RAE’S READS
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Just as Saturdays on morning TV in the 50s and 60s were reserved for kids’ cartoons, PWR reserves Saturday mornings for reviews of kids’ books. Today’s middle school age novel deals with the current hoo-ha about what kids are allowed to read, and who has the power to take kids’ books off school libraries’s shelves.
AmyAnn is the eldest of three kids and deals with the everyday catastrophes and responsibilities of being the oldest of three sisters. Her parents depend on her to give in and take care of her two sisters, perhaps to an unfair degree. One thing AmyAnn can depend on is her school library and Mrs. Jones, her school librarian, to provide sanctuary and security when life at home gets crazy.
When AmyAnn attempts to check out her favorite book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, she finds it has been removed from the shelf. Mrs. Jones tells her a parent–one parent–has asked it be removed from the shelf because it encouraged children to run away from home and to lie, cheat, and steal as they did so. AmyAnn has checked out and read the book many times because she has often wished she could run away from her problems at home, but she has never seriously considered doing so. As the one persnickety parent has many books banned, AmyAnn finds herself buying the banned book and storing them in her locker which becomes the B.B. L. L., the Banned Books Locker Library. Students borrow the books, and AmyAnn has many close calls before eventually getting in a great deal of trouble. How she gets out of it, which includes speaking before the school board, in attempt to restore the banned books, is a story the reader will find him/herself holding their breath over as they turn the pages.
It is definitely a darned good read for kids and adults alike! Its topic is certainly timely, and its message that only a kid’s parents should be able to make decisions on what their kids are allowed or not allowed to read, is a good life lesson for kids, parents, and schools alike.
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On September 27th, I finished The Wildwater Walking Club and promised to “review it soon.” Here it is November, and I’m just now fulfilling my promise.
Another donation to the bookstore, this novel was a fun, “light” read that included a discussion of women’s friendships. motivated readers to walk, gave good advice–all while reading for pleasure. One of the blessings of owning a bookstore is you get “first dibs” on all books acquired .
In this pleasant, captivating story, Noreen loses her job and then is ghosted by her boyfriend. In this “voluntary reduction”by Olympia, her company, she obtains a generous severance package that allows her to relocate and to pick up at a 50% off employee discount half a dozen pairs of the walking shoes she had formerly written ad blurbs for that pronounced these sneakers, “New Shoes for a New Age.”
When she moves and starts walking as a way to stave off depression, she meets her neighbors, Tess and Rosie, outfits them in shoes, and creates the Wildwater (the town’s name) Walking Club. The women walk and talk, and talk and walk until they become close friends. In order to keep track of their miles walked, they ingeniously decide to “walk to somewhere” and plan a “trip” walking to a town in the US, logging in their journey as they go. Later, they then plan a physical trip to that place as a reward for their walking, losing weight, gaining more energy and solidifying their friendships. The book is intriguing, clever, full of sub-plots and excellent twists and turns. As Noreen changes her life by walking, we see the changes in her and cheer her on in her journey.
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Last summer, someone donated to my bookstore, Rae’s Reads, two books by Rachel Hollis. The first, Girl, Wash Your Face, I reviewed at the end of the summer. Near the beginning of autumn, I read its sequel, Girl, Stop Apologizing, and it spoke to me even more than Hollis’s first book.
As a little girl of the 50s, I was raised to be a pleaser and appeaser. This book was targeted right at me, and helped me make some practical changes in my life. Designed to help women live up to their full potential, Hollis advises women to stop defining themselves in light of other people–instead to own who they are and what they want. She tells all women to stop talking themselves out of their dreams.
Girl deals with excuses to let go of, how to behave, skills to acquire, and the result will be GROWTH, CONFIDENCE, AND BELIEF IN YOURSELF.
Recommended on the cover by John Maxwell, one of my personal heroes and Gretchen Rubin of the Happier podcast, a personal favorite, the book delivered all its cover promised. Hollis’s writing style is applicable, practical, honest and has a no-holds-barred “attitude.” She addresses all women who are brave enough to take the message of the book to heart. It is a godsend to women like me who need a quick course in the art of becoming a small businesswoman. I highly recommend it to all.
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In this meme, bloggers usually deal with three W’s. WHAT have you finished? WHAT are you reading now? and WHAT are you going to read next? Today, I will deal only with the first W because I want to review the amazing book I’ve just finished.
I heard about this author, Grayson Owens, through a friend of a friend, and when Mr. Owens agreed to allow me to read his novel and review it on PWR, I was thrilled. The cover alone caught my attention right away. It wraps around the book from the front, then fully filling up the back, shows an amulet carved depicting a lighthouse and the word, “Home.”
The author told me on the phone that many think (especially from the opening) the story is a seafaring adventure. However, Owens said it is mainly a love story. The prologue opens with the account of a newspaper article from 1871 describing how a mysterious fog bank accosted the small town of Salem, infamous for the witch trials. Strangely, out of the fog, fishermen dressed in oilskins, walked across the water to the docks. It was assumed that these spirits were men who had died on the Howard Johnson, a schooner which had been rammed by the Andrew Johnson, as it sank her and drowned all hands aboard.
One of these hands was Hank, a lowly sailor who had met and fallen in love with Constance, daughter of a wealthy seafaring captain. The two young people met clandestinely, but when Constance’s disapproving father robbed Hank of his chance to captain a vessel, he shipped out as a lowly seaman, seeking to better his finances and position so he could ask Constance to marry him. The amulet on the cover was a strong love charm, containing a strand of Constance’s hair wrapped around a small cross that would guarantee his return home.
All this information is revealed to Blake, an ambitious lawyer in 1947, as he read his relative’s journal upon visiting the town to settle a lawsuit which would enable his firm to acquire property from a stubborn owner who refused to sell. This seemingly impossible task would guarantee the law firm would make a huge amount of money, and for the overly ambitious Blake to achieve partner status. As he read of Hank and Constance’s deep love which conquered everything, evidently even death, Blake changes and comes to realize that the most important thing in life is not money and status, but love .
Intrigue, betrayal, crime, evil, and the supernatural all come into play in this wonderful story of a love that conquers all. As the supernatural events described in the newspaper article come to pass, the reader is caught up in the plot and subplots which keeps him turning the pages to see what happens next. As the author says , “Love is, after all, the greatest supernatural experience of all.”
I highly label this novel a “darned good read.”
RAE 10/25/23
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I even hired a teenager to watch my bookstore, Rae’s Reads, while I participated in Dewey’s, but business got busy and a seventh grader I taught back in the 70s dropped by, and we talked and talked and lost track of time, and I find my self quitting before I even got started good.
Ahhhh me, such good intentions, but you know where the path paved with good intentions leads…
Maybe in April
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One of the things I wish to work on during the Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon is my Audiobook challenge that has to be finished by the end of 2023. I have recently listened to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Today I began Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , and my goal is to finish this third book in the series by the end of the Readathon.
I have begun three books recently…
AND
…which I would like to finish by the end of the Readathon. This should be easy, since I have read quite a bit of each book.
A new book I would like to start is one that has been sitting on my TBR shelf for years–literally. I have had the paperback for a long time, having purchased it from Half-Price Books upon the recommendation of a friend from book club. I would like to read at least three or four chapters before the end of the Readathon, which shouldn’t be a problem because…
…Larson is my favorite non-fiction writer. I have a feeling if I can just get this book started, I won’t be able to put it down.
What will you be reading during Dewey’s (or at least this weekend)? Let me know in the comments below.
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JUST REMEMBERED THIS! I couldn’t participate last spring, but this fall, I’m going to give it a go. I know I have a few things to do that day, but I hoper to get in 12 hours of reading and some reading activities. Here on the Texas Gulf Coast we are on Central Time, so I will begin at 7 a.m.
More details on what I will be reading, snacking on, and listening to in a later post. DON’T YOU WANT TO JOIN ME? Let me know in the comments below.
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RECENTLY I finished a really unusual book.
Fowler’s book was special for many reasons. Not only was it written in an unusual style, but it was also a good story. The Chicago Tribune calls it a “work of art,” probably because of the author’s unique writing style. I had read Fowler before as the author of The Jane Austin Book Club, but this book is entirely different–very different. Words like “humor and horror,” and “dark, and deep, and fun” have been used by critics to describe this novel. The San Francisco Chronicle calls it “a playful romp through the Pacific Northwest.
Most of the chapters have a quote from Emily Dickinson’s poetry at the top, followed by a catalogue of the events of the time. Chin, a Chinese cook at an insane asylum, aided by B.J., a slow but often profound “trusty” who is an inmate and an employee, meet up with Sarah Canary aka “The Wild Woman of Alaska” aka Lydia. Sarah communicates with a series of grunts and squeals and is being exploited by a P.T. Barnum type known as Harold. Enter Miss Adelaide Dixon, a woman’s rights lecturer who tries to “save” Sarah from all of the men. A Great Chase ensues, where these major characters meet many quirky, strange minor characters along their way. The two women are surrounded by rowdy, drunken men several times, escaping through a window or through a persuasive speech.
The novel was definitely one-of-a-kind and a challenge to read, but definitely worth it!
powerfulwomenreaders 