Mom is Just a Nickname

This is the story of a woman and her Bunko-playing circle of close friends. Together, they face challenges like debillitating illness, divorce, infertility, and a husband being sent to Iraq with the National Guard. There are heart to heart discussions, shopping, and arguments. On the surface, it seems like it’d be a great Chick Lit book: fun to read, but easy to put down. There were a few things that made it a book that was hard for me to digest, though.

First of all, I think I must live in a different social hemisphere than the characters in this book do. I could not relate to designer shoes, buying Starbucks all the time, outdoing each other for themed decorations for their Bunko Nights, or the many luxuries they all seemed to have. The situations they face are real enough, but their reactions to those situations don’t seem mature or realistic. The friend I related to the most was Autumn, the easy-going mother of eight children. She seemed the one nod to those of us in the real world who scrimp and save, who don’t have the cash to decorate lavishly for a gathering of close friends, who wear what we have even if it’s not right in style that season and who have accepted that kids and nice furniture don’t get along. Honestly, if a friend of mine had walked into my house and had been as picky as the fastidious Madison was about sitting on Autumn’s furniture, I would have doubted the bonds of our friendship. Love me, love my mess!
Another thing which put me off was that I found the religious references in the book were done with a heavy hand. I see how the many Bible citations and discussions of faith fit into the story, but I sometimes felt more like the author was using the book to proselytize than to tell a story.

I might recommend this book to my Christian friends, particularly those who have wrestled with the question of their faith. I did find some inciteful insightful passages about the nature of belief and faith as I was reading – I have already shared one with a friend, actually! But unless you are looking for Christian lit, I wouldn’t pick this up. The meat of the story is faith-based, not Bunko based, or even character based….in my opinion.

This Book Review has been brought to you by Blog Stop Book Tours. Click on the link to find more information about the book, the author and other bloggers who have reviewed this book!

At least according to the school calendar, it’s the first day of summer! I’m looking ahead to the next several months and wondering what I’m going to do to keep the kids entertained (so that they don’t drive me crazier than I already am!). So, this afternoon, we went to the library. As per my usual, when I’m interested in a topic, I check out a stack of books about it.

Today, some of the titles I picked up: 101 Easy Wacky Crazy Activities, The Busy Mom’s Book of Preschool Activities, Easy Homeschooling Techniques. So far, I’m really happy with the ideas in the first one, but I’ve barely been able to look through the others.

There was one other I got that had me tsking and shaking my head in disagreement with some of their statements: Kids Play: Igniting Children’s Creativity. I have not read the whole thing yet, by any means, but I was flipping through it while the kids played on the computers at the library today. Among other things, I saw a list of things you should and should not do to foster creativity in your children. Glaring out at me were the words: “16. Avoid painting with children, especially if they copy you or compare.”

Ok, I used to subscribe to this theory. I never wanted my kids to feel bad for their efforts at drawing or painting, so I would refrain from doing much of either in front of them. I don’t know if it’s because J is older now, or I’ve just adopted a new way of thinking, but now I think that children SHOULD see us doing the things we are talented in. I do not think their works should be compared to mine, but rather that we should do the activities together.

Why has my thinking changed? I think of all the times I sit to do something (like draw, paint, knit or crochet) but I don’t know how to achieve the image I have in my head. I don’t know the techniques to use, I don’t know the tricks of the trade, so to speak. I’ve never had anyone to watch, anyone to emulate. So, although I am artistically inclined, and I can draw and paint better than some people, I’ve never learned how to sharpen that raw talent into a useful skill.

BUT, I have these two children who are sponges. They will soak up everything they see, everything they hear. So, maybe if I do the things I enjoy and let them watch, they will absorb some of the tricks I have managed to learn through my thirty years of trial and error. I think that this enhances their ability to create rather than stifling their desire to create.

Anyone else have an opinion on this? I’ll have to read the book more carefully to see if there’s a solid reason behind the author’s recommendation, but as of now I’m fully in disagreement!

Springtime on Mars, by Susan Woodring: A Book Review

I see every book I read as a journey. Each book explores some facet of a life, each allows me a glimpse into someone else’s head. I love reading short stories. It’s fascinating to me the way a writer can work so much into such a small number of words or pages. Previous collections that I’ve read were mostly anthologies, collected from many different authors and they’ve usually been in the fantasy genre. Springtime on Mars deviated from this.

The whole collection is written by Susan Woodring and each story is stamped with her voice. Her stories are not fantasy or sci-fi, as the title may suggest. Instead, they explore American life in the last fifty years or so, touching on a curiousity about the possibilities of the universe beyond Earth, which America’s space explorations have fuelled.

So, I began reading Springtime on Mars unsure of what to expect from the journey. In the end, it took me on a walk through lives that were at once mundane and amazing. Some were far removed from my experience of American life and others touched very close to my heart due to Susan Woodring’s deeply poignant storytelling.

I feel the need to go back and read it again, though. I was so busy searching for hidden layers and meanings in the first few stories that I wonder what I missed. I think, in this case, reading each story for itself, without an agenda of my own, will allow me to get closer to the heart of the stories in this book.

This book review has been brought to you by Blog Stop Book Tours. Please click through the link to see more information about this book and it’s author, including reviews from other bloggers.

The Fiction Class
By Susan Breen

“You’ve known there was something special about you for a long time, haven’t you?”

With those words, Susan Breen drew me into the story of Arabella Hicks. I read the first half of the book little by little, absorbing the writing advice being given as Arabella teaches her class. I found Arabella a bit awkward, stiff and perhaps formal, and I was uncomfortable with how much I related to her character for those reasons. (Who likes to be reminded of their faults?) About midway through, I set the book down for a few weeks, unable to give it my full attention.

Then questions about what happened in the story drew me back: What happened between Arabella and her bitter mother? Did Arabella find a way to connect with her students? Did Arabella ever finish the novel she had started? Did Arabella grow out of her awkwardness – in other words, is there hope for me yet?

I returned to the book, beginning where I had left off. The three parts of the story (the fiction class, the visits with her mother, and the story her mother had written) wove themselves into a beautiful whole that hooked me in completely the second time I picked up the book. I found the writing prompts at the end of each chapter allowed me to go through the class along with her students, so that I became more of a participant in the class.

As amusing, and even educational, as Arabella’s fiction class was, the part that moved me, the part that really reached down to the core of me, was the relationship between Arabella and her mother. I know the desire to please a parent who seems difficult to please. [Disclaimer here: I do not have such a difficult relationship with either of my parents. In fact, I think my parents are wonderful. But I still find myself doing things which I hope will please them...and sometimes being disappointed by the lack of response my efforts draw.] I also know the guilt of putting a loved one in a nursing home: Our son, Sullivan, was in a Hospice Home when he passed away. The decision to turn to the Hospice Home for respite care was a difficult one, and at the same time we made it, we began discussing the options for a long term care facility. It’s not an easy decision, be it for a parent or a child.

The Fiction Class was a good read, but not always an easy one. Perhaps because it did speak so well to parts of me that I don’t always want to face, I found it harder to read than another might. I appreciated the new ways Ms. Breen offered for looking at things, from writing, to the relationships in my life. I think that marks an excellent book, when I enjoy it and learn a new perspective at the same time. This book will be on my shelf to reread many times in the future. I suspect I will find yet more new perspectives during those future readings.

This book review has been made possible by Blog Stop Book Tours. Clicking on the link will provide more information about the author, the book, and other reviews that have been written about this book.

“Slowly put down the book and back away….slowly……slowly now…”

Some day, I’m going to remember to put down the book at a decent hour. I really meant to go to bed by about 10 last night. Instead, I was awake until 1:30, reading.

I told myself when I sat down, “I’ll just read one chapter and then I’ll get ready for bed!”

Two hours later, Toph made smoochy noises at me and said he was going to bed. I blinked at my book and wondered, “Does this book even have chapters?” I seriously couldn’t remember passing any chapter markers!

Toph jokingly said he’d see me when I’d finished the book. I smirked and rolled my eyes. At 1:30, I finished the book and went to bed. Damn. I hate it when he’s right!

To put this addiction of mine in proper perspective, I started the book at 8:00p.m. when I laid down with X for bed. I kept reading, pretty much straight through until 1:30a.m.. The book had 378 pages. I’ve read it before, but it was long ago and I didn’t remember how it turned out, so I read every word on every page.

I guess there are worse addictions to have. Reading just happens to be mine. I love reading!