Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I tend to have trouble posting on Saturdays, because everyone’s home OR needs shuttling and there’s always laundry and cleanup yelling for my attention. Today, however, while my 2nd or 3rd load of laundry is in and my littles are finishing lunch in silence (because arguing), I am determined to review at least ONE of the two books sitting and waiting for my attention. (It’ll give me a break from harassing my 12-year-old to DO her chores and do a decent job, rather than just veg as soon as she thinks no one’s paying attention.)

Once upon a time many moons ago, I LOVED Kara LaReau’s first installment in the “Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters.” (That would be The Jolly Regina.) I started reading its sequel–The Uncanny Express–by myself forever ago, but I wasn’t far enough in and got distracted by other things; recently, I decided to fix that by using it as my next read-aloud with my 12-year-old. We managed to finish it night before last, and now it’s another book I can remove from my currently-reading list. Wahoo!

As far as the book itself, I’m of two minds about it. Part of me got a huge kick out of its parody of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express; my enjoyment was only dimmed by my daughter’s inability to appreciate it. (She’s not a passionate mystery lover, and why else would a 12-year-old have read Christie’s book?) The other part of me missed some of the general punny humor of the first one, because it felt like the author’s energy was mostly focused on the Agatha Christie angle. I’ve been awfully tired lately, however, and so I may be feeling more critical than it deserves. Either way, Jaundice and Kale are still entertaining, and if you’re an Agatha Christie fan, you really shouldn’t miss this one!

I told you–December is going to be a “you never know when I’m blogging” sort of month, and so today you get a second book review. Why?

1. Because I’m a bit behind.
2. Because it’s supposed to snow all day and so I’m staying home and doing House Things.

I guess I should clarify that–I’m not working ON my house, I’m just doing things IN my house that need doing. Like laundry (I just put the second load in!), dishes (my dishwasher’s running and I washed my old (no removable inner pot) crockpot AND my rice cooker inner pot by hand), book reviews (my second today–go me!), prepping fruit leather base (next on my agenda), and wrapping for Christmas (I’ll be doing that while my fruit cooks down). And SO, in the interest of moving on down my list…

I decided to listen to Word of Mouse primarily because I was considering it as a Christmas gift for my son; by the time I finished it, however, I’d run into a snag. Apparently his teacher brought 5 or so of her favorite books to school–wrapped, perhaps?–and read teasers from them aloud before having interested students pick numbers to see who was closest and won the book in question. My son told me he was second closest but the first closest guesser had already gotten a book, so he won a book in school about a mouse.

That wasn’t by Beverly Cleary.

And that’s all he could remember about it. LITERALLY.

So. He said he’d bring it home and show me, but we’ve been crazy here and I don’t know if it’s even made it home yet. Good thing I realized he’d probably like the “Flashback Four” series as well, because I can’t order Word of Mouse for him unless and until he brings home the other book and I verify that it’s something else. Good times!

In the meantime, Word of Mouse was, to pick a cliche, good clean fun. Isaiah the blue mouse escapes from the “Horrible Place” with his family, but the rest of them are all caught again, leaving him free but alone and trying to figure out how to fend for himself. Luckily, he ends up joining another mouse ‘family’ and finding there’s far more inside and outside of himself than he ever dreamed possible. At almost 300 frequently illustrated pages, it’s a nice longer book for more reluctant readers, transitioning readers, and readers looking for adventures that always end safely. (Also animal fans.) Maybe if the book from his teacher is something different, he can get it for his birthday?

We have a winner, folks–my graphic-novel-obsessed 12-year-old is officially getting Katie the Catsitter for Christmas. Not only is it a perfectly age-appropriate story about friendships, trying to work for something you want (but not always succeeding), and some middle grade changes, but there are animals galore; the author is even PICTURED WITH HER PET BUNNIES in the back! (If you know my girlie, you know how perfect this is.) Katie is a completely likable heroine, and I LOVE the cats; the superhero angle is a bit different from my daughter’s usual fare, but I think she’s going to enjoy it. If you’re looking for female heroines, want a graphic novel appropriate for a 12-year-old to read approximately 500 times, or just love cats, this is most definitely the book for you.

When I started reading Anna Humphrey’s Megabat to my youngest last Friday, I was expecting it to take a while. Yes, the font is bigger and there are not infrequent illustrations, but still, 176 pages of reading aloud usually takes longer than a weekend. Here it is Monday, however, and I just finished it with her. (The cough I kept her home for on Friday has blossomed, she sounds more like a frog than a 6-year-old when she talks, and she’s possibly running a low grade fever.) I read a chunk of it to her yesterday while the rest of the family was at church, and then we finished it over lunch today, because why not? And I thought it was cute. (She says it’s a thumbs middle, although I don’t know that she’s feeling terribly enthusiastic about anything in her current state.) Daniel makes a good regular-kid protagonist, and a talking bat with a wonky way of speaking does a pretty good job of distracting him from the difficulties of moving. A loyal pigeon, a new friend next door, and her (possibly overly) evil younger brother round out the main characters in this simple book. It should appeal especially to animal fans or those struggling with moving, but the font size and illustrations also make this a good choice for the transitioning-to-longer-books-but-still-young-enough-to-be-overwhelmed crowd.

Okay, my sentence length and overall writing in this review leave something to be desired, but it took me forever to fall asleep last night, so I’m just going with it. Have a great day, everybody!

I’ve been putting off my review of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir for months and months, not because I didn’t love it but because I did and I’ve been struggling with how to characterize it. At this point, however, I’m just going to jump in, because needs must! So, without further ado…

This book was delightful, but in the most substantive way possible. (I’m hoping you know what I mean by that, because it’s now officially the holidays, and explaining it feels too time consuming.) I can’t help comparing it to Dear Mrs. Bird, which is also a debut novel set in England during WWII, but where Dear Mrs. Bird focuses on the young adults of the time, The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, if anything, focuses on a village. Within that village we have a group of protagonists, including a few children, one young (barely) adult, a widow whose son has just gone off to war, a devious midwife of indeterminate age, and various other adults of various ages–in other words, it’s a story about a community. Some members are thoroughly unreliable narrators, which provides some of the comic relief necessary in any story that deals with war and loss; others are more reliable but still manage to grow a good bit over the course of the novel.

You know what? I think I’m going to leave it there. If I were to try to summarize the various villagers’ stories and how they weave together, we’d be here all day–and at the end of November, ain’t nobody got time for that. Suffice it to say that Jennifer Ryan does an impressive job with the weaving; there’s a lot going on here, but it’s skillfully handled and connected. This is a book that balances tragedy with triumph, heartbreak with humor, and gravity with a solid dose of the absurd, and I’m not sure I can recommend it highly enough. Prepare to cheer for Mrs. Tilling and the members of Chilbury’s new Ladies’ Choir!

Okay, folks. I’m sure y’all noticed that I did other things over most of Thanksgiving week rather than blog–things like make pies, and play games, and eat way too much pie, and spend time with family–and December is a busy month for everybody. Let’s just acknowledge, then, that between now and New Years, posts will not happen with any regular order or consistency!

Anyway. I did, however, finish Dusti Bowling’s The Canyon’s Edge this past week, and it was unexpectedly intense. Nora’s recent past is traumatic enough–her mom died in the same shooting that lamed her father–but when she and her father are separated by a flash flood during a hike in a slot canyon, she must fight her way through the desert’s dangers as well as her own (literal) nightmares to find her way back to the only parent she has left.

Okay, that sounds dramatic, which it is, but it’s NOT overly or melodramatic. It’s taut and raw and hard for a mother to read, and yet the level of triumph in adversity–rather than over–is endlessly moving. I honestly wish I could give this to both of my older daughters to read; neither, however, is currently up to that level of raw emotion. (My older daughter is struggling to regulate her mental health at the moment, and my younger daughter has been anxious since a boy in three of her classes was hit by a car and died on Halloween weekend.) At the moment I’ll have to settle for recommending it to friends and teens who don’t have extenuating emotional circumstances, because it’s completely and totally worth your time.

And since I rarely give my kids books that I haven’t read–if we’re going to own something, I like to be sure it’s worth owning–there’s going to be some mad reading and listening going on in the next couple of weeks. Last night I finished listening to Rodman Philbrick’s Wildfire, which I was hoping might suit my 9-year-old son; it was a thrill ride and a half, but I’m afraid the emotional context and development is going to be a bit beyond him still. Think of it as an older version of the “I Survived” books–he loves those, but he’s a very young fourth grade boy who prefers math to reading, so I’ll hold on to Wildfire for another year or three (depending). Sam and Delphy make for great protagonists and a Maine wildfire an impressive villain. At least one review mentioned a damsel-in-distress aspect, but I didn’t see it that way; both kids contribute skills and grit to their eventual escape. Their partnership grows into friendship without any element of romance, which is wise on Philbrick’s part; adding that in would have been a distraction. (And in case you’re wondering, I just decided to embrace my love of semi-colons today.) If you have a latter-elementary student who loves adventure, this is the book, especially if said student has been enjoying the “I Survived” books for a couple of years; I’m looking forward to my son reading it when he’s old enough to get more out of it than he will now. In the meantime, on to the next gift contender!

My oldest turned 15 this week, folks–FIFTEEN.

I am not ready to have a child with a driver’s permit.

On the other hand, that incredible, 15-year-old girlie of mine has also been having some health issues, and trying to ease those has consumed a fair amount of my mental energy of late. Today, however, I’m reviewing Kayla Miller’s Clash, which I pushed myself to finished yesterday so that my 12-year-old could get her greedy little hands on it. (Little being part of the expression, since she’s slightly taller than her newly 15-year-old sister…although that’s not exactly a Herculean feat.) Kayla Miller’s books about Olive tend towards the cozy side of middle grade graphic novels; the conflicts never get raw, and Olive always has a healthy level of love and support. In Clash, however, the new girl in Olive’s class takes advantage of Olive’s friendly overtures and is downright mean to her in a sly, always-subtle-when-in-front-of-other-people sort of way. Her reasons for her actions and the resolution of the conflict felt too cozy for Nat’s level of meanness, at least to me; I’m a parent, however, and a parent of girls who have had these sort of clashes on occasion. I do think that even the intended audience might find the ‘everybody seems to get along in Olive’s grade’ idea unrealistic (laughable?), but on the other hand, there’s something to be said for showing kids better ways to socialize and deal with conflict than they’re probably experiencing in real life. Ultimately, this is likely to appeal to its intended audience and Olive’s eventual actions are worth emulating; I just don’t think it works as well for parents.

Have a good day, y’all!

For those of you who are singing Whitesnake in their heads right now–you’re welcome. I hope you enjoyed that trip down memory lane! For those of you who are rolling your eyes at my flakiness yet again–yeah, I know. But we’ve had various things going on here, and sometimes mental energy and concentration are hard to come by, you know?

Anyway. Flagging mental energy notwithstanding, last night I finished reading Kelly Jones’ Sauerkraut aloud to my 12-year-old, and I can’t bring myself to let it sit around the house for another week when I could review it tonight and bring it back to the library tomorrow (Tuesday being my current library day). If my review reflects tired, less-than-stellar writing, well–I feel like there’s a lot of that going around lately.

On the bright side, however, my girlie and I both got quite a kick out of Sauerkraut. HD is a thoroughly likable protagonist, and his African-German-American heritage makes for an unusual but fabulous mix. His parents are good, solid parents–we need more of those, in and out of literature–and Eli is the kind of friend I wish more kids had at that age. (Asad, of course, is a typical younger brother. Which is both good AND bad!) More than anyone else, however, it is Oma who steals the show–the ghost of HD’s great-great-grandmother. Her obsession with sauerkraut and her yearning for her family complicate HD’s life at times, but that only makes her character and the ending more delightful. This is a story about heritage, about family and why it matters, about friendship and personal goals and accomplishments–and about sauerkraut. (Also about various other German foods, but mostly sauerkraut. Have I mentioned that I quite enjoy good sauerkraut?) If you’re looking for a Christmas book for a middle school boy who likes computers and his extended family, Sauerkraut is an excellent option. (It’s also a fabulous read if you want to alternately laugh, cry a little, and hit your nearest German deli on the way home.) Enjoy!

In case you’re wondering where I’ve been–because I really didn’t just flake–my hubby and I took the kiddos to see Dude Perfect live in Boise this past Friday. (We’re all fans–some of the kids are hardcore–and while DP still hasn’t come to Salt Lake, Boise’s last minute addition to this year’s tour worked out quite nicely!) We spent some time with family on Saturday, made my cousin’s baby’s blessing Sunday morning, and drove back to Utah in time for Sunday dinner with my in-laws. (A quick trip, I grant you, but we packed it full!) Yesterday I spent time on the phone trying to fix some house issues, time trying to organize basic chore lists for my kids, and time with friends trying to process the idea of going gluten- and dairy-free for a month to see if it helps my oldest with her current tummy issues. (I was feeling overwhelmed.) Today I tackled laundry mountain, hit the library–and finished reading Truly Tyler while waiting to pick the littles up from school. Wahoo! My second oldest hounded me for it for weeks until I let her read it before I was finished (to make up for her missing school for her Covid test); now that I’m finished, I’m sure she’ll do a quick re-read before it goes back to the library. (I think my oldest still cares about Libenson’s “Emmie & Friends” as well, but I guess we’ll see!) In the meantime, I’m relieved to be done trying to read a 300-plus page graphic novel in bed with my little-kid-hands–it’s not so bad when you’re in the middle of it, but the beginning and the end put the weight in my hand off-balance enough to be uncomfortable. (First world problems…)

It was a fun addition to Libenson’s series, though. Having a boy as one of the main characters was a fun change, and the dynamics among family members, fellow students, and teammates felt authentic. Trying to balance friends in different groups is a challenge that teaches important skills, and deciding whose opinions to value and why is vital to the growing up process. Emmie is definitely a main character here, and she and Tyler’s friendship journey should have widespread appeal. This is a solid middle grade graphic/illustrated novel about valuing friends and finding the right balance in life–definitely give it a try!