned car and the rest of us browsed. When we finally got home we unpacked the car and then what bags were absolutely necessary, did only necessary things the rest of the day, ate leftovers from the family reunion, and went to bed early.

ALL of us.

Anyway. Last night I finally managed to finish Charise Mericle Harper’s Bad Sister, which was autobiographical and somewhat difficult for me to read. It was compelling, and being a parent gave me much more perspective, but as a youngest child I was frequently frustrated by young Charise’s behavior. (I can appreciate the face blindness put her in a more difficult emotional place, at least, but still.) Ultimately, however, lessons were learned and karma comes into play. I’ll be interested to see how my older girls like this one…

Today my only son turned 10–double digits!–and what with being out of town and prepping for the holiday tomorrow, we weren’t as prepared as we might have been. Half of his presents, for instance, will be coming this week; he’ll get his birthday meals another day, since today was Fast Sunday; and as of yesterday, I had no book picked out to give him.

I, of course, realized this yesterday.

So. I googled book lists for 4th grade boys–because yes, he’s going into 5th grade, but he’s a summer birthday and a math boy–and came upon Louis Sachar’s There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. Hmmm, I thought. I’m pretty sure that’s available on audio, and I’ve got a used copy I picked up somewhere if I want to flip through the actual book. Serendipitously, it was immediately available on Libby, and so I listened to more than 75% of it yesterday. I was planning on ordering it before I went to bed–I peeked ahead at the last bit to make sure the ending didn’t disqualify it as a good book gift–and then I realized that the used copy that’s been laying around is very gently used, and who needs everything to be brand-new anyway? He unwrapped it this morning–by which I mean he took tissue paper out of the gift bag it was in, because it was that kind of a day–and I just finished listening to it over a puzzle. I got a little teary, because there were feels, and hey presto! the used copy is in my son’s possession and I get to review it now.

The plot is a very familiar one–caring adult helps kid who needs it–but also one that never gets old, provided it’s executed reasonably well. Sachar does–although not in the most realistic way I’ve ever seen–and I think his boy readers, especially, will relate to Bradley’s worries, thoughts, and feelings. If you’re looking for a book for a latter-elementary boy that doesn’t involve bathroom humor–and those can be frighteningly hard to find–this is a solid option. I’ll let you know what my son thinks!

I’ve been focusing on family for the last week up in Idaho, folks–we went up last Saturday, my nephew spoke in church on Sunday (and then started home MTC the next day), and we had time with my parents until another nephew’s baptism on Thursday evening before the drive home. (We got into our neighborhood before 10:30, so that was a win.) The time with my parents was bittersweet–my dad has vascular dementia, and that really, really sucks–but it was time, and that matters.

Next week we’re focusing our time on my hubby’s side of the family, but they’re still my family, and I’m deeply grateful for that. (It’s such a blessing to have married into a family that is now also my own–I know not everyone has that.) In the meantime, however, I finished reading Lupe Wong Won’t Dance a bit ago, and since I’m already thinking about what different sides of our families bring to us, it’s the perfect night to review it. Chinacan/Mexinese Lupe is all set to pitch in the major leagues someday, but she needs straight As in order to meet her baseball idol, and the square dancing unit in PE throws her for a major loop. Add the intrinsic awfulness of middle school, a regurgitated breakfast burrito, an serious best friend fight, coconut-scented malicious shaving cream, and some false front teeth, and you get a story of causes, friendships, and growth.

And square dancing. (Which was part of music class in my elementary school, by the by.)

Remember the book I compared to the most amazing stuffed peppers ever? Lupe Wong is also by Donna Barba Higuera, and since it’s not dystopian sci-fi, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot has a bit of a different feel to its journey–I’m honestly not sure I can even explain what I mean by that–but Lupe Wong also feels alive. Whether you read or listen–and the narrator on the audiobook is lovely–expect both laughter and tears; this is a book well worth your time.

Hello again…hello. (Thanks to two of my Idaho roommates and the Idaho boy one of them married, I have a smiling fondness for Neil Diamond.) It’s true I missed two posts there, but it does feel like I filled the time purposefully. The day before Father’s Day we did chores and then had a family outing to NPS before our Saturday night movie; on Father’s Day we feted my hubby, I taught a Sunday School lesson, and we went up to my in-laws’ for dinner; the next day the kids and I went to Logan to visit my niece and her newly-two-year-old. That night my girls were both anxious about leaving for Girls’ Camp the next day, and I wrote a 5 1/2 page letter to my 12-year-old about her fears and what she could do about them. (I also wrote a brief note to my 15-year-old and got to bed later than I wanted to.) They left the next morning–Tuesday–and I’ve been taking my littles where they need to go AND working on cleaning out my son’s room with them both(his little sister’s stuff being mostly still in there).

Last night we went back up to Clearfield for birthday pizza and cake, and then to Draper and then Centerville today (not to mention a sojourn at the bank for PTA purposes in the morning). Tonight, however, my son is having a cousin sleepover of sorts at Grandma’s house, and so I managed more time for other things; this included completing a second journey through Sarah Ruhl’s Smile: The Story of a Face, which I received an ARE of sometime last year and first listened to last November. It embarrasses me that I haven’t written a more timely review, especially since it’s such a lovely book; its depth and the power of Ruhl’s ruminations, however, made the prospect of writing this review intimidating. (To be completely honest with you, I’m tackling it now mostly because it’s a convenient time for me to pass it along to my sister to read, and I don’t pass books on without reviewing.)

I suppose Smile is a memoir–it says so on the cover of at least one edition, as well as in at least one of the back-of-the-book blurbs–and yet it also manages to be both deeply introspective (as opposed to simply narrative) and culturally profound. Ruhl made me think about our society’s view and treatment of a woman’s smile; she made me hurt with empathy for motherhood’s more difficult moments; and she did it in a contemplative literary fashion that avoided actual meandering. (Her profession shows there, of course, playwrights of necessity knowing how to make their individual–and collective–words count.) It took a second journey through it to feel like I could review it, and even now I find it difficult to describe. Ruhl herself, near the end, notes that Smile is a book in which “a woman slowly gets better,” and yet–and yet. After finishing it again tonight, I feel as if a woman whose friendship I valued wrote me a letter encouraging me in my own journey by sharing hers. (I am also humbled by the virtuosity of her intellectual AND emotional expression.) This is a book worth having in your life, and Sarah Ruhl is a woman whose voice contributes–in a truly positive way–to our society.

I feel like it should have. I don’t know if it was Covid or just a nasty something, but my hubby and I have been sick all week, as have (to a lesser degree) my 15- and 9-year-olds. I’m feeling close to better at this point, but you can still hear the lingering effects in my voice and the occasional cough. (I’m using that as an excuse for missing Wednesday, by the way.) As a result, our activities have been somewhat curtailed this week.

This morning, however, we thoroughly cleaned and vacuumed the living room, which is why my littles are downstairs taking turns playing Minecraft at the moment, my big girls are sorting clothes and watching “Psych” in the living room, and I’m taking the opportunity to review Anne Perry’s The Cater Street Hangman, which I finished listening to last night. (We actually inherited a mass market copy from Dieter, which is why I was listening to it in the first place.) Here goes, then…

First of all–and Britt, who’s read several more books in this series, assures me this isn’t an isolated incident–there is NO falling action here; you find out the killer’s identity in the last three pages, and the scene in which you find out is the final scene. (I’m apparently too big a fan of more than superficial closure to enjoy that style, but you do you.) Secondly, the book dragged a bit for me. Tension, unease, and unravelling relationships seem to be its primary focus, and yet the relationship that is supposed to be, um, ravelled doesn’t really develop at all. It just sort of–jumps. I imagine part of the problem is first-book-in-the-series syndrome–it’s working on setting the stage–but it still left me wanting more. I suppose if you want a psychological family drama that ends with the unveiling of a murderer, have at this one; for me, I’d rather have watched it on tv and had it take no longer than an hour and a half.

I love that my tween still wants me to read aloud with her, you know? We snuggle up together and enjoy both the story and the time together, and I’m selfishly hoping that she just keeps on wanting it. We finished reading The Stars of Summer together over the weekend–with two sessions in one day because she was absolutely going to DIE if we didn’t find out what happened–and it was a ton of fun. Picking up where All Four Stars leaves off, The Stars of Summer sees Gladys trying to balance her secret career as a food critic with summer camp and getting to know another kid author. Both her swimming and her relationship with her parents improve drastically, but wait–she must also foil a nefarious plot against her AND her editor!

Tara Dairman’s Gladys books are just FUN, folks. We laugh, we wince, and we enjoy the time together; who could ask for anything more? I imagine my tween is super anxious to get the next one, but the rest of us are in various stages of sick at the moment, and so I’m not as excited to read aloud as I usually am. Yesterday I was crazy exhausted and my whole body hurt; my almost 10-year-old son lay down to take a nap today, and my husband’s voice has dropped at LEAST an octave below normal. Thank goodness for cold medicine and Kleenexes! Whether it’s Covid or a miserable summer cold I don’t know, but it stinks. Whichever it is, I hope your household escapes it.

Our first week of summer went pretty well, all things considered–and as long as you don’t ask my son. (He says summer is so BORING. As he said this the night I took him and his siblings to the pool for two and a half hours, where they met friends and had a blast, I was unsympathetic.) We managed four appointments–five if you count my temple appointment–went to the library, to a shaved ice stand, to the park, to Walmart, to the aforementioned pool, and to lunch with my mother-in-law (with whom we also played games!). Oh, and I went to Costco twice. We also accomplished more than one task that need accomplishing, so there’s that, too.

I ALSO finished Lisa Greenwald’s TBH, This Is So Awkward–finished it this morning–and unfortunately, it was one of the lowlights of the week. The concept of a novel in text–an epistolary novel for the 21st century, right?–was promising, especially for my tween, but the execution…well.

1. Too little characterization. If there had been more texts with other people, or more emails, notes, and diary entries, the main three girls might have felt less like caricatures. As it is, read Jennifer L. Holm’s Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff for what characterization CAN be in this sort of format.

2. Adult overreactions OR misplaced reactions with no acknowledgement of same. There was no actual bullying in this book, despite what topics it’s listed under on Amazon. There were two instances of (very brief) anonymous texting that crossed into mean, one thoughtless mistake that was unintentionally cruel, and a whole bunch of social weirdness that didn’t qualify as anything else. It’s not mean not to automatically invite the new girl in school into your tightknit group. It IS weird for the new girl in school to contact someone she hardly knows and ask to be invited to his birthday party, and it’s doubly weird for the new girl’s mom to contact the birthday boy’s mom (whom she hasn’t met) to guilt her into having her son invite said new girl to his birthday party.

I won’t go on, except to say that the best middle grade novels are a pleasure for me to read as an adult; this was just annoying. I don’t doubt that a decent portion of the intended audience will be entertained, but there isn’t enough substance here for me to pass this book on to my tween; it falls under the category of ‘if she finds it herself, fine, but I have better books to recommend to her.’ If I were you, I’d skip this one.

Lisa Fipps’ Starfish has been on my radar for a bit in a background sort of way, but when it ended up on our elementary school’s ‘Battle of the Books’ list and my son wanted to start working on said list, I went ahead and checked out a hard copy for him and the audio for me.

There really aren’t words.

On the one hand, you could say that Starfish is about a girl being bullied because of her weight. On another hand, you could say it’s the story of a girl who, with the help of her therapist, begins to recognize and reclaim her worth in the face of a crowd of naysayers, some of whom are in her own family. Perhaps what I want to say is that it’s a testament to the power words and people can have in another person’s life; it made me think harder about who I want to be–and how I want to be–to the people around me.

This is a heartbreakingly beautiful book, and ultimately, a triumphant one; it’s also a vital read in today’s world. Don’t miss it.

P.S. (a word from the tween) An amazingly beautiful and heartfelt book. DEFINITLY a must!!! 6/5 stars.