Book Club Review: The Weird Sisters

I loved so much about this book.  I loved that the characters always had their nose in a book.  I loved that it was told from the first person using "we" instead of "I".  I loved the father who would always quote Shakespeare and leave his family to search out the meaning.  I loved the stories of sisters.  And, I loved how real and flawed the characters were.

Bean flees for home after a disastrous stint in New York where she stole money from her employer to buy clothes.  Cordy, the baby, flees for home after she finds out she is having a baby.  And, steadfast Rose, is home thinking she is the glue that holds it all together.

I enjoyed reading about how they navigated each other and plodded their way through their messes.  Eventually they each let go of their expectations of how things were "supposed" to be.  

Reporting In

After my post on Margaret Wise Brown, I did go to Amazon and buy a couple of her books.  Imagine my joy at finding a book about trains, which my two-year-old loves.

This book has the same cadence as Goodnight Moon and The Big Red Barn.  At times, it nearly rhymes.  From what I can gather, after MWB passed away, she left the rights to her unpublished novels to her sister, who has since published some of them.  I think this book is one of them.  The illustrations are well-done although Caleb has asked what several of the pictures are, so maybe they are not that clear to a two-year-old.  The book shows the travel of two trains side by side - one an actual streamlined train, the other a wooden toy train.  One is going through the countryside, the other going through the house.  The comparison between the trains on each page is creatively illustrated.  We've already read this book about two dozen times and I'm not sick of it yet, and needless to say, neither is Caleb.

I also ordered  The Fathers Are Coming Home, thinking it might be a good one to have on hand when we start reading books about homecomings when my husband's deployment is over.  This one is cute, but not as interesting as the other book.  The text is simple.  The pictures are more cartoon-like.  There really isn't a storyline, just a series of animal daddies coming home to their babies, and then a sailor daddy coming home to his little boy.  The one thing that bugs me about the book (and others commented on it in their reviews), is that one line is about the lion daddy who lives alone and comes home to himself.  That just seemed weird to me, given the point of the book.  Overall, though, it's a pretty cute book and I think will be one I'll pull out when the time comes to read our other homecoming books.

In order to get free shipping, I also ordered this boxed set, which was an incredibly good deal.  I had checked out Mommy Hugs and Daddy Kisses from the library and my son had loved both books.  The additional two books in this set aren't quite as good, but still really cute.  The illustrations in this series are adorable.  The animals look lovable and somehow convey quite a bit of emotion.  These books work well as an avenue of expressing love to your child.  As I read them to Caleb, he always has a big smile on his face and if I act them out (Mommy monkey hugs her baby with a pat), I always get a happy giggle.  This would make a great baby shower gift, or just a collection into your board book library.  I don't foresee these books being entertaining beyond the toddler years but we are sure enjoying them now.

April's Pick

We'll be reading this novel, The Map of Love, for the month of April!  Enjoy!

Perennials For Every Purpose

Yesterday was the first day of spring.  Today it is snowing.  Sigh.

In my spring fever, I found this used book at Hastings for $6.50.   In addition to our raised veggie beds, we are planning three flower beds.  I love tulips, but am too late for this year.  I'd like to do a couple of peonies because they are stunning and I have the perfect south facing spot for them.  But, other than that, I am clueless when it comes to plants and flowers.

I think this is a great resource for the clueless type.  It has big and colorful pictures.  And, it assumes that your are a beginner gardener.  The author shows you his favorites and breaks them up into categories like No Work perennials (plant and go!) to minimal work perennials to perennials to attract birds and butterflies.

What I found especially helpful was that each entry has a Good Neighbors section that lists other plants that would look nice and work well with that plant.  And, the beginning has some sample garden plans with a nice illustration and how many of each plant and where to plant it.  Hard to mess that up!

When planting annuals I am totally haphazard and anything goes.  But, I understand the need to plan when investing in long-term landscaping.  Of course, knowing me, it will end up jungle looking!

Margaret Wise Brown

I was browsing in Barnes and Noble with a friend, looking at the Easter display in the children's section, when she exclaimed, "OH!  I had this book when I was little.  I loved it." and she hugged it to her chest.  I picked it up and leafed through it and it was adorable.  Then I noticed the author, Margaret Wise Brown. 

I had no idea the author of Goodnight Moon was such a prolific writer.  We love Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny.  And The Big Red Barn is one of my all-time favorite books.  We've also bought The Train to Timbucktoo. 

I love classic/retro books.  Of course, some are too wordy or the pictures are too dull for my 21st century kiddos to enjoy.  But many of Brown's books are not like that.  Illustrated by different authors, the pictures certainly evoke different feelings but the overall cadence and almost-rhyming nature of most of her books draw my kids and I both in, making reading it over and over again an actually enjoyable experience.  Heading to Amazon now!

The Girl Who Chased The Moon

Another one of Sarah Addison Allen's books.  They are like candy and I can't get enough.  She also wrote Garden Spells and The Sugar Queen.

This is by far my favorite of her books.  All of them have been fun to read and all have been read in one sitting.  I love the magical elements, the food, and the mystery.

After her mother dies, Emily moves to a small North Carolina barbeque town to live with her grandfather whom she has never met.  She soon learns that her mother left after something horrible happened and now Emily has to live down her mother's reputation.

There is a little bit of romance.  A lot of cake baking (recipes included at the end of the book).  Mysterious lights and wallpaper that changes on a whim.

I would recommend this book when you are in need of something light and fun.

Sweet, Shattered Dreams

I was excited to dive into the next book by West sitting in my library stack.  Unfortunately, it was nowhere near as intriguing as Amos. 

Of course, like anyone, I like reading about places I've been or lived.  And this book took place about ten miles from my home.  It was fun to read the name of the grocery store where I go a few times a month, and to picture the ranch nestled up by the mountains.

However, the writing felt more forced.  I loved the lyrical, almost poetry-like passages in parts of Amos.  That same style felt awkward to me in this book.  The plot seemed interesting at first.  The story is about a washed-up country singer who, through a series of circumstances, is assumed to be dead but is in fact not.  He goes into hiding to try to find a way to make a life under an assumed name and finds the perfect place to hole up - a ranch in Big Sky country.  The various cast of characters were somewhat redeeming.  However, the love story part of the book just made me irritated.  It seemed so unrealistic.  I knew almost exactly what was going to happen before it began to unfold.

Overall, it was an okay book.  The familiarity and interesting characters brought alot, but weren't enough to overpower the trite story line and forced poetic passages.

666 Park Avenue

I've been sick this week.  Which means lots of laying around.  Which means needing a book to read.  Nothing heavy.  Beach read.  Chick lit.  Brain candy.

This book didn't take long to read and was exactly what I needed:  a little escape.  And while it served its function as a little get away, I can't really say it was a good read.  It was just something to read.

Jane's parents died when she was 10 months old.  She is then raised by her very overprotective grandmother in the French countryside.  She runs away from said grandmother to start her life in Paris.  She has just met a wealthy and handsome man and that is where the story begins.  He proposes to her after a month of dating.  She finally goes back to her grandmother's to introduce her fiance and her grandmother is dead, leaving her a note telling her that she is a witch.  Suddenly all the weird electrical debacles that seem to follow Jane around make sense.

She goes to New York with her fiance who happens to be New York royalty.  And, happens to be from a witch family.  She soon discovers the whole thing has been orchestrated by his mother, Lynne, to produce magical progeny.  Jane finds herself having to learn quickly how to use her magic to save herself and her fiance.

Poorly paced.  Not very good writing.  Fantastically bad plot.  Oh, and it sets itself up for a sequel.

However, exactly what I needed in my cold medicine fog.

Book Art

Now this is cool.



by Brian Dettmer



Neat, huh? Brian Dettmer uses old encyclopedias, medical journals, and dictionaries to make these original sculptures. Check out more of his work here.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport

I liked Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.  I had never seen the movie, so I watched it a few weeks ago and loved it.  So, when I picked up this book and the cover said, "playful and devoted homage to Sense and Sensibility", I snatched it up.

It is the wealthy Jewish New Yorker version of Sense and Sensibility.  Betty's husband decides to divorce her after decades of marriage.  And, for a younger woman.  The younger woman wants the fancy apartment, so Betty heads to a cottage owned by her cousin Lou.

Her two middle-aged daughters join her.  One has two grown boys and is divorced.  The other had a literary agency that was thriving until it hit the news that all of the memoirs she published were fake (she went on Oprah to defend her authors).

They live together in the tiny cottage for a year.  Going to dinners at Cousin Lou's, learning what it is like to live on a budget, buying tons of things from TV infomercials, dealing with love and loss.

Overall, a very fun read.