Debi Cates
My granddaughter, Miss E, is Passionate for Pandas! Her parents even recently took a vacation all the way to Atlanta to see the Giant Pandas on loan from China before they are returned.
I'm always on the look-out for books featuring pandas for her, even books about pandas that are not “about” pandas if you know what I mean. Like this book: it's about a character who likes things just so–everything has to be black or white. He's not a fan of colors, even if it is, say, a slice of rainbow cake.
One day he's given a loving gift, not black and not white, and that changes his whole perspective.
This book had another feature Miss E enjoys: it was interactive. The book has little parts of the page to flip open to see the little surprise images underneath.
Thumbs up from Miss E.
This is one of three titles from our local library's online catalogue that I put “on hold” so it would be waiting for me and the Littles (my grand daughters, ages 6 and 8) when we arrived.
I selected it for us because, well, because I loved the cover. I would like me a blouse just like that. :)
Halibut Jackson is shy. So shy that he does not like to stand out. So, he creates outfits for himself that will cleverly blend into the surroundings. Until one day, he has a special invitation by the Queen to attend a party.
We were sitting at the little center coloring table and reading the books out loud to one another. When we came to the page showing the official RSVP invitation to Halibut from the Queen, my naturally very out going 6 year old Little, Miss E, said she would love to go. I asked, “To see the gold? The silver? The gems? The people all dressed up? Ooo, how about seeing the queen?”
She said, “Yes, AND they might have CUPCAKES!”
Five stars to any book that has all three of us cracking up. Even if it isn't “in” the book.
Today was fun! I discovered we can put books “on hold” at our local public library easily via online access. Incidentally, I have the Chrome extension that interfaces with GoodReads so that when I look up a book it searches if my local library has copies. It let's me know in the top right hand corner of the GR book page. I've also set the extension to check Open Library too. It's a sweet set up.So, today when I took the Littles (my grand daughters, ages 6 and 8) to our the library three books were waiting for us that I had preselected and put on hold. (Besides this book, we also had waiting [b:There's A Bear On My Chair 27210226 There's A Bear On My Chair Ross Collins https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1444913441l/27210226.SX50.jpg 47251727] and [b:Halibut Jackson 1292489 Halibut Jackson David Lucas https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387736371l/1292489.SX50.jpg 1281584]. I'll be reviewing those too.) The Littles immediately sat down at the center coloring table and we began reading the three waiting books.Miss L, the 8 year old, loves cats and loves drawing, asked me to read this one to her while she relaxed and colored. As we went along in the story, I was glad that she is sensitive to neurodivergence, thanks to her mother who has been educating her about that, and it seems to me that the boy who drew cats very well might have been “on the spectrum,” as they say. It's a great prism that I am glad has come to light, allowing us to view unusual behaviors in a positive and understanding way and I noticed that Miss L didn't ask a lot of questions about his unusual behavior probably for that reason. We did have a conversation about the paper partitions that is traditional in Japan, though. There was one scary part. We can't shield children from death and violence. The human-sized rat that was terrorizing a temple was killed by the boy's drawn cats. There was depiction of blood. But we talked about that and agreed it was natural and even a good thing. A sign how much Miss L enjoyed the book was when, after several outside interruptions subsided, she promptly asked me, “please keep reading.”That makes my heart sing. She enjoyed the book!
To hold this book in my hands means somethingThere was once a time and in many places where having this book would have gotten me shot. It humbles me to think of the people who risked their lives simply to read this slim book by Steinbeck. That was during WW II, when to read it wasn't only a risk under the Nazis but it was also a risk in Italy under Mussolini and in China under the Japanese.According to the Penguin Classics Introduction by Donald V. Coers, read it they did, by the tens of thousands, in Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, China and anywhere else where people were under totalitarian regimes, or under that fear. They illegally read it, translated it, made clandestine mimeographed copies of it, and with great risk they distributed it, and each step had the most frightening of possible consequences.Those tens of thousands were so inspired that they knew they had to put this book in the hands of others, pass along hope and courage, to strengthen resistance. As spoken by one of the characters in the novel, it was resistance against “thieves of freedom”.Steinbeck's inspiration for The Moon Is Down came when Western Europeans began to flee occupied countries to America, years before Pearl Harbor. He interviewed them and wanted to tell their stories and to educate America. (See also [b:Address Unknown 114437 Address Unknown Kathrine Kressmann Taylor https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551827969l/114437.SY75.jpg 110195] published in 1938.) But something remarkable happened with The Moon Is Down, published in March 1942: this book possibly made its bigger impact on the non-American readers living under those various occupations, the illegal readers. Steinbeck took some American criticism for the book (too naive, they said), but not too naive for the humans around the world directly suffering invasion and oppression. Seems to me they would be best to judge what was naive and what was not and in great numbers they judged it to be right on the money.I loved reading this book. It was heartening to read about righteousness, especially in a time when racism and violence are touted as “good people on both sides.” Hmph. Good people with wicked intentions, is that a thing?I would like to distribute copies of this book myself, to those who are most recently confused on the the different sides of good and evil. I'd like to send 112 to the now dysfunctional Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted against supporting Ukraine on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Compare those Nay votes with the votes on December 8, 1941 when apparently all of Congress was a tad clearer on its stance against totalitarian attacks on a Democratic country. There was just 1 Nay vote then.Or instead maybe I should send 311 copies of The Moon Is Down as a thank you to all those who voted Yea. The bill passed.
Now I need a good cry.
This small novel is quiet and soft-spoken, like the protagonist Furlong himself. A beautiful, powerful work about a not beautiful time in Irish history, a history that lasted up until nearly the end of the 20th century, now exposed for what it really was.
Actually, it wasn't exclusively part of Ireland's history. My mother, now deceased, was sent to a “girls home” and orphanage in New Mexico, run by Good Shepherd nuns. She was just 12 and was sent there by my grandmother to keep her out of trouble. I suspect the trouble was her step-father. Her older sister, also a young teen, had just taken a job as a live-in babysitter for another family. Interesting.
My mother hated her time there, 200 miles from home, and hated the nuns who ran it. They were not kind and not good shepherds. Mom said she was hungry most of the time and would volunteer for washing pots and pans just to scrape a little more food from them. The meager food they were served was sometimes cabbage or potatoes, but mostly beans, and often the beans would be reheated until they began to go sour but still served to the children. The nuns straight away taught her to embroider. The nuns sold the girls' best embroidered handkerchiefs all over the world where they are now on display in museums. They also had a laundry. I guess my mother was spared that terrible labor being so young. But, truth is, there is much I don't know for certain because she seldom talked about that time.
Finally she was able to return home for a visit, when that older sister was killed in a tragic car crash, for her funeral. Before she could be shipped back to the girls home, she met the brother-in-law of a friend, a handsome 19 year old, and married him at just 14. She had escaped the girls home, and home home.
Many years later, in her late 50s, my mom made a solo pilgrimage to Los Cruses and had a long cry at, or maybe near, the original school site. Imagine. After all those years, she still had tears and trauma.
I would like to lay down some harsh words about the hidden histories of the Catholic Church but we all know the horrors too well now. Not a continent has been spared the trauma, not even a small New Mexico town, so proud of their “Good Shepherd” nuns. Reading Keegan's book, I've had my cry too, for my mom. She suffered life-long depression and while I was growing up she made several suicide attempts with subsequent hospitalizations that lasted months. I've carried those experiences also, all my life. I'm not laying this generational trauma all at the feet of the Catholic Church but clearly they knew they were not offering enlightened Christ-like love to my mother or any of the children there. How could they not know?
We all need a good cry. I hope Small Things Like These helps bring out cathartic tears for and by countless Irish, the Irish who suffered perhaps most under the many interlocked tyrannies of Church and State.
Nice to have someone to read poetry with!
Housden has chosen some remarkable poems by remarkable poets (see list below). He suggests reading a poem several times before going on to his commentary. Maybe even do so over a series of days, which is what I did. Excellent advice. Doing that gave me time with each poem to sip a little more of its meaning with each reading and each reading I gained more pleasure and more of its power. I took my time to sit with my ideas and impressions. I took about a month to read these ten.
Next to the eloquent poems, Housden's commentary is in a distinct contrast using his every day vernacular. He doesn't write much on the mechanics of the poem but rather focuses on extracting the meaning of each poem. His poem selections and his interpretations are Buddhist-leaning.
All that suits me to a tee. (This isn't a college course, nor was I looking for that.) I simply wanted some good spirit-filled poems along with some helpful insights. And Housden provided exactly that. His reflections often included his personal anecdotes lending a warm touch.
There were a few poems that I especially appreciated his insights; a couple of poems gave me some difficulty in extracting their meanings myself. It was especially nice when he also discussed the poet and poem's background. For the poem “The God Abandons Antony” that was very helpful.
Here are the ten poems. I've bolded those that were most impactful for me but all were very good.
1 Self-Portrait –by David Whyte
2 Lake and Maple –by Jane Hirshfield
3 Throw Yourself Like Seed –by Miguel de Unamuno
4 Unfold Your Own Myth (excerpt) –by Rumi
5 Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches? –by Mary Oliver
6 The Layers –by Stanley Kunitz
7 So Much Happiness –by Naomi Shihab Nye
8 The God Abandons Antony –by C.P. Cavafy
9 Thank You, My Fate –by Anna Swir
10 In Silence –by Thomas Merton
A lovely, contemplative read for those who like poetry and like stopping for some self-inquiry. I will keep my eye out for another title in the “Ten Poems” series.
Genetic EnchanterThat's what Bradbury called himself in his Introduction, a “genetic enchanter,” and Dandelion Wine is “the boy-hid-in-the-man playing in the fields of the Lord.”From the first story, I was under his spell. Bradbury is an exemplar story-teller (think Dickens and Twain, not Joyce and Faulkner). He poured it on as thickly as he liked in this cycle of stories about being a 12 year old boy the summer 1928 in his Illinois hometown. Page after page I whispered, “Oh, yes. Yes! I remember that,” although my girlhood in New Mexico summers was 40 years after his.The details are different of course but he captured the universal sensations. Moments of unbearable joy, epiphanies of sadness, a kid's magical thinking, the terror of some boogie man or another, and the wonderment and mystery that seemed to underly everything—as seen by the child-in-the-adult looking back when all childhood summers have condensed into a stream of one continuous long summer, a summer of being alive.Maybe you should wait until you are at least 40 to read this. (I'm 64.) Let those memories distill into a vintage piquancy to sip along as you read. You know, that intoxicating flavor of nostalgia that gets sweeter as time goes by. In the meantime, read [b:Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383718290l/13079982.SY75.jpg 1272463] or [b:The Martian Chronicles 76778 The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1661016554l/76778.SY75.jpg 4636013] or [b:Something Wicked This Way Comes 248596 Something Wicked This Way Comes Ray Bradbury https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1409596011l/248596.SY75.jpg 1183550] because Bradbury is quite simply a damn good story-teller and no need to deny yourself that pleasure until you are old.Now I'm on the hunt for a Bradbury I haven't yet read. [b:The Illustrated Man 24830 The Illustrated Man Ray Bradbury https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1374049820l/24830.SY75.jpg 1065861] next I think.
My dream of perfection.This exquisite novella fulfills my reading dreams, the kind of fiction I love best, done with exquisite subtlety and a pitch-perfect union of form and function. The story is that of Robert Grainier, a manual laborer working and living in the American Northwest from the early 1900s until his death in the late 1960s. He marries and has a daughter. One day just a few years after marrying, while he is away at a logging camp working, a terrifying forest fire ravages their family home and the lives of his wife and toddler daughter. Thereafter, Grainier prefers a life of solitude and minimal society. Like Grainier the man, the novella is stoic and taciturn. The backdrop of his life, told from birth to death in just 116 pages, is rough and fleeting beauty, matching that of the pristine Northwest forests as they were being logged and cleared for trains and the march of the twentieth century.Grainier is no philosopher, no Thoreau; he's just a man making his living during his times. He is neither saint nor sinner. He will, though, sometimes reflect on certain regrets of his behavior. Sometimes he is inwardly awkward when dealing with others or with novel experiences. Not an especially self-reflecting man, but he is self-awareThroughout, he has encounters with men and women, types typical of that period in the Northwest. After his wife's death, Grainier is not much interested in women and those encounters are infrequent and brief, almost anomalies that reflect the demographics of that time and place and reflecting Grainier's own hermit-like preference. Most of his interactions are with men, simple laborers similar to himself but far more gregarious and outlandish. They tell the tales of that era: the tall tales, the violent and often funny tales, the lively tales and the persistent rumors that chatty workmen tell to pass the time. Living in the cabin he built for himself on a his few acres deep in the forest, Grainier is alert to his surroundings, its changes, its sights and sounds, and is, sometimes, awed by the magnificence. Alone, he is prone to spectral visions of his wife. He even sees his daughter once more in an unfathomable, troubling way. But none of these things especially alarm him—not the natural nor the supernatural—he accepts all things equally as part of the experiences of his life. He is effected but not alarmed.In a review somewhere, I read Johnson's style compared as similar to Hemmingway. Since I don't much care for Hemmingway myself, I want to say a few things in case others might find that comparison a reason to not pick up Train Dreams.Train Dreams is that of a humble life told humbly, an approach I've not found in Hemmingway tales, not even in Old Man and the Sea, although I suppose that might be the closest comparison. The life of Johnson's Grainer, equally physical and masculine as any Hemmingway protagonist, is that of an American in America during a specific time of change and challenges, unlike Hemmingway's heroes who travel the world looking for excitement and meaning. Grainier, too, endures trials but they are the universal kind. Nor does Grainer die young and heroically. His death, around age 70, comes inexorably in a body worn out by living and labor. Again, not a Hemmingway tale. I'll concede that Johnson also uses sparse so-called masculine language. If I must compare, then I say, “Imagine a Hemmingway story with less bravado and more sublimity.” My admiring review pales pitifully to convey the power of the original work. But isn't that the inescapable nature of encounters with art? There are the masterpieces and there are the admirers moved by it.If American society reaches the book burning dystopia foretold in [b:Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383718290l/13079982.SY75.jpg 1272463], a direction that doesn't seem as far-fetched as it once did, I readily volunteer to be this book.
The book is always better.
Finally, I read the novel! The years of watching film adaptations on lazy Sunday afternoons had been mere wispy entertainments, complete with a Victorian tea set of tropes. Mistreated orphaned relative? Check. Abused Dickensian school waif? Check. Self-sacrificing do-gooder? Check. And, last but not least, an innocent governess in love with a Byronian rake? Check!
But in the novel, along with those campy tropes and plot devices, there is firmly something more: the immediacy of being taken into the confidence of a contemplative, soft-spoken person. It's like listening to a friend telling you for the first time her life story while you each gaze into a roaring fire. She's lost in her nostalgia, recalling when things were different, when she was different.
There's no rush. You become lost too, mesmerized, listening.
Even sitting here in my 21st century sensibility armchair, alone and far removed from Jane's time, her story is immersive, compelling. I systematically let go of my retro judgements and postmodern fatigue. Reading bonded me with the novel like one bonds with a friend, slowly, then fully. I grew to care sincerely that this little person once was young, sensitive, and suffered.
I filled pages in my reading journal. So many thoughts. That was unexpected.
My observations weren't just how impossibly hard historically it has been for women. My thoughts were about power, who has it and who doesn't, about manipulation and how it can be warped as superior wisdom, how perilous it is to navigate a world where those pitfalls abound. In too many ways, the world of 1847 is not so distant from the world of 2024 as one might think it would be. The world yet remains difficult and oppressive, and not only to women.
By the end of my purposefully slow reading, I was heartily ready for the reward of a happy ending for Jane, for her humility and forbearance. Half consciously I was rooting also for the living others with whom I currently share this world and wishing a happy ending to their struggles too.
Jane Eyre, or rather Charlotte Bronte, is a friend to me now.
I want to tell her that she deserved so much better than her often dreary life, beset by limitations, worries, heartbreak, and that life then cut far short of richer fulfilments. I wish I could thank Bronte for her genius and her fortitude. I wish that she could know that, through her trope-ridden Gothic of plain Jane, she got something she well deserved:
She got immortality.
How about that for a trite happy ending.
Not light n quirky.
I bought this book because of the cover (the blue one with the adorable rice ball face). I read the back blurbs but they didn't do anything to dispel my impression it was going to be a quirky light read.
Basically, I live under a rock. Apparently she's an up-and-coming writer.
Turns out the story was actually kind of serious. In a good way. I feel like I spent some time inside the head and life of a possibly neurodivergent person (autistic spectrum), living in their world looking out at “our” world. Frankly, it was a little disorienting, but did make its own kind of sense. There is no mention of autism in the novel or by Murata that I know of. Instead, as a writer she has an even bigger theme: questioning the pressures to conform.
Good on her.
The ending, btw, is wonderful.
“You may say I'm a dreamerBut I'm not the only one”
John Lennon, Imagine
The simple message of this short allegory is encouragement to imagine and then do something.
My copy included wood engravings by Harry Brockway. I hope your copy has them too. Notice how large the hands are? Right, that's an important point. I truly hope readers who were uplifted by this 1953 work take the message to heart. And to hand.
Planting oaks native to your area is among the most hopeful steps to begin restoration. Or any native trees, native shrubs, or native wildflowers of your area. You don't need access to acres upon acres like the man who planted trees did. If you have some yard (garden in the UK), replace some of that lawn with eco-rich native species.
Watch as you create something remarkable. And become part of something good.
Imagine!
Need more inspiration?
Read [b:Oak and Company|4631008|Oak and Company|Richard Mabey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1677796609l/4631008.SX50.jpg|4681065] by Richard Mabey, 1983.
Need actionable advice?
Read [b:The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees|54110488|The Nature of Oaks The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees|Douglas W. Tallamy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1608663515l/54110488.SX50.jpg|84458549] by Douglas W. Tallamy, 2021.
Google “Homegrown National Park”
Need perseverance?
前人栽樹，後人乘涼 a Chinese proverb, “One generation plants the trees, another gets the shade.”
A Classic. But why?
For decades, I've had the wrong idea about this book simply based on its title.
First, I thought it would be advice about writing poetry Second, I thought it was written by an older man to a younger man. Not a 28 year old to a 19 year old.
There really wasn't much concrete advice about writing poetry, except the advice to view the world as a poet and you can be anywhere to do so. And when you write, try to see or feel as if seeing or feeling for the first time; be original. (Both ideas haiku-ish, don't you think?) Also don't rely too much irony.
Rilke included some progressive ideas on men, women, and sexuality for his time. Just a decade or so later, Flappers came on the scene so he had certainly been paying attention to the subtle changes in society of 1903. But I doubt he has a new message for any one today – except for the toxic male dinosaur. And like he's going to read this book?
Rilke emphasized childhood, nature, and alone time for the poet. Again, I think Western society, and not just writers, has embraced those messages for some time, and frequently under the tutelage of more expansive teachers (Freud, Walden, Woolf, et. al.)
I'd say that if this is a classic, it's made it there just under the wire. If you haven't read it, you are not missing any important ideas that you haven't already encountered. And frankly, in the translation I read, the writing is overstuffed and a bit condescending, to this reader anyway.
To be fair, maybe I should read some Rilke poetry now. Letters, though, hasn't inspired me much to do so.
Second reading, after everything's changed
I changed my rating from “I don't get it” to “I needed this book.”
My first reading was a year ago almost to the day. I thought then it was a kids book with simplified messages for children trying to make sense of the adult world in a highly imaginative way.
Now I realize this is a book of coping for any one, any age. It uses metaphors that are best understood when, for whatever reason, your mechanisms are outnumbered or have been humbled. That's when symbolic metaphors best percolate up from the deep, lending you a hand.
A mere year later, my world, my country is fiercely not OK. I now see that planet four (lamplighters) are being abused and exhausted with ever increasing speed, while planet five (star counters) are very busy trying to convince themselves and others they can claim and own the universe, without caring for even one ordinary rose out of the millions.
It's a way to cope, to ask questions like the little prince, to clearly distinguish the meaningless from the personally meaningful.
Here is a most helpful review to better grasp this classic:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6693977069
Oh, Miss Bailey White!
I want to be your friend, your neighbor, heck I'd marry you if you'd have me. I just want to be near you and live the high life with you down there in Georgia.
I wouldn't mind if I had to sleep in the old folding bed that creaks in the middle of the night and folds itself back up, with the sleeper in it. I wouldn't mind eating Cathead Island oysters even though I detest seafood –but would you'd be so kind as to check them over first to make sure I don't gulp down anything not an oyster please?
I would love if Aunt Belle would let me tag along with y'all on her “junkets,” like over to The Devil's Hoofprints where “dirt will not fill these strange depressions, and chickens will not eat out of them.” How mysterious!
Do you think your mama would mind if I sat in the kitchen reading her stack of old Natural History magazines she has tottering there? I would willingly sign an injury waiver first.
Oh yes, yes of course I don't mind living with your mother too. In fact, I would be delighted.
“If you're not from the prairie,
You don't know the sun.
You can't know the sun.”
What?
Same thing for sky, snow, cold, wind, grass. That's not very inviting, is it?
The best of the book were the illustrations, especially the pure landscapes; they were wonderful. Some of the human forms, though, were wonky and distracting. Honestly, all the illustrations were pure nostalgia, lacking any nod to time beyond the mid twentieth century.
I lived in the Kansas and Oklahoma prairies in my childhood and teens. I love the prairies – the sun, sky, snow, cold (not so much), wind, and grass. But the author repeating “you can't know” was an odd way to encourage others to get to know and appreciate them.
If you have a unicorn lover in your life, well, this might (or might not) be what they are looking for.
It's a nonfiction book about the long history of the myth of unicorns, what actual creatures they might have been inspired by, and where they stand today like how rainbows and unicorns go together and other delights like brightly colored “unicorn food”
Reading level would probably be about 8-12 years old I'd say and of interest to the most ardent unicorn fans.
Update: I tried to donate this to a Little Free Library. When my oldest granddaughter saw it (age 8) she grabbed it up. Based on that alone, I'm upping my rating from 2 to 3 stars. :)
I enjoyed it. The most powerful poem for me was the title one. The illustrations were swishy, moody, and folksy watercolors.
Being a picture book format would make you think the book is for elementary school kids. But it is much too sophisticated for that level.
But, heck, who says a picture book couldn't be for teens or adults?
After making a false start with this work, I tried again. This time I was determined to be open and not resist its non-linear story, its mystical narration. And this time it was easy.
Well, not easy, but by reading more attentively I could make clear sense of it. The novel is anything but an easy experience. From the beginning, we know that Ninon (we don't know her name yet) will die of AIDS, yet there is talk of a wedding. The book title says even To the Wedding. How will that fit? And why is it that a blind man tells us what can be seen?
God, I could just cry again.
Berger takes us on several journeys through the heights of living with its ecstatic joys to the gulping gasps of drowning rage. Peopled by characters who lived through the oppressive struggles of Eastern Europe and now in 1995 have dreams for their children, like Ninon, that won't be realized even after the fall of the USSR. We travel through Europe, through Time, and meet strangers that are sometimes poison, some are a part of Chorus that offer solace through understanding, and some souls that rebel against the unfamiliar changes of Time.
Yes, Berger does take us to the wedding. And it is the most beautiful wedding ever, a magnum opus of humanity joining to rejoice for love! Pages and pages of music, dancing, rich food, intoxicating drink, sweet wedding cake, little gate-crasher boys, tears, cheers, and of course, the most beautiful bride and the most loving groom. All thanks to the blind Greek (Berger) who, beyond the little tin tamata of a heart, offers the glorious visions he sees.
It's a story with a theme that encompasses time as a prism of past, present, and future, and all the vast things we can't predict, and the simple things we can, usually, take for granted. It gives voice to desperation's accompanying prayer/wish/hope that we could bend even just a small fraction of the prism to our will for those we love.
But early in the story, there's this"My new sandals-look!...Maybe I bought them for my wedding, the one that didn't happen."and this, the last comment by the blind Greek,"The tama of a heart in tin was not sufficient. ...Another tama was needed, made this time not in tin but with voices."Those lines changed the sad but wonderful story into a sad story wrapped in a bitterly sadder truth.From the beginning I wondered why Berger elected to tell this story as a blind man's visions, rejecting any other narrator he could have chose. Berger himself was a lifetime thinker of the "black mountains" that blocked "the world from light." He was a philosophical realist who dedicated his life (and money and reputation) to effecting changes for humanity, a realist who knew his vision for a more just world was always against all odds. I don't believe Ninon got her wedding. I don't believe the story was meant to be more than a creative vision of a how a wedding might take place for Ninon under those insurmountable circumstances but in a more humane world. It was a prayer to go along with the tama bought by her father. It was an empathetic response of a blind man's brief and profoundly sad conversation with Ninon's father and another snippet he overheard from Ninon herself. The extra prayer, no matter how vivid and earnestly desired, would have been as effective against AIDS as the tin tama, which is to say not at all. The power of "To the Wedding" for me wasn't as some kind of overcome-all-odds romance that ends tragically, which many read that way. Instead, I found it was a shouting (throat tama) into humanity's ears, hearts, eyes, torso, and for the children (we are all children) about the suffering by those among us who made an ordinary miscalculation during a particular time of an unforgiving virus and when humanity at large wasn't known for its compassion (if it ever has been) to them.
And I could cry all over again.
The Red Pony is the kind of book that I hope every book I pick up will be like. And when a book is one of those books, I am awash in deep gratitude. I even feel a sense of relief. Oh, at last!
Merely four short stories all about the same boy told in just under 100 pages. I can simply write the chapter titles here and instantly be immersed back in each with vivid detail: The Red Pony, The Great Mountains, The Promise, and The Leader of the People. Just four chapters and I wouldn't dare to wish for more. It is perfection where it stands. And that's because it's not about a boy growing up. It's about a boy. Outside of these pages he will grow up and carry these heartbreaks into manhood and perhaps be a quieter, angrier man because of them. But here, at this time, in this perfect small book, he is the “little boy Jody.”
Steinbeck's writing is the kind of timeless story-telling that feels familiar even the first time your eyes glide across the words, the lines, the page, masked by the beauty of effortless sequence. It's as fluid and clear as water; it's story-water that he's pouring into you. You don't think about the writer, or stop to admire his prose, or even think much about what's going to happen next. You are in that minute in the story. And the next minute. And the next. You are a living conduit for the story to tell its tale again.
I was the boy Jody. I felt when the wind lifted and tussled my hair. I heard the swishing of the dried oat grass as I walked through it. I was restored by the cool water in the green basin and I also feared the dark cypress tree. I skipped even when I knew I should be too old to skip, from pure happiness. I was gleeful to scatter mice with a homemade flail to their deaths for an afternoon's entertainment. And, as Jody, my 10-year old heart was devastated in a hundred different little and big ways.
Very well done!
Each type of egg has 2 pair of pages dedicated to it. First are the hint pages, “Can you guess?” with rhyming hints and very clever images. Next are the pages of information and is done very well, giving an idea of the early life of the hatchling and on to interesting tidbits about its future as it grows.
At the end of the book are actual egg-size comparisons. Squee! More fun.
Can't wait to give this to the Littles. They are such hungry sponges and so will slurp this right up.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what a beautiful book, both in its illustrations and its story.
I can't wait to give this one to the Littles. Their paternal grandparents were immigrants from Mexico and I hope this book might inspire and encourage them to learn more about that experience from their abuelita.
I've never been an immigrant, but I have been a stranger in a strange land, in a culture that was very different than my own, unable to speak the language. That kind of experience is life-changing. I can't imagine the same experience, though, as an immigrant in America, not always the most welcoming place, depending on the color of your skin. It's the very ugly side to the dream. All the more reason this book is more beautiful in the way it's told. And so important.
Also, public libraries were vitally important to the author's story. And if can you believe it, libraries are yet ANOTHER ridiculous controversy at the moment. I'm going to use the list of books that were important to Morales that she included at the end to find more books I would like to read.
Reading this reminded me of how much fun we had when I read [b:Where the Sidewalk Ends 30119 Where the Sidewalk Ends Shel Silverstein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1168052448l/30119.SX50.jpg 30518] with my girls when they were little, long ago. Wet Cement has that same love of play, and with so many little brain tickles to discover in the poems.I look forward to giving this book to my Littles (my youngest granddaughters) and to read it with them. Should be fun!