A few minis - Slightly Foxed #71, Letters of Note: War by Shaun Usher, The Arrow Book of Funny Poems by Eleanor Clymer

Again, a few I don't have much to say about. 

Slightly Foxed Reader's Quarterly #71: August 2021 is my first Slightly Foxed journal. I had not heard of it till a friend mentioned it at Instagram, and I confess that I bought a one-year subscription for myself as a Christmas gift for no other reason than I knew nobody else would buy it if I asked. And, then it never did get put under the tree so it felt like a bit of a post-Christmas bonus.  

For those who are unfamiliar with Slightly Foxed, it's a quarterly journal with essays about books, usually a particular book that is either tied to the author's memories in some way or was found during research, etc. The bottom line is that the authors of essays in Slightly Foxed tend to wax poetic about a particular book or several books and it is one delightfully dangerous little collection of writings. Yes, yes, I want nearly all of them after reading about how wonderful, memorable, controversial, or charming the books are. Of course, I'm on a book-buying ban so it's not happening. But, wow, if I was just building a library I would want to start a collection of Slightly Foxed books. 

Recommended if you're not afraid that reading eloquently-written essays about books will destroy your budget. And, even then I recommend it, just hold onto your hat and maybe freeze your credit card till you get over it. 

Letters of Note: War compiled by Shaun Usher is a book of letters either written during a war or about war. I was curious about it because I have a passion for reading about war, both as it's experienced by those who are in the military and the folks left back home. 

To be honest, I didn't read the description so I was quite surprised by the sheer variety. There is, for example, a letter written by a Roman soldier at Hadrian's Wall, asking someone to "send beer". I was certainly not expecting the letters to go back that far! There are also plenty of letters written home from wars closer to our time period, including one from the mother of a soldier killed in Vietnam, a letter from Evelyn Waugh telling a story about soldiers making a hash of tree removal during WWII, and a letter from Martha Gellhorn to Eleanor Roosevelt written as Martha was heading to Spain to fight the rise of fascism. 

Of all of these letters, by far the most moving was the one from a mother whose son died in Vietnam. I absolutely sobbed when I read that one. Some were funny, like Evelyn Waugh's story about the trees, some a little difficult to read because the language of the writer's time was a bit different. Martha Gellhorn's was my favorite for sheer readability and that's a positive because I just happen to have a book of selected letters written by Gellhorn. At any rate, compact as this book is, it was a fascinating read. 

Recommended to those who are interested in primary source material from various wars. There is a series of "Letters of Note" books and the Letters of Note website is still extant. I haven't spent any time there but it looks like a good way to waste an afternoon. 

The Arrow Book of Funny Poems compiled by Eleanor Clymer is a Scholastic book from my childhood with silly rhyming poetry. I chose to read it to see if it held up to my memories (as a child, I nearly beat the book to death, I read it so many times) after an Instagram friend reread a poetry favorite from her youth. I'd just spotted the book on one of my shelves, shortly before I saw her post. 

Answer: Yes, it holds up. It's just as silly as it ever was and I like the goofiness. While it's probably still best read as a child, I enjoyed it. A couple favorites:

The Optimist (Anonymous author)

The Optimist fell ten stories,

And at each window bar,

He shouted to the folks inside, 

"Doing all right, so far!"

The Ostrich is a Silly Bird by Mary E. Wilkens Freeman

The Ostrich is a silly bird, 

With scarcely any mind,

He often runs so very fast, 

He leaves himself behind.

And when he gets there, has to stand

And hang about till night,

Without a blessed thing to do

Until he comes in sight 

I'd recommend this book for children but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a copy, anywhere. Still, if you ever happen across it, it's loads of fun and especially suited for giggly kids who like humor. 

©2022 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Catch-up reviews: Zack Delacruz by Jeff Anderson, Three Days in the Country by Patrick Marbur, The Fortnight in Sept. by R. C. Sherriff

Those of you who read my blog regularly or have read it for a long time know that I always take time off during the holidays to be with family. There won't be as much family time, this year. We're not going anywhere and Huzzybuns has used up most of his vacation time. Eldest and his wife and child are bound by their odd work schedules, as is Kiddo, who has just gotten a new job and will only be home for a couple of days. But, I still plan to take a little time off. Till then, I'm going to ditch the usual posts and play catch-up, again. I'm still pondering my goals for 2016.


Zack Delacruz: Me and My Big Mouth by Jeff Anderson is a middle reader about a bullied boy who has only one close friend. He goes to an assembly on bullying and later stands up for someone else being bullied without thinking it through. This calls the teacher's attention to Zack and she puts him in charge of chocolate sales to pay for a dance. Then, a classmate who checked out a large amount of chocolate admits she doesn't have the money because she "had an accident" with the chocolate and didn't sell it.

Zack doesn't want to ask his father for money because his father is proud of him, for once, for being in a position of responsibility. When Zack realizes what really happened to the chocolate (highlight to see spoiler: she ate it all), he decides he needs to intervene. But, what can be done to earn the last of the money in time to save the dance?

When I began reading Zack Delacruz, I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of puns and didn't have high hopes for the book. However, the story won out in the end. I liked Zack's creativity and found that his voice sounded authentic to me. The author appears to have a pulse on the middle school vibe. It's also worth mentioning that I enjoyed puns at that age; it's only as I've gotten older that they've begun to annoy me, so it seems likely that Zack Delacruz will be a bigger hit with its intended audience than a jaded old thing like myself and I'm giving it a thumbs up.

Three Days in the Country by Patrick Marber (after Turgenev) is a play based loosely upon Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country (which I have not yet read - Turgenev is now on the wish list). We saw Three Days in the Country at the National Theatre in London during our vacation. Click the title to see a YouTube video entitled "Three Days in the Country: Turgenev, unrequited love and comedy" that shows the actors talking about the play. It was brilliantly acted and there were some very funny lines that we wanted to remember (Mark Gatiss mentions our favorite in the video) so we went back to the theatre bookstore to buy a copy of the play, a couple days later.

I read plays and screenplays, on occasion. Sometimes they are every bit as interesting to read as they are to see but there was something absolutely unique and magical about Three Days in the Country on stage that simply couldn't be gleaned from the reading, so I felt myself longing to see it acted out, again, while I was reading the book. The truth of the matter is that the acing was so brilliant that nothing could hold a candle to seeing it. And, yet, there's no doubt there are some wonderful lines:

Natalya:  What do you think of Bolshintsov?

Rakitin:  (thinks a moment) He's a dullard. Meeting him is the same as not meeting him. 

~ from p. 29 of Three Days in the Country

The verdict: I wish this play were available on DVD. But, the written play is definitely entertaining.

The Fortnight in September by R. C. Sherriff is a Persephone book I bought from the store (again, on vacation) and started reading on the flight home. The story of a family's annual trip to the seaside, The Fortnight in September was originally published in 1931 and inspired by the author's observations while he stayed at Bognor Regis, where the book is set.

The Fortnight in September is understated, charming, and intimate. The first 100 pages describe the family's preparation for and journey to the shore, the rest the vacation itself. Nothing major happens, and yet I found the book was very difficult to put down. I was both enthralled by the nuanced dialogue, the tiny tensions between members of the family and their own internal struggles, and amazed that something so entirely restrained could be, at the same time, oddly mesmerizing.

As startling as it is for the fact that one can find a character driven book in which so little of consequence occurs gripping, The Fortnight in September is also impressive for its descriptive passages and definitely is one of my favorite Persephone titles (so far).

Bottom line: Zack Delacruz starts out badly but becomes more interesting as the plot unfolds and its protagonist comes up with clever solutions to his problems. While not laugh-out-loud funny to this reader, I have a feeling it resonates with its target middle-school audience. Three Days in the Country is witty and entertaining but better seen than read. It was a short-run play with stellar actors (including Mark Gatiss, who plays Mycroft on Sherlock and John Simm, who played The Master in Dr. Who -- actually, there were 4 actors who had Dr. Who in their credits); unfortunately, it's also over. I believe we saw one of the final performances. The Fortnight in September is amazing for the fact that it is both understated and compelling at the same time. I may be more startled than some because I tend to prefer plot-driven books over those that are about characterization, but the bottom line is that I loved it.


©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Two Memoirs of the Great Depression: Anneville by Thomas G. Robinson and Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish

I feel like talking about books, finally, so I'm going to bash out some mini reviews and pre-post to my heart's content. Anneville and Little Heathens are books I acquired because I currently have a particular interest in the Great Depression.

Anneville: A Memoir of the Great Depression by Thomas G. Robinson is a little confusing, title-wise. Anneville is a memoir with names of people and places changed and written with as much accuracy as memory provides but in the introduction the author refers to it as a novel because he's aware that memory is imperfect. I don't think it was necessary to rename the book a novel within the intro, but it's a nice touch since there have been some controversies about invented memoirs in recent years.

As to the content, Anneville is absolutely charming. Thomas, the author, is clearly Thos in the book (one of 6 children) and the book is told in past tense, third person, but you mostly see things from his perspective. The Robinsons' father absconded early in the book, leaving a mother with 6 children, no income, and no relatives nearby. You get a good idea of the difficulties the family went through as they were evicted twice, each time moving into a home of lesser size and quality, and the mother had to beg the selectment of Anneville to give them a weekly allowance. This was called living "on the town" and it was frowned upon. Occasionally, Mrs. Robinson resorted to stealing electricity and, at least once, food.

But, though the book describes constant hunger, cold, outgrown shoes and clothing, and how the impoverished are treated with disdain, it's mostly about boyhood and that's what makes the book so captivating. There are tales of jaunts into the woods to skinny dip in a swimming hole, having to prove oneself tough (there are quite a few fistfights), pranks and silly games the children came up with that got them into trouble, school stories, and an adventure in which two of the boys helped a WWI vet enjoy his last days. Anneville is lovely in many ways.

The book is an Author House publication and like many self-published books, Anneville is rife with errors. There are a few inconsistencies in the memories, as well, but I enjoyed the storytelling so much that I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars, taking a single point off for the book's problems. I'm glad I read it. Just be aware that you will have to fight your internal editor a bit if you're a perfectionist. Recommended.

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm by Mildred Armstrong Kalish is similarly misleading in that the words "hard times" absolutely do not belong in that subtitle. The author's father was out of the picture, as Thomas Robinson's father in Anneville was, but her grandparents owned a farm and a home in town debt-free and the children alternated between living at the farm and the house in town. There was never any threat of being kicked out or having their possessions hauled away.

The farm had livestock and fowl to provide milk, eggs and meat, as well as vegetables and orchards. Even honey was available, although it could be tricky to acquire. Young Mildred also had the advantage of a large, extended family that banded together. As such, the only hardship that enters into the picture at all was the fact that the houses were not fully heated, forcing the occupants to either cram together in a single heated room or bundle up and shiver.

There are some charming stories about life -- box socials, holidays with the family, splitting wood, etc. But, Little Heathens is heavily focused on food, with recipes interspersed throughout. I perused the reviews at Goodreads when I was considering requesting the book from Paperback Swap and quite a few people complained about the quantity of recipes and the author's arrogance as she often remarked that "kids today" don't know how to do this or that thing she was taught to do by hand in the olden days. Forewarned is forearmed. Those comments didn't bother me. I found the book entertaining and upbeat. Kalish set the scene beautifully, describing various aspects of her childhood in vivid detail. In fact, when she mentioned the song, "Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven," she helped add a little dimension to the reading of Parade's End, in which Sylvia Tietjens refers to her maid as "Hullo Central" because of her tinny, high-pitched voice. The operator at a central telephone exchange must have sounded oddly metallic through early phone lines, both in the U.S. and abroad. Interesting. Recommended.

Of the two books, I enjoyed Anneville the most -- in spite of its editing problems -- because the tales of childhood were so immensely entertaining and I was (and am) particularly in search of stories about how people dealt creatively with poverty, cold and hunger during the Great Depression. I liked both books very much, though, and I'm glad I read them.

©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Three I loved - The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1963: The Year of Revolution by Morgan and Leve and Entertaining Judgment by Greg Garrett

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt is so crammed with little flags that I could quote from it all day, but instead I'm going to skip quotes entirely and just tell you about it, although I may eventually do a post filled with quotes so I can remove those markers.

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt is apparently a compact version of Mrs. Roosevelt's memoirs (which were originally published in several volumes). Although it's edited down to a single book, Mrs. Roosevelt's autobiography is crammed with wonderful anecdotes and gives the reader an excellent inside view of her life. Especially interesting, of course, are the tumultuous Depression and WWII years, during which her husband Franklin served as President of the United States.

I have long been an admirer of Eleanor Roosevelt but wow . . . she's my hero, now. She was indefatigable in her efforts to make the lives of everyday people, especially women, better. She traveled the world at her husband's request numerous times to comfort soldiers and was relentlessly picked on by the press, though the soldiers deeply appreciated her. She wrote personal letters and columns, hosted dignitaries at her home and the White House, represented the U.S. in the early years of the United Nations. She was a woman of strong character who made an indelible imprint on our nation's direction.

I think The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt would make an exceptional school resource. Although some of the characters are unfamiliar because they were prominent at the time and have now faded into history, those occasional bits that have lost their impact tend to be brief enough that they don't interfere with the reading. Annotations wouldn't be a lost cause, in my humble opinion, but for teaching purposes it would work to use selected excerpts. The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt was one of those rare books that I found so exciting I occasionally read anecdotes to my husband. He enjoyed the portions I read. Highly recommended.


1963: The Year of the Revolution by Robin Morgan and Ariel Leve is an absorbing read, in spite of the fact that I don't like the way it's organized. An introduction is followed by chapters that begin with a quotation and then consist of first-person viewpoints by the people who were a part of the "youth-quake" that took place in 1963 in fashion, art and music on both sides of the Atlantic.

Each chapter contains a number of first-person accounts from musicians, artists, and other people involved in the changing events. Some were familiar to me, like Eric Clapton, Mary Quant and Sir Alan Parker, but many were not and therein the problem lies. While I enjoyed looking up various music groups, artists, fashion leaders and their work (particularly the music), it was a bit frustrating having to keep flipping back to remind myself who this or that person was. It might be a less chaotic-feeling read to those who lived it.

However, I grew up with a lot of the music that was mentioned without actually realizing who sang songs that were still playing on the radio during my childhood. So, it was loads of fun looking up music videos. And, in spite of the fact that I disliked the manner in which this oral history was presented, I really did enjoy the reading and came out of the experience feeling like I'd learned a great deal. I even have a new favorite old song. Definitely recommended, but do be aware that the book is focused on the arts and fashion, not generalities. It's worth mentioning that even though I disliked the organization of the book and having to look things up slowed down the reading, I was never tempted to set it aside. I found 1963: The Year of Revolution utterly fascinating.

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt and 1963: The Year of Revolution were both sent to me by HarperCollins (the former a Harper Perennial imprint, the latter from Dey Street).

Entertaining Judgment by Greg Garrett is a book I purchased because I love the author's writing. I pre-ordered it when he talked about it on Facebook and didn't wait long after it arrived before indulging. Subtitled "The Afterlife in Popular Imagination", Entertaining Judgment is about how Heaven, Hell and purgatory are portrayed in books, films, video games and music. Garrett talks a bit about angels, the devil and ghosts, as well.

Entertaining Judgment is as informative as it is captivating. Garrett describes how minimal the descriptions of Heaven and Hell are in religious writings and how strongly popular opinion of what exactly may await us in the afterlife has been dictated by fiction. I loved the fact that the author doesn't let his Christianity interfere with the presentation of the material, examining how the afterlife is portrayed in various religious texts without ever saying one is superior to another.

Entertaining Judgment is not all-encompassing. I thought the portions about ghosts focused a little too heavily on fear when ghosts often are portrayed as entities that help people move on. One of my favorite ghost movies, Always, is not mentioned, for example. But, there are plenty of excellent examples that I knew little about and I came out of the reading of Entertaining Judgment with a strong desire to catch up on films and literature that I've missed. It's probably worth noting that I don't play video games at all but I found the descriptions of video games every bit as absorbing as those about film, books and music. Highly recommended. I don't recall ever reading anything quite like Entertaining Judgment and particularly enjoyed it for the change of pace.

©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Good Question Series - books about the American West, Plants, the Senses, Butterflies, the Civil War, Our Planet and the Solar System by Carson, Sandler and Stewart

It took me quite a while to decide exactly how to handle reviewing this lovely little pile of question/answer books that were sent to me by Sterling Children's [unsolicited but appreciated!] but I've finally decided it's best to keep the entire Good Question series in one post and describe each book briefly.

In general, I tend to dislike Q/A books because they're self-limiting or seemingly random in the questions they address. The advantage to each of these titles is that they're focused on a specific topic. While I think some are better than others, I really did like this particular series because of the large illustrations and (in some cases) photographs.  The titles on Westward Expansion in the U.S. and the American Civil War have some gorgeous photographs that are crystal clear and large enough to really get a good look at the people and places. The illustrations are also large, colorful and clearly labeled. So, visually, the entire series is exceptional.

Who Were the American Pioneers? and other questions about Westward Expansion by Martin W. Sandler is gorgeous but I have to admit I was a little upset by the fact that it took quite a while before the author got around to asking a question about Native Americans and that was, "Why did Native Americans and Pioneers fight?"  It seemed to me that the first thing that ought to be asked was, "Were there people living in the West before European immigrants moved in?" However, when the topic was addressed, it was answered well and with respect toward the Native Americans, in my humble opinion.

Otherwise, Who Were the American Pioneers? was one of my favorite books from the Good Question series.  It has a few beautiful period photos: a log cabin, a sod house, children and their teacher in front of a one-room schoolhouse, a cowboy.  There is a map of various trails to the West Coast and a timeline. There's talk about the Pony Express and the railroad's contribution to expansion.

How Does a Seed Sprout? and Other Questions about Plants by Melissa Stewart is, again, a book with gorgeous illustrations and photos. I particularly love the full-page photo of a bird with tiny worms in his beak.

But, I had a problem with How Does a Seed Sprout? Instead of answering the questions in the first sentence and then elaborating upon them, I felt like I had to dig to find the answers. However, apart from that issue, the questions were answered well and I was reminded of a few things I'd forgotten about plants. I do think it would have been preferable to answer the questions clearly in a single, beginning sentence, first. My opinion. That was, as I recall, true of all of the books written by Melissa Stewart.

How Does the Ear Hear? and Other Questions about the Five Senses is another book by Melissa Stewart.  Oddly, I marked a page and can't figure out for the life of me why I did.  That tells you how long it's taken me to get around to writing about the book but perhaps I just liked the questions in that spread because from a glance, actually, I do.  One is, "What causes an itch?" and the other is, "Why can't you tickle yourself?"

I remember wondering about the tickling thing when I was young. On the negative side, allergies aren't mentioned as one of the causes of itching. Believe me, that's on my mind, right now. We're in the midst of tree pollen season and getting "high pollen" alerts daily. That's a petty complaint, though, as the author's answer to "What causes an itch?" is a broad one.

How Does a Caterpillar Become a Butterfly? and Other Questions about Butterflies by Melissa Stewart is one of my favorites. I read a book called An Obsession with Butterflies, a few years back, and I think I can safely say I'm not obsessed but I find butterflies fascinating and love reading about them. My favorite photo is a full-page photo of a luna moth (which I've had the privilege of seeing, long ago, on the bricks of my childhood home).  My favorite quote follows a list of 4 easy ways to tell the difference between moths and butterflies:

Have you heard that all butterflies have bright colorful wings? Or that all moths have brown or gray wings? Don't believe it. The next time you see a large-winged insect flitting through the air, don't look at its color. Think about the time of day.  Look at the insect's antennae and scales, and watch how it perches. Then you'll know if it's a butterfly or a moth.  ~p. 24

Why Does Earth Spin? and Other Questions about Our Planet by Mary Kay Carson describes all sorts of things -- weather, the layers of the planet, the reason for earthquakes, the layers of the atmosphere, the moon's importance to the earth. When I closed the book, I found myself thinking about the layers beneath my feet all day. You'd think I'd be beyond that, but I guess once you exit school and no longer have little kids to pummel you with questions, those things no longer tend to roll around in your head the way they used to.

So, I enjoyed Why Does Earth Spin? for the reminder of the geology that used to fascinate me. The only problem I had with Why Does Earth Spin? was the following quote:

Mountains are made by clashing tectonic plates. As plates shove into each other and up and over one another, rock is pushed up into a growing mountain range. ~p. 12

I would have liked to see something on the order of, "Sedimentation and carving from glaciers are also part of the processes that create mountains," just to keeping children from thinking the movement of plates is the singular cause of mountain range creation.

What Was America's Deadliest War? and Other Questions about The Civil War by Martin W. Sandler is a great example (and one of my personal favorites) of why the Good Question books would be well suited to use as jumping-off points for study units.  There's only so much you can squeeze into one tiny book, but if you're thinking about doing a unit on the Civil War in your classroom or at home, for example, or you're preparing to go on vacation to a city with a nearby Civil War site, the questions in What Was America's Deadliest War? will give you a nice general overview of the war and from there you can branch out.

What Was America's Deadliest War? does have one issue that jumped out at me: the author didn't mention Vicksburg, Mississippi's 43-day siege, one of the major turning points in favor of the Union.

On the plus side, right off the bat you learn some basic information like which states were slave-holding states, which were not and those that were divided. You get to see photos of soldiers (a full-page photo of soldiers standing beside a cannon and the many individual portraits are all wonderful), read about the Gettysburg Address . . . enough to pique a child's interest so he or she will want to learn more.

Last but not least is, How Many Planets Circle the Sun? and Other Questions about Our Solar System by Mary Kay Carson I've said more than I planned to say about all the other books so I'm just going to mention the one thing I loved about this book most: the illustrations. Some of the illustrations are so detailed and realistic that I stared at them and thought, "Wait, this is an illustration?" They are photographically detailed. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Seriously, one of the best things about the entire series, in general: the photos and illustrations rock.

I recommend them all. Some I like more than others but I really enjoyed reading all of the books in the Good Question series and I know my kids and I would have enjoyed reading them to see which particular subjects really grabbed the kids enough to go out and look for more information.

I received all seven Good Question books from Sterling Children's Book and will be passing them on to a local elementary school teacher. Hopefully, they'll get good use.  

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Little Wolf Goes to School, Little Raccoon Learns to Share, Little Chipmunk's Wiggly, Wobbly Tooth and Little Bear's Baby brother by M. Packard and L. McCue

Little Wolf Goes to School, Little Raccoon Learns to Share, Little Chipmunk's Wiggly,Wobbly Tooth and Little Bear's Baby Brother are all from the "Watch Me Grow" series written by Mary Packard and illustrated by one of my favorite children's book illustrators, Lisa McCue. 

Brief note:  I've opted to skip the "Children's Day" concept, since I have quite a few to review, and just spread out the rest of my children's book reviews.  I've photographed one page spread from each of the "Watch Me Grow" books and you should be able to click on each photo to enlarge.

Little Wolf Goes to School tells the story of a little wolf who is a little nervous about his first day of school and asks his friends what they know about school.  He's not certain he wants to go, but his mother reassures him that he'll be fine.  He'll learn new things and he doesn't immediately have to be the best at every activity.  The day arrives and he has a lot of fun learning. When Bunny goes missing, Little Wolf uses his special ability at following scents to track the missing student, who has fallen asleep in a patch of tall grass.  Little Wolf is surprised the day has already ended when his mother shows up and "can hardly wait for the second day of school".

Little Chipmunk's Wiggly Wobbly Tooth, Little Chipmunk notices one of his teeth is wiggly and then finds that he can't bite into an acorn or other hard foods.  He goes to the dentist, who tells him all is normal.  Soon he will lose his baby teeth and new ones will grow in.  Relieved, he becomes excited about losing his tooth and runs to share the news when his first baby tooth falls out, only to find that all of his friends have also lost at least one tooth.  He snaps a picture of all of his friends to remind them of the time when they were waiting for their grown-up teeth to grow in.

In Little Bear's Baby Brother, Little Bear comes from a big family with lots of cubs. It's not unusual for new babies to arrive but when Mama says it's time to get the crib down from the attic, Little Bear's excited and wants to know how soon the baby will arrive.  "When all the snow has melted and the ground is soft and green," is the reply. "Until then, we will be very, very busy.  Everyone will need to help get ready."  They hang up new curtains and paint the crib.

But, Little Bear wants to do something very special, so she collects pretty things from the forest and her father helps her make a mobile.  When it's left out to dry, a mole wonders "Who would throw away something so fine?  A door knocker like this will surely come in handy!" Each time someone sets down the mobile, another creature finds a new use for it and carries it off.  Little Bear finds the missing mobile in a tree and retrieves her creation just in time for her new baby brother to enjoy it.

Little Raccoon Learns to Share is about a raccoon whose favorite word is "Mine!" She doesn't like sharing and she likes being first.  She's so nervous about sharing that she hides with her basket of berries when friends come along.  But, as she watches them play, she feels a little sad not to join them and to be left out of the party she hasn't been invited to attend because she wasn't there when the other animals came up with the idea.  Her mother makes muffins using the berries she's collected and Little Raccoon shows up at the party.  She's welcomed and Little Beaver thanks her for bringing muffins.  Soon, she's having so much fun playing that she realizes it's much more fun to share than to be alone.

Little Bear's Baby Brother is my absolute favorite of the four books because I love the creativity of the mobile she makes for her unborn sibling and the unique ways each animal imagines the mobile might be used and I like the fact that Little Chipmunk's Wiggly Wobbly Tooth makes going to the dentist sound so innocuous by making it Little Chipmunk's idea.  But, honestly, I love anything that Lisa McCue illustrates.  All four are nice little hardback books with everyday themes that most parents have to discuss/explain to their children, at some point.  Lively, cheerful illustrations and sweet storytelling make all four books lovely choices to help prepare children for a new sibling, first day of school, losing a tooth or teach them about sharing. They're also very reasonably priced.  

I received all four from Sterling Children's Books for review.  I liked them all and recommend them especially to adults who are looking for books with a simple storyline and theme that includes delightful illustrations and a lesson. They would make nice little gifts for special occasions or no reason whatsoever ("happies" as they're known in the South).

In other news:

It doesn't seem right to post without saying something about yesterday's Boston explosions.  My thoughts and prayers are with all who are injured, grieving, or worrying about a friend, relative or loved one.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini reviews - The Queen by Robert Lacey, Mia's Baker's Dozen by Coco Simon, Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

It's mini review time! I will write only mini reviews till I've caught up.

The Queen: A Life in Brief by Robert Lacey is a book written by a biographer who has written a large number of books about royalty. At a mere 166 pages, the author gives readers a comfortably brief overview of Queen Elizabeth II's life and 60-year reign. The Queen contains excerpts from some of Lacey's other books, as well as some updated material, and was written especially for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.

I think I can pretty safely say I knew next to nothing about Queen Elizabeth and her family and I'm happy not to have read a book that went into greater depth of detail. While I found the queen herself admirable in many ways and particularly enjoyed reading that her marriage was a true love story, Prince Charles pretty much made me want to heave. I had no idea he was such a naughty boy. During the actual Princess Diana years (when they were occurring, that is), I must admit I was more captivated by her wardrobe than the drama of the royal family and the many affairs. There is a single line in the book that I consider offensive and unnecessary, but otherwise The Queen is very nicely written.

Recommended to those who want to learn about the last 80 years or so of the British Monarchy in brief but are not interested in tremendous detail. If you're looking for a more comprehensive biography, check the page lengths of Lacey's books. He's written quite a few and The Queen: A Life in Brief is the shortest. The Queen was the perfect blend for me and also contains a surprisingly nice variety of photographs for such a small book.

Mia's Baker's Dozen by Coco Simon is one of the books in the Cupcake Diaries series, for ages 8 and up, about a group of young girls who have a small business selling cupcakes. I won my copy in a Twitter drawing, which I entered because I like to regress, now and then.

Mia's parents speak Spanish and so does Mia, but she has never learned to read or write Spanish. When she's enrolled in an advanced Spanish class and has difficulty, Mia's embarrassed to admit that she needs help. She is also thrown out of kilter by the changes in her life, now that her parents have divorced and her mother is remarried.

Mia's Baker's Dozen is very simplistically written. It was fun reading about Mia's challenges and friendships and how she solves her problems. I'm pretty sure I would have gobbled a series like this happily, as a young girl, and definitely recommend this title to youngsters in the right age range. It's nice, clean fun. Reading the book made me want to go play in the kitchen.

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman tells the stories of three women, friends from a young age who are all left behind when their men go off to fight in WWII. The story is based on one small town's loss of a large number of its young men in a single battle. Two of the women are widowed; one is not, but the surviving husband returns with a permanent injury and post-traumatic stress.

Next to Love follows the three women from before WWII to the Sixties and is packed with the love, loss, temptation, danger, violence, prejudice and other challenges of life for women during the time period.

I really enjoyed Next to Love because the relationships and challenges seemed very realistic to me, but there were a couple things I disliked about the book. Chiefly, I disliked the first-person narrative and jumpiness. I liked the fact that the author chose to portray each of the women from her own viewpoint, but instead of going from one character to another and showing how each reacted at a particular time, for example, there would be three scenes from Babe's perspective that take place from September of 1944 to July of 1946 and then you jump back to September of 1944 to view Grace's perspective. And, then the same thing is done all over again with Millie. Jarring.

On the plus side, Next to Love has the ring of a book that has been exceptionally well researched. The sense of time and place throughout the book is both believable and occasionally even reminded me of things my parents mentioned. Definitely recommended for those who enjoy WWII novels and women's fiction.

More minis forthcoming.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini Reviews: Paris in Love by Eloisa James and More Like Her by Liza Palmer

I don't have a great deal to say about either of these books, although I enjoyed them both for very different reasons. So . . . mini review time!

More Like Her by Liza Palmer is a very strange book. A glance at the cover screams "chick lit" and it does read like chick lit, stylistically. But, the prologue is actually a 911 call made during a school shooting. So, as you begin the reading of this remarkably chick-littish book about friendship between women and love angst, you know there will be a dramatic turning point and the story will be about friends helping each other survive post-traumatic stress, not just about everyday life and love.

The first 100 pages or so of More Like Her are about the friendship between three women and the slight envy they have for Emma Dunham. All work at the same exclusive private school where Emma has become the new headmistress. Frances has recently been dumped by her boyfriend, Jill is happily married and determined to find someone perfect for Frannie, and Lisa has been too career-focused to devote much time or thought to men. When a team of architects from Tennessee arrive to work on the school's expansion project, Lisa falls spectacularly in love with one of the architects and Frances falls for, and is dangled by, another. All three couples are present at the shooting.

Thanks to the prologue and the fact that I loved the friendship between the women, I read More Like Her rabidly. It was one of those rare books that I finished in a day. While I did tire of the sex talk and the heroine's angst (and found it a bit of a stretch that there was more than one architect always on-site at the school's expansion project), the dialogue is tremendously fun. Once the women have survived the shooting, the way Frannie keeps reliving things in her head . . . well, let's just say it's a good idea to keep the tissue box handy. And, yet there is always plenty of levity to break the mood between darker scenes. More Like Her may be a little strange because it's such an odd blend of love, friendship and tragedy but it's definitely a compelling and deeply emotional read and recommended. The storyline is a bit transparent/predictable, especially at the end, but that didn't bother me. I'm just not certain who to recommend it to -- probably lovers of women's fiction because it's the growing friendship between three women that is most appealing about the book.

Paris in Love by Eloisa James is a memoir by romance novelist James about her family's year in Paris. After recovering from breast cancer, James (whose real name is Mary Bly) went on a mad purging frenzy, throwing out and selling things she would not have parted with, pre-cancer. With a new determination to fulfill her dreams she sold her house, took a sabbatical from her job as a Shakespeare professor and moved her family to Paris.

Paris in Love is not told in the typical memoir format but in anecdotes and essays. Many of her anecdotes were Facebook posts, so they're very brief but incredibly entertaining little vignettes about such topics as her children (particularly in regard to their adjustment from American schooling to an Italian school in France), experimentation in the kitchen, visits to museums, a family trip to London, restaurant and other food experiences, and her mother-in-law's hilarious reports about the health of their obese dog (who lived with her in Florence, Italy).

I marked up Paris in Love with about a million Post-its. When I went back to see if there was anything quotable, I found that I did mark a few entertaining tales. But, mostly, I marked the anecdotes that mentioned interesting things to see and do in Paris. At the end of the book, there is a section entitled, "My Very Unofficial Guide to a Few Places in Paris," which details some of James/Bly's favorite museums, places to shop, restaurants, etc. So, I probably could have dispensed with most of the Post-its, but that brings home the point that the book is worth a read if you happen to be planning a trip to Paris. I'm not, although just in case . . . I'm hanging onto my ARC.

My favorite anecdotes were the stories about the author's children and the dog. They truly made me laugh out loud. I recommend Paris in Love to memoir lovers and people who love reading about Paris or who dream of one day visiting. Because the book is written as a series of anecdotes with a few essays tossed in, it's a good book to keep with you when you know you'll only be able to read in quick bites (short train hops, sitting in line to pick up children from school, etc.).

Since there's red in both book covers, today you get a rose:

Tomorrow, who knows?

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Rose: My Life in Service by Rosina Harrison and The World of Downton Abbey by Jessica Fellowes

I don't have much to say about either of these books, although I enjoyed them both and they go together in a way. One cross-references the other. Time for mini reviews!

Rose: My Life in Service by Rosina Harrison is subtitled "Recollections of Life in one of England's Grandest Households by the Personal Maid to Nancy, Lady Astor". Boy, that's a mouthful. And, they're not kidding about the "grandest household" bit. The world-traveling Astors had something on the order of 5 homes. I can't even remember; I lost track.

I had a battered and stained old copy of Rose's memoir on my shelf and have meant to get to it for at least a year. But, it was Downton Abbey that shoved me over the edge. Whether you're a Downton Abbey fan or merely curious about what it was like to be a maid during the 30 years beginning around the end of WWI, Rose is worth the time. The vast number of servants involved in the running of the Astor households is mind-boggling. Sometimes I had trouble visualizing everything the author described -- and it seemed even more grueling than the life that's portrayed in Downton, but I think that's partly because there are quite a few "sitting around the servants' table" scenes that are done for the sake of having the characters interact in the series.

After reading Rose, I noticed Lady Mary mentions having met Sir Richard at Cliveden, the Astor's main house and the one that's pictured on the cover of Rose: My Life in Service. That made the episode doubly fun. There are plenty of photographs in Rose, so if you read Rose and then follow it up with The World of Downton Abbey, as I did, you'll have some reference points that will add to the reading experience of the latter. The Astor's butler, for example, is pictured, described and quoted in Rose and talked about in The World of Downton Abbey.

One of my favorite quotes, about how Nancy Astor's finer qualities came out during WWII:

Now in battle her qualities were shown. Her courage was not the "back to the wall" stoic kind of British courage, but the flashing, tempestuous, rousing, roistering courage of the Virginian--exemplified by the way she would turn cartwheels in air-raid shelters to cause a diversion when things were at their worst. Not your sixty-one-year-old Nancy Astor, lady of Cliveden, hostess to the aristocracy and Member of Parliament, but Nannie, the wild-eyed girl who rode unbroken horses. And along with this went the softer, compassionate creature, the voice behind the sad Virginia songs, who would comfort a mother whose child had been killed, while her own heart was grieving for the mother yet hardening against the Whitehall officials who in their shortsightedness had not declared Plymouth an area for the evacuation of children. This was a woman I could idolize.

~p. 189, Rose: My Life in Service

Recommended to memoir lovers, Downton Abbey fans and anyone else curious about life "downstairs" at a monstrous estate in England. I found the WWII years particularly engrossing. My copy was published by The Viking Press in 1975. Apparently, it's a first edition. It's a wreck, unfortunately, but readable. I'm glad I grabbed it when I found it at our library sale.

The World of Downton Abbey by Jessica Fellowes was a total indulgence. I was buying the two seasons of Downton Abbey on DVD and figured it would be fun to continue reading about the time period along with ogling the beautiful photos of cast and setting to stretch out the fun.

The World of Downton Abbey is, in fact, much better than I anticipated. Author Jessica Fellowes blends historical background with descriptions of the show's characters and their costumes, the settings, war, quotes from the show's creator and actors, plus loads of photos.

The only thing I disliked about The World of Downton Abbey was the way the text is interrupted by both photo layouts and pages describing the historical background/context of the show. So, you'll be reading along and find that you have to turn a page or two to get to the continuation of text, which means holding your place and then going backward to read a couple pages of other information, then continuing on with the general text. There's a lot of jumping back and forth and place-holding to be done, in other words. But, I was surprised at how well-written the book is and how enjoyable. I didn't expect The World of Downton Abbey to be quite so informative as to historical context; I was expecting fluff and a lot of photos, I suppose. Trust the British to do a "secrets and history" televised-series companion right.

Highly recommended to Downton Abbey fans. Well-written, informative, packed with gorgeous photos and interesting quotations. Plenty of resources are mentioned for further reading. The book does not contain spoilers if you haven't yet finished the second series and won't get around to doing so for a while, apart from describing all of the characters (so if you've seen the first season and taped or purchased the second, you'll know who is going to show up in the second series).

Addendum:

There's a quote in The World of Downton Abbey that confirmed something I'd wondered about a scene in The Painted Veil (movie):

Actors were reminded not to say 'nee-ther' or 'ee-ther' but 'nye-ther' and 'eye-ther'. The former only came into use after the Second World War when the American soldiers came to Britain.

p. 292, The World of Downton Abbey

For those of you whose interest in The Painted Veil was piqued by my triple review of book, movie and radio serial, watch for a scene in which Naomi Watts says "ee-ther". I didn't know who was playing Kitty, but that particular scene had me convinced that the actress must be American and now I see that it's about time period, not origin, thanks to a commenter (thanks, Lexi!), so I guess that quotation was a hint. Fascinating.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham - Book, movie and radio program

On the steamer that took them up the Western River Walter read incessantly, but at meal-times he endeavored to make some kind of conversation. He talked to her as though she were a stranger with whom he happened to be making the journey, of indifferent things, from politeness, Kitty imagined, or because so he could render more marked the gulf that separated them.

~p. 87 of The Painted Veil

This is going to be an extremely casual set of thoughts. I watched The Painted Veil, the movie starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, one night when Huzzybuns was out of either town or country or both, and then tore through my house looking for the book. It took me two days to locate the book, which I immediately read then followed up with a second viewing of the movie and then the BBC Radio 4 "Woman's Hour" radio production in 5 parts. The general storyline for book, movie and radio series:

Kitty has spent her youthful years toying with a procession of suitors without finding a single one of them appealing enough to marry. Now, her younger sister is marrying well and her mother asks, "How long do you expect your father to support you?" Kitty realizes she is not only considered a burden but also about to become a laughingstock because her younger sister will be titled and she will be "the cast-off elder spinster sister." She wants to go far, far away. Conveniently, Walter asks her to marry him and accompany him to China, where he works as a bacteriologist.

They move to Hong Kong (Shanghai in the movie) and two years pass. Kitty thinks Walter is boring and rude. He has a tendency not to reply to her because he's focused on his work and is not prone to chatter -- he's a very nerd-centric, science guy. She becomes captivated by Charlie, who is also married, and they have a steamy affair. In the book and BBC Radio 4 series (as I recall -- the radio series was only available online temporarily), they go to a room above a shop; in the movie the location of their trysts is unspecified but in all cases, they end up in Kitty's room on a day that Walter arrives home early. He turns the doorknob but the door is locked.

Walter doesn't pretend he knows nothing. He's already aware that Kitty finds him appalling, but now he's Majorly Pissed. Within a short time, he's decided to take a job working in a remote village where there has been an outbreak of cholera. He tells Kitty he'll leave her behind if Charlie will divorce his wife and marry Kitty immediately. Walter is not as stupid as Kitty thinks; he knows how Charlie will react. Off they go to Mei-tan-fu, where all but one of the Englishmen in town have died or fled. Will Walter succeed in killing them both, thus eliminating the wife he now hates and his own humiliated self?

This is how the movie begins:

Walter and Kitty are sitting in the rain, nowhere near each other, waiting for their ride (which involves chairs carried by coolies). You can tell they hate each other, Kitty is angry, Walter doesn't care what she thinks; he's off in his own little world. It's perfectly portrayed in a stunningly beautiful setting. Flashbacks are utilized to tell the story up to this point, whereas the story is told in linear form in book and, I think, also in the radio series.

The three versions -- original novel, film and radio program -- are fascinating in their distinctions, but it may be a bit of a spoiler to say exactly how they differ, apart from noting that Kitty gains strength and character and learns to respect her husband in the movie and in the book she remains a simpering, frail, pitiful character to the end. Oh, and there are a lot of things added to the movie, obviously for cinematic effect. Most of those were good choices, in my opinion.

Want to know more about the differences? Keep reading, but be aware that this may be spoiler territory.

In the book, Kitty learns to respect her husband but continues to declare that she can never possibly love Walter. Kitty is a typical wimpy bitch heroine written by a popular writer of the time period (1920's - copyrighted in 1925) and disappointing in her lack of growth.

The movie and radio series were obviously written with modern sensibilities in mind. Women of today will not put up with a character who can't be bothered to learn from her mistakes and buck up. From respect for her husband's hard work and the love and care he shows to others, as well as her own hard work, Kitty loses her hard edge and learns to love. She develops a backbone where needed, softens in other ways. And, the love that develops between Kitty and Walter makes the story both romantic and tragic. But, honestly, I don't want to ever give everything away.

----End spoiler----

So, which version of The Painted Veil did I like best? Honestly? I enjoyed all three versions for different reasons but especially liked them in combination. I liked the beautiful scenery of the movie, Maugham's gorgeous writing in the book, the way the radio program brought the sound and sensations of the book to life with actors in roles (as opposed to the typical single-narrator/actor audio recordings, which I tend to detest), horses hooves clattering, bells chiming. But, I really do not like the ending of the book.

I thought Edward Norton, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber hit it out of the ballpark. Their characterizations were spot on, at first, then fit the changes made to the script (which made the movie version romantic). The average viewer who rated The Painted Veil at Rotten Tomatoes tends to agree with me. The radio show was different in minor ways but, again, apart from updating the female role to fit modern demands, it wasn't that far off from the book. In fact, it was closer to the novel than the movie. My one complaint about the movie was that there were a couple senseless jabs at Catholicism. I'm not Catholic, but I was a bit appalled by them.

On the second viewing of the movie, I took notes. At one point, Mr. Waddington (the only other Englishman in the village) says of the nuns who run the local orphanage:

"They're not just here to run an orphanage. They're turning these children into little Catholics."

Hmm. Not in the book. In fact, the nuns have nothing but the interests of the children at heart in the novel. They are not all orphans but by paying their parents a modest fee, the nuns are able to take in children who would be otherwise neglected, starved, possibly abandoned. And, then there's a little speech by Mother Superior, who compares her love of Jesus to a marriage:

"Over the years, my feelings have changed. He disappointed me, ignored me."

No, she doesn't say anything of the sort in the novel. She is a deeply committed believer who cannot be persuaded to return to her extremely wealthy family in France. Having made her decision when young, she still feels she has made the right choice and that China is where she belongs, regardless of the risks.

Other than those annoying changes, I thought the movie was pretty well done. Some lines are recognizably pulled directly from the novel. In one case, Mr. Waddington of the movie version is given one of Mother Superior's lines -- or, maybe it's the other way around. The movie is faithful enough and the ending is an improvement. Look, Walter and Kitty actually touch each other, late in the movie!

I think I had trouble with the fact that Kitty found her husband so repulsive partly because I like skinny, nerdy, science dudes. Heck, I even married one (although we have both since expanded . . . he sort of married a skinny nerd, too -- just a different kind). Walter is really quite a bit like my husband, in many ways: focused, smart, driven, quiet. I mentally chewed out Kitty, a few times. Silly old cow, can't you see what a decent guy you've got?

Book, movie and radio program all recommended - I don't know what it is about this story that I love, but I found the idea fascinating, the characters interesting and well-developed and the portrayal very beautifully done in both movie and radio show. The acting is really marvelous in both. Movie-wise, Edward Norton always amazes me, to be honest. I didn't even know who was playing Kitty till the credits rolled, but I was impressed with Naomi Watts, too. I think The Painted Veil is the first movie in which I've seen her. Kitty is disappointing in the book, but I love Maugham's writing and I suppose I can forgive him for not letting Kitty grow a bit more. Yes, I do believe I will. Forgiven.

Cover thoughts:

The cover shown above is the design on my copy, which was published in 2004 by Vintage International (a division of Random House books). I like it. The mode of dress and hairstyle are right for the time period. I don't recall if there's any scene with a bird cage in the book, but there is in the movie. Actually, that part's kind of weird. They took Waddington's love life and gave Kitty a couple of "Gasp!" scenes. Oh, and Waddington -- I love the actor who played him and found that he fit the description in the book very nicely.

In other news:

There will be a cat photo, soon. My recent reviews have been way the heck too long, so I'll keep the next post brief. Sound good to you? Happy Valentine's Day!

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.