The Winter People is a tale told not just from multiple perspectives but also across time.
The story of Sara and her daughter Gertie takes place in 1908 while the story of Ruthie, her mom, and her sister, and newly widowed Katherine take place in the present. As the sections move back and forth in time they are on a collision course.
This is a ghost story and the story of a mother's love and loss. It is all at once creepy, mysterious, beautiful and heartbreaking.
It is also the story how sadness and grief can lead to desperate actions the repercussions of which can be long lasting even to the point of outliving us.
(Finished April 26, 2015)
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
From time to time I read a book where I find myself truly loving a character and knowing I would be friends with her/him if they jumped out of the book and into my world. Addie Baum is such a character.
The story of a Jewish family that comes to the US and settles in Boston is told through the words of old Addie telling the tale to her granddaughter.
Addie is braver and more amazing than she seems to know but there can be no doubt as you read her story. Her mother has nothing but disdain for her, her father is so out of reach he seems like a ghost in the story, her sister Betty has escaped by moving out, and Celia is a tragic figure.
The city of Boston is like a character in Addie's story and it is a lovely bit of writing that make it so. You will feel the city breathe along with the human characters.
Addie grows from scared young girl who just wants to go to school to become a confident and wise woman.
Take a trip into Addie's past, it is painful, beautiful, and powerful.
(Finished April 19, 2015)
The story of a Jewish family that comes to the US and settles in Boston is told through the words of old Addie telling the tale to her granddaughter.
Addie is braver and more amazing than she seems to know but there can be no doubt as you read her story. Her mother has nothing but disdain for her, her father is so out of reach he seems like a ghost in the story, her sister Betty has escaped by moving out, and Celia is a tragic figure.
The city of Boston is like a character in Addie's story and it is a lovely bit of writing that make it so. You will feel the city breathe along with the human characters.
Addie grows from scared young girl who just wants to go to school to become a confident and wise woman.
Take a trip into Addie's past, it is painful, beautiful, and powerful.
(Finished April 19, 2015)
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
I as already familiar with Holly from reading The Spiderwick Chronicles with my son but after reading The Coldest Girl in Coldtown I was sold on Holly Black as an author I enjoyed reading for my enjoyment too.
The Darkest Part of the Forest was really fun to read. It is a fairy tale with fairies, haunted woods and all the fantasy folks that typically in habit it, a mysterious casket with a horned boy sleeping in it, and a town full of humans. However this fairy tale isn't just a story parents tell their kids to get them to behave, it is all true!!!
Hazel and Ben are teenage siblings that live in Fairfield, a community where not just the children believe in enchanted woods, the adults do too. Hazel is a warrior and Ben has a powerful music that soothes the savage beasts.
With all this fantasy world as its backdrop The Darkest Part of the Forest is also a coming of age teen love story.
Visit the forest, you won't be sorry.
(Finished April 1, 2015)
The Darkest Part of the Forest was really fun to read. It is a fairy tale with fairies, haunted woods and all the fantasy folks that typically in habit it, a mysterious casket with a horned boy sleeping in it, and a town full of humans. However this fairy tale isn't just a story parents tell their kids to get them to behave, it is all true!!!
Hazel and Ben are teenage siblings that live in Fairfield, a community where not just the children believe in enchanted woods, the adults do too. Hazel is a warrior and Ben has a powerful music that soothes the savage beasts.
With all this fantasy world as its backdrop The Darkest Part of the Forest is also a coming of age teen love story.
Visit the forest, you won't be sorry.
(Finished April 1, 2015)
Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage by Kathryn Edin
I read this for my Work, Women, and Family class.
It is an interesting idea to explore, who do poor women have babies and often never get married.
Some of the women will make you angry, some will make you sad, but mostly they will make you rethink your preconceived ideas about this group. Many of the women find themselves looked down upon while their children's fathers get pats on the back for having all these children.
While many of them are very young when they begin having children not all of them are teen moms. Quite a few are in their 20's, 30's, and even 40's.
A really insightful though not pretty look at the topic.
(Finished March 20, 2015)
It is an interesting idea to explore, who do poor women have babies and often never get married.
Some of the women will make you angry, some will make you sad, but mostly they will make you rethink your preconceived ideas about this group. Many of the women find themselves looked down upon while their children's fathers get pats on the back for having all these children.
While many of them are very young when they begin having children not all of them are teen moms. Quite a few are in their 20's, 30's, and even 40's.
A really insightful though not pretty look at the topic.
(Finished March 20, 2015)
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home by Arlie Russell Hochschild, Anne Machung
I read this for my Work, Women, and Family class.
The premise is that women who are mothers and work outside the home work a second shift when they get home from work in order to take care of their home and children.
The books tells the story of some couples who and how they navigate this second shift.
I found it an interesting read but it also made me a little angry and some of the men and some of them women too. But the idea of a second shift and how to more equally share the responsibility that comes with rising a family when both parents work sparked conversation and debate in my class. It also provided some really good food for thought.
(Finished February 27, 2015)
The premise is that women who are mothers and work outside the home work a second shift when they get home from work in order to take care of their home and children.
The books tells the story of some couples who and how they navigate this second shift.
I found it an interesting read but it also made me a little angry and some of the men and some of them women too. But the idea of a second shift and how to more equally share the responsibility that comes with rising a family when both parents work sparked conversation and debate in my class. It also provided some really good food for thought.
(Finished February 27, 2015)
Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir by Liz Prince
I was walking around at The Odyssey (independent bookstore across the street from campus). I saw the cover of this book and it jumped out at me.
Dakota has been going through a struggle with gender identity and we had been talking about the past year spent living as "he" but now feeling like that didn't fit so we were going back to calling her "she".
I saw the cover of Tomboy and it jumped out at me. So I picked up the book and read the inside front and back cover. This book felt custom made for my sweet kid. So I bought it and was so excited to get home.
Dakota read it first. Then she loaned it to our LUK worker Kathy (who we are so lucky to have) and now I have read it.
It's a graphic novel about Liz, who spent her life feeling like she was not "girly" and was more interested in things people were trying to tell her were for boys. She didn't like makeup, dresses, and the thought of needing a bra was horrific.
She much preferred her baseball cap, comfy men's t-shirts, baggy boys jeans, and ghostbuster toys.
It took her a very long time to feel comfortable in her own skin and realize that she was a she, just not by society's definition of what made someone a girl.
(finished March 17, 2015
Dakota has been going through a struggle with gender identity and we had been talking about the past year spent living as "he" but now feeling like that didn't fit so we were going back to calling her "she".
I saw the cover of Tomboy and it jumped out at me. So I picked up the book and read the inside front and back cover. This book felt custom made for my sweet kid. So I bought it and was so excited to get home.
Dakota read it first. Then she loaned it to our LUK worker Kathy (who we are so lucky to have) and now I have read it.
It's a graphic novel about Liz, who spent her life feeling like she was not "girly" and was more interested in things people were trying to tell her were for boys. She didn't like makeup, dresses, and the thought of needing a bra was horrific.
She much preferred her baseball cap, comfy men's t-shirts, baggy boys jeans, and ghostbuster toys.
It took her a very long time to feel comfortable in her own skin and realize that she was a she, just not by society's definition of what made someone a girl.
(finished March 17, 2015
Monday, February 9, 2015
The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued by Ann Crittenden
This is the first book of the semester I had to read for my class The Psychology of Work, Women, and Family.
To say that the findings Ann Crittenden writes about made me angry would be an understatement. She was moved to write about the price paid by mothers and other caregivers when after leaving The New York Times she was asked if she "used to be Ann Crittenden."
Women, even those with degrees from prestigious schools, make less and move up the corporate ladder slower than their male and their childless female counterparts.
Caregiving, those who provide childcare for children that are not their own, and mothers who devote themselves full time to raising their children, are considered unskilled labor.
Stay at home mothers don't have any kind of protections if they get injured on the job, they don't get retirement benefits of their own from social security, and woe to them if they get divorced because the courts offer little or no protection.
Crittenden lays out facts and statistics, she speaks with real women and shares their stories.
While most of the studies she quotes were done in the very later 90's they are still very relevant. A very interesting even if frustrating read. I hope you feel moved to want to help make changes to the system. I am not sure how but I know I am on the look out for the opportunity.
(Finished February 7, 2015)
To say that the findings Ann Crittenden writes about made me angry would be an understatement. She was moved to write about the price paid by mothers and other caregivers when after leaving The New York Times she was asked if she "used to be Ann Crittenden."
Women, even those with degrees from prestigious schools, make less and move up the corporate ladder slower than their male and their childless female counterparts.
Caregiving, those who provide childcare for children that are not their own, and mothers who devote themselves full time to raising their children, are considered unskilled labor.
Stay at home mothers don't have any kind of protections if they get injured on the job, they don't get retirement benefits of their own from social security, and woe to them if they get divorced because the courts offer little or no protection.
Crittenden lays out facts and statistics, she speaks with real women and shares their stories.
While most of the studies she quotes were done in the very later 90's they are still very relevant. A very interesting even if frustrating read. I hope you feel moved to want to help make changes to the system. I am not sure how but I know I am on the look out for the opportunity.
(Finished February 7, 2015)
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