A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline is about Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth's painting Christina's World. I've always loved the painting and thought of the subject as a young woman enjoying the land, feeling free in the Great Outdoors. It wasn't till I read about Christina, a couple years ago, that I realized the subject was a real person, not just a random model. And, it wasn't till I read the book that I noticed certain details.

Christina lived outside a small town on the coast of Maine and her world was truly limited almost entirely to the area around the house. Stricken by a crippling disease in her childhood, Christina's limbs became deformed. The disease was progressive, later causing her a great deal of pain and robbing her of her ability to walk. Eventually, she dragged herself wherever she wanted to go.

A Piece of the World takes you through Christina's life, describing her illness, her relationships with the other members of her family and how they all gradually either died or went off to live their own lives, the brother who sacrificed aspects of his own life to care for Christina, and her friendships with Andrew Wyeth and his wife. The painting itself isn't actually mentioned till nearly the end of the book, when it's painted. But, by then the reader knows the artist and his subject well enough to feel a depth of meaning in its details.

Recommended - While not as engrossing as Orphan Train, A Piece of the World is a fascinating read. I enjoyed learning about Christina, Andrew Wyeth, and the setting of the painting Christina's World. The tone is haunting and generally melancholy. Christina was not a happy person and her life was difficult, even excruciating. But, Christina Baker Kline's writing is lovely and I'm very glad I read A Piece of the World. I'd recommend saving it for when you're okay with a melancholy read if you're affected by the tone of a book.

Side note: My F2F group loved Orphan Train so much that they've been eagerly awaiting the author's latest work. I'm not sure whether or not I'd recommend it as a discussion book, so I asked our group leader if she'd like to borrow my copy to judge for herself and she replied with a very enthusiastic "yes". If we end up eventually discussing it, I'll post about the discussion (but that would be after it comes out in paperback).

Bonus: There's a copy of the painting in the back of the book. I kind of wish I'd flipped ahead and realized it was there as I was reading the description of it, but it's nice to have a copy of the painting! I've loved it for many years. Reading about Christina may have changed the way I see it a little bit, but it also made the painting even more special.

©2017 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.

More minis: Well Wished by Billingsley (reread), Orphan Train by Kline (reread), I Love It When You Talk Retro by Ralph Keyes

She eased onto the ice and cast her words in front of her, threading the air with her voice and tugging it taut with a bright invisible line. And the ice flowed into her legs -- or maybe it was that her legs flowed into the ice -- and even when she took the air in a jump there was some secret that whispered between the ice and her feet. 

[p. 62]

Well Wished by Franny Billingsley is a reread but I'll go ahead and write a bit about it, just for grins and because I happen to love Franny Billingsley's writing.

Nuria lives with her grandfather, whom she calls "the Avy", in tiny Bishop Mayne, a village with a magical Wishing Well. One can only make a single wish in a lifetime and that wish must be worded very carefully or things can go very, very wrong. One such wish caused all the children in town to disappear -- all but 11-year-old Nuria, who lives up on the mountain.

When a single child returns, Nuria becomes friends with her. Catty Winter is unable to walk after illness took away the use of her legs. She and Nuria spend time together in a cabinet under the stairs, which they have decorated. They're very imaginative children. When Catty convinces Nuria to make a wish with her and the wish goes horribly wrong, Nuria wants to rescind the wish. But, Catty does not. How will she convince Catty to speak up so things can return to normal but without making Catty's life as bad as it was, before?

Highly Recommended - There are a lot of things I love about Well Wished: its complexity, the relationship between Nuria and her grandfather, the creativity of the children, the word game ("Bring me a description") Nuria plays with the Avy, the way the story is resolved. It's a lovely story. I read a few reviews while I was reading the book because I noticed it didn't have a very high rating at Goodreads and found that some people considered Nuria a bit snarky. She's a wit, definitely, but I don't think of her as negative. Rather, it seemed to me that she's a good person who wants to do the right thing. And, the writing is lovely.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is also a reread. This time, I read it for discussion with my local book group. I suggested it when our group leader asked me if I knew of any discussion-worthy books that weren't downers, as we'd read a series of truly dreary books and everyone was in need of an upper. I recommended Orphan Train, which she quickly read and added to the schedule for discussion.

I'm not going to write a full description since I've reviewed Orphan Train in the past (that's a link, at left, to my old review) but it's a story that flits between the story of a teenager in foster care in the present day and a historical story about a young orphaned Irish girl who was sent on a train to the West. Their lives, as it turns out, bear some uncanny parallels. The story ends on a very happy note.

We discussed Orphan Train, last month, and used some of the questions in the paperback version for discussion (but it was also a partly organic conversation). I don't recall anyone at all saying they disliked the story and it was definitely a good choice. Everyone was relieved to have a break from sadder reading material and there was plenty to talk about.

Still highly recommended - Loved it the first time; appreciated Orphan Train even more upon rereading.

I Love It When You Talk Retro by Ralph Keyes is about the crazy things we say, the origins of some of the words and phrases that we use, and how some of them have been altered by time, shifting their meaning -- sometimes to its opposite.

I bought I Love It When You Talk Retro as a remainder and had set it on the end table with the thought that I planned to read it soon. If you're a regular here, you know I decided to go ahead and read the book after my husband spilled coffee all over my copy. It's not in great shape.

Although I can't recall what rating I gave the book, I liked it a lot but didn't love it. The history of words and phrases is, of course, fascinating to me because I'm a lover of words (I'll bet most of you share that with me). There were only a couple problems with the book. One is that sometimes the author was wrong. It didn't happen often, as far as I know, but I did catch a few mistakes. The second problem is that the author seemed to grow tired of his subject matter toward the end of the book. Within the last 50 pages, the depth of history seems to narrow, the passion wanes and the reader is left with questions that were answered earlier in the book when describing other retro terminology. The final problem is kind of shocking for the type of book: the author inserts his opinion where it is absolutely not appropriate. He may, for  example, say the origin of a phrase came from a particularly bad movie, for example -- his opinion, not necessarily the opinion of the reader or even the popular viewpoint.

Recommended with slight hesitation - Because of the three problems mentioned, I can't give I Love It When You Talk Retro an enthusiastic recommendation but it was fascinating enough that I occasionally read passages to my husband and he enjoyed them as much as I did. So, it's worth reading, even though it may not be a perfect book.


©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.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Copyright 2013
William Morrow - Historical/contemporary fiction
278 pp. plus extra P.S. insights and reader's guide

Source:  My friend Paula sent me her ARC of Orphan Train and then a copy arrived from HarperCollins.  The finished copy has a very interesting P.S. section with more info on orphan trains.

What it's about:  

Molly is 17 and has been in foster care since her father died.  In trouble for stealing, she can either go to juvenile detention or do community service.  Her boyfriend's mother works for an elderly woman who needs help cleaning out her attic and manages to get Molly lined up to help Vivian as a substitute for more typical community service hours.

Vivian Daly has lived in Maine since her retirement.  In her youth, she immigrated from Ireland but lost her entire family and was sent west on an orphan train.  Her attic holds a wealth of mementoes from a life well-lived.

As Molly and Vivian begin to sort through Vivian's attic, they discover that their lives bear some uncanny parallels.  Orphan Train alternates between Molly's story in present-day Maine and Vivian's tale from her traumatic childhood to just after WWII.

What I loved about Orphan Train:

I absolutely loved learning about the orphan trains in America -- a piece of history that was totally unknown to me -- and thought the author did a fantastic job of comparing life as a foster child with life as an orphan who was more likely to end up being used as a common laborer than loved and adopted.  But, most importantly, I loved both Molly and Vivian (or Niamh, pronounced "Neev", her given name).  I cared about them and because I wanted to know how their stories would end the pages flew.

One scene I particularly loved is a conversation in which Vivian asks Molly what she got in trouble for stealing. When Vivian finds out Molly stole a copy of Jane Eyre, Vivian's reaction is priceless.

What I disliked:

The only thing I disliked about Orphan Train was the fact that I thought it would have been a bit nicer to reveal Vivian's story through dialogue with Molly, rather than in alternating chapters.  I think it would have given the book a little more emotional impact.  But, it wasn't written that way and I still loved Orphan Train.

Recommendation:

Highly recommended.  Likable characters, a fascinating storyline with nicely-drawn parallels, a fascinating peek into a part of American History I knew nothing about and a satisfying ending made Orphan Train a book I set down with a (mildly soggy) smile on my face.

No malarkey or twaddle, this week:

I have a lot of catch-up to do, after last week's unexpected loss of blogging mojo, so I'm going to try to write at least one review per day.  "Try" is the operative word.  I still don't feel much like writing, but we'll see how it goes.

©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.