The Descendants

The Descendants, by Kaui Hart Hemmings

After seeing the movie before reading the book, I could not get George Clooney as Matt King out of my head. That's not a bad thing. :) I had dragged my dear hubby to see "The Descendants" when we stayed at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in March, and we cried through the movie. I didn't cry during the book...guess that is the difference between a book and a movie (except in the case of Wonder, which had me crying throughout).

This book, expanded from a short story, was beautifully written. Hemmings has a keen understanding of the way teenagers think and act (especially those who do not get enough affection or guidance from their parents!). The book is stronger than the movie in that we get to understand Matt's inner life and motivations. His transformation is a bit deeper and more understandable in the book for that reason.

It clearly is a novel of place. Hawaii is ever present, as is its culture, history, and tensions between native Hawaiians and white people. Hemmings also handles the concepts of death and grief in a sensitive, loving, and realistic way.

Most of the colorful characters are not particularly likable, but I liked this book anyway. Joanie is in a coma, but we get a sense of her (I would probably have liked her even less if she had been conscious). Matt grows from a man who is uncomfortable with affection into one who comes to appreciate his family and what he has...a man who can actually say "I love you" to daughters who are completely unaccustomed to hearing that from anyone.

Just had to throw in a few photos from the movie because. Well, George Clooney.

Wonder

Wonder, by R. J. Palacio

My middle-grade-writer husband read this amazing debut middle-grade novel last week, and he cried and cried and cried. While in the middle of reading the book, he asked me whether people stared at me or made fun of me for the way I looked when I was a child. (I had a cleft lip and palate, in addition to a severe overbite and horribly crooked teeth.) The answer was yes, they did...and sometimes I still find people staring at my cleft lip scar. Sometimes children ask me about it. But what I faced was nothing like what the main character in this book faced.

August (Auggie) had a series of birth defects that resulted in a face that is mashed up and unlike any other. The book starts with Auggie saying "I know I'm not an ordinary ten-year-old kid...I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse."

Auggie has been homeschooled for the first ten years of his life because of all the surgeries he had to endure. (Like Auggie, I also had to have jaw surgery and an implant in my chin.) Finally, as he is entering fifth grade, his parents decide to send him to school. And so begins the story. We hear the story from Auggie's perspective, as well as from his older sister Via and a few of his friends.

My husband, in his own review, writes about why this book is different and has value as a middle-grade novel. I'll leave that to the expert to describe.

The first part that had me crying was on page 7. When Auggie was born, he was immediately rushed out of the room, and his mom got very upset. Finally, "She says that when she looked down into my tiny mushed-up face for the first time, all she could see was how pretty my eyes were." A similar thing happened at my birth: the nurse would not show me to my mom until she had braced herself...because of my cleft lip and palate. But my mom, too, thought I was beautiful and was just relieved that I was there and my defects could be repaired. I could live a normal life. Auggie's mom, too, only saw the beauty in him, and not the ugliness like the rest of the world did.

Auggie makes friends at school, eventually, and he also makes some enemies. People are horribly mean to him everywhere he goes...especially when they see him for the first time. He's a bright, funny, and sensitive kid, as people discover once they get past his face.

I loved this story of a boy who finds his place in the world, helped along by people who show him kindness.
"Shall we make a new rule of life...always to try to be a little kinder than necessary?" --J.M. Barrie

My Monastery Is a Minivan

My Monastery Is a Minivan: Where the Daily Is Divine and the Routine Becomes Prayer, by Denise Roy

I discovered this book when I read a review for one of Denise Roy's more recent books (Momfulness)...and being a chronological-type reader, I decided to start with this one. Plus as a new (initially reluctant) minivan parent, I liked the title, which comes from Roy's childhood desire to become a nun.

As you might guess, she didn't become a nun--instead she became a mom to three sons and one daughter. She also has an M.Div. and is a psychotherapist and spiritual director. This book is all about finding the divine in our everyday lives.

Roy begins her series of essays with a quote from Frederick Buechner, "There is no telling where God may turn up next--around what sudden bend of the path if you happen to have your eyes and ears open, your wits about you, in what odd, small moments almost too foolish to tell."

Each short essay in this collection is a gem and makes me think more mindfully about my own life and family. She uses wonderful quotes and poems to enhance her points, such as this one by Margaret L. Mitchell:

"Sometimes

When it is all, finally,

Too much,

I climb into my car,

Roll the windows up,

And somewhere between backing out the driveway

And rounding the first corner

I let out a yell

That would topple Manhattan

How do you pray?"

Or this one, another by Frederick Buechner:

"The sacred moments, the moments of miracle,
are often the everyday moments."

And this one by Bapuji:

"Those who do not know how to sing and dance
will never reach God."

In one of my favorite essays, "Potato Stories," Roy shares four stories about potatoes...one was about the Korean custom for washing potatoes. When they want to wash a lot of dirty potatoes, they don't wash them one by one...instead they put them all in a tub of water, put a stick in the water, and move it up and down, and the potatoes bump into each other, helping to clean them. She compares this potato bumping/cleaning exercise to being in a community of faith, "When we join hands, our prayers and our lives bump up against one another, and something holy is made in the process."

One of the other potato stories can be found all over the Internet:

One of my teachers had each one of us bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes.  For every person we’d refuse to forgive in our life, we were told to choose a potato, write on it the name and date, and put it in the plastic bag.  Some of our bags, as you can imagine, were quite heavy.

We were then told to carry this bag with us everywhere for one week, putting it beside our bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to our desk at work.

The hassle of lugging this around with us made it clear what a weight we were carrying spiritually, and how we had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, and keep leaving it in embarrassing places.

Naturally, the condition of the potatoes deteriorated to a nasty slime.  This was a great metaphor for the price we pay for keeping our pain and heavy negativity!

Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person, and while that’s true, it clearly is also a gift for ourselves!

So the next time you decide you can’t forgive someone, ask yourself… Isn’t MY bag heavy enough?



In "Night," she writes about her neighbor Debbie, whose aging mother has become very ill. She asked her neighbor about the hardest part, and she said, "The middle of the night. Getting up at three in the morning to change Mom's diapers and having her look me in the eyes and ask "Where's Debbie?'" This resonated for me, as I was thinking about my cousin who has been caring for her ill mother (my aunt, who recently died of cancer) and father with Alzheimer's. I remember those night times when my sons would wake me up to nurse, and we were the only ones awake in the house. Roy shares this passage from Jane Ellen Mauldin, which I love:

"As I trudged alone through the night hallways, I staggered to a call as old as humankind. That night and every night, mothers and fathers around the world awaken to reassure restless children. That night and every night, grown children arise to calm fitful, aging parents. Those night hours are long and lonely. Our burdens and tired bones are ours alone to bear. There are, however, other people out there who are waking even as we are. There are other people who bear similar burdens--whether it is simply to reassure a child for one night, or to help a dying loved one be at peace, week after week, until the end.

We who rise do so because we choose to do it. It is an intense, physical demand; it is also an honor as ancient as human love. We are part of the circle of families and friends who nurture Life from its earthly beginning until its earthly conclusion."

In "Blessing One Another," she shares a story about shopping with her daughter and observing a horrible interaction between an assistant manager and a delightful young child, who had been twirling around and dancing with a butterfly on a stick, much to the assistant manager's horror. Roy is able to intervene on the mother's behalf (the mother is Hispanic, didn't see what happened, and is cowed by the situation) and share the story with the manager, since she observed the interaction. She starts out this chapter with this poem by Galway Kinnell:

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don't flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within,

of self-blessing.

She knows with certainty that the same incident would not have occurred with her own daughter because of the color of her skin. She discusses the effect of prejudice on a small child's ego, and how the mother was "saying words of kindness in the hopes of restoring to the child a sense of her goodness. But I also thought of how different it would be if she had help. What if she had all of us doing this with her, reminding her daughter of her beauty? How different this girl's life would be." She concludes the story by saying that this is how we help God out: "by telling one another in words and in touch that we are lovely and whole and worthy of blessing."

In "Hiding Places," Roy writes about the pain of miscarriage, and her own experiences of having three miscarriages...of which the cause was never determined. Then after letting go of their dream of having another child, suddenly she became pregnant again. In our case, my four miscarriages occurred between our oldest and middle child, and as much as we wanted another child, it was so heart-achingly painful to keep trying. Then finally, it worked--and I had Kieran, my middle son. Roy talks about people's tendency to hide away their pain and grief, deepening their sense of isolation, but "It is only when we have the courage to open the door to the hidden parts of our lives that our suffering can be transformed into wisdom and compassion." This I know is true. Without grieving for each baby I had lost, I never would have been able to be happy in the world.

Another gem I found in this book is a ritual that Denise Roy has in her family. When a boy reaches the age of 13, he goes on a camping trip with other men in the family as a rite of passage. In her appendix, Roy shares some of the questions they discuss:

"Who are my heroes?

What is my philosophy of life?

What do I feel about work?

What gives meaning to my life?

What are the qualities of my mother I admire? Of my father?

What qualities do I value in a relationship?

What does intimacy mean?

What are my dreams for myself?

What does success mean for me?

What brings me joy?

For what, or whom, would I sacrifice my time, energy, health, or life?

What is my idea of power? What is the source of my power?

What are my gifts?

What do I fear?

What is sacred?

Who are my people?

How do I most enjoy life?"

This is the best thing I got out of this book: in a family full of male children, I want to start this ritual. My oldest son (and the oldest grandson) turns 16 this summer, and I've asked my husband, dad, and brother-in-law if they would be willing to take him on such a trip. I love the idea of rites of passage, and this could be a truly meaningful one. They might even take some drums! :)

I really enjoyed this book and it gave me a lot to think about...good reminders of finding the sacred in everyday life, not taking things for granted, and remembering that prayer and meditation comes in many forms.

The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson 

I found this book to be very sad...it was described as similar to "Little Miss Sunshine" (which I loved) or "The Royal Tenenbaums," which is why I read it. Now I realize it's several days I will never get back.

It's the story of performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang, who spent their adult lives creating performance pieces that they called art. When they had children (Annie and Buster), they engaged the kids in their offbeat, wild performances.

As Annie (Child A) and Buster (Child B) grow up, they are completely screwed up, incapable of forming meaningful, trusting relationships or appreciating anything they have in their lives. When their careers go south and Buster gets shot in the face with a potato gun, they return home to Tennessee to their crazy mom and dad.

Soon Caleb and Camille go missing, and Annie and Buster have the sneaking suspicion that this is all an act and part of their parents' "art." The saddest part about this story is that these dysfunctional parents believe that art trumps everything else, even family and even love. 

It was a clever debut novel (Wilson was mentored by Ann Patchett), but just not my cup of tea.  

Cinderella Ate My Daughter

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, by Peggy Orenstein

I loved Peggy Orenstein's Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother, so as soon as I heard about this book, I knew I would read it. Even though I do not have daughters, I am greatly concerned about the heightened stereotypes both genders face while they are growing up.

I must admit that I enjoyed playing dress-up with my sister and friends when I was a child. We had a dress-up trunk with cast-off long dresses with full skirts, and we made up a game where we imagined we were princesses with the power to do magic when we waved our antique hankerchiefs. But nowadays girls do not need to improvise: with the accessibility of inexpensive toys, most young girls have far more pink princess items than anyone would have dreamed of when I was a girl. In fact, anyone with a girl must feel like pink princesses are exploding all over. I actually have an active dislike of the color pink for this reason.

Orenstein, whose writing style reminds me a bit of Anne Lamott, begins by telling us how she really did not expect or want a daughter...she wanted a son. I could relate in a way, because in my case, I always thought I would have a daughter. Of course, Mike often teased me that if I were to have a daughter, I'd be force-feeding her copies of Ms. while she hid her Seventeen and Glamour mags under her mattress. He's probably right. I'd probably have had a prissy princess and would have been dumbstruck.

Orenstein decided to write this book when, to her horror, her own daughter became princess obsessed. What harm does a little pink princess love do? Well, "according to the American Psychological Association, the girlie-girl culture's emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness can increase girls' vulnerability to the pitfalls that most concern parents: depression, eating disorders, distorted body image, risky sexual behavior." We've all read the studies showing how many young girls are overly concerned with their weight and their appearance and how that affects their self-esteem. Orenstein struggled to see these risks in her own capable, self-confident daughter, but study after study show that "girls can be derailed by stereotypes."

I learned why it seemed that Disney princesses began popping up everywhere I looked: they were created by a Disney executive who attended a "Disney on Ice" show and saw all the little girls in their cheap, handmade Disney princess costume. Eureka: a marketing extravaganza is born!

She looks at the transformation of Barbie, who in the beginning not only had unrealistic proportions but also was a career woman, into the cute, princess Barbie she has become today.

"The astronauts, surgeons, and presidents of her glory days have been largely replaced by fairies, butterflies, ballerinas, mermaids, and princesses whose wardrobes are almost exclusively pink and lavender...Original Barbie would have been appalled: her palette was never so narrow--even her tutu was silver lame."

Now girls can choose from pink ouija boards, pink cell phones, pink laptops, Monopoly Pink Boutique edition, Pink Yahtzee, and ad nauseum. When Orenstein visits a toy fair, she is told that pink is the way to sell toys. How many girls do you know who do not profess to have pink as their favorite color (and are brave enough to admit it)?

Orenstein shares many of her internal battles, such as how to handle her daughter Daisy's request for a blue Fairytopia Barbie or a pink gun. She is noncommittal about the gun (leaning toward purchasing it) until discussing it with her husband, who reminds her, "No war toys." She visits the American Girl palace, but sans Daisy, trying to postpone her daughter's immersion in the need for expensive, unnecessary doll toys that are completely inaccessible to anyone without scads of money.

She explores the history of fairy tales (actually reading the original ones unedited to her daughter) and decides she doesn't like the modern version of some of those fairy tales much better. For example, she doesn't like The Paper Bag Princess (a story I rather like) because the prince rejects the princess for wearing a paper bag. She doesn't like the end (in fact compares it to "Thelma & Louise"), in which the princess dumps the prince and skips off into the sunset. Is that such a bad thing, teaching our daughters that they don't have to have a man to be happy? Sometimes I think she's being a bit too picky. She realizes, when she shares some stories from Free to Be You and Me that she's actually introducing some stereotypes to her daughter rather than teaching her lessons (for example, her daughter asks her what the word "sissy" means). I think it's good for children to be aware of how people do have the tendency to stereotype, but I understand her concern.

Then she takes on Twilight, and you all know what I think about Twilight (if you don't, read all about my opinions here). "Compared with Stephenie Meyer, the Grimms come off like Andrea Dworkin." Good line. "It is Bella, not the supernaturals she falls in love with, who is the true horror show here, at least as a female role model. She lives solely for her man; when he leaves her in New Moon...she is willing to die for him as well...Oh yeah, I want my daughter to be that girl." And that, my friends, is also why you will not find this voracious reader diving into 50 Shades of Grey, which started out as Twilight fan fiction! No thank you.

Orenstein also explores the trajectories of various girl celebrities--Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, etc.--and their bizarre virgin/whore dances. Later she discusses the Scholastic Publishers' tendency to publish books full of sexist stereotypes, which I recently wrote about in my other blog.

Similar to The Mama Boy's Myth, this is an important book about what we are exposing our girls to and the risks they face by being pressured to be princesses instead of heroes. Yes, they all grow out of the princess phase, but what fallout remains as they move into adolescence?

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand

Louis Zamperini with his brother Pete

My sister and husband both read Unbroken for their respective book groups and loved it. I was looking forward to diving in, and it did not disappoint.

Unbroken is the true story of Louis Zamperini, destined to be the world's fastest miler. He spent his childhood getting into one scrape after another and seemed destined to be a failure until he discovered running. He participated in the 1936 Olympics (presided over by Hitler) but would be in his prime at the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. Sadly, the 1940 Games were cancelled, and he was otherwise occupied in 1944.

The photo that made me cry!
Zamperini greeting his mother
after returning from the war



When World War II broke out, Zamperini enlisted in the Army Air Forces and was stationed in Hawaii. While flying in a plane over the Pacific to rescue another plane that had not returned from a mission, Zamperini and his crewmates crash-landed in the ocean. Amazingly, he and the two other survivors floated on a life raft for 47 days--drinking rain water, eating raw fish and birds they caught with their hands, and telling stories to keep themselves sanee--before drifting to one of the Marshall islands, where they were captured by the Japanese.

This is nonfiction at its best: I learned about running, life in the army during World War II (and how many planes went down when they were not in combat), and survival in a brutal Japanese POW camp. Heavy on narrative and light on dialogue, the book drags for some readers (especially during the descriptions of the airplanes and combat flights), but I found the book to be completely gripping.

When Zamperini returns to the U.S., he suffers from alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder, which in those days was not talked about much less treated.

Of course, the most fascinating thing about the book is knowing that it's a true story and Louis Zamperini survived what seemed humanly impossible to endure...first while being lost at sea without food or water, somehow missing the circling and lunging sharks, and then while enduring brutal, horrific treatment at the hands of the Japanese guards, who believed it was shameful to be a POW and so took out their scorn in violent, inhumane ways.

After living in Japan and being welcomed by the Japanese people, it's hard to read about the brutality during the war. But Zamperini was able to forgive his Japanese captors and eventually returned to Japan, once to see his guards and extend an olive branch, and again to carry the torch at the Nagano Olympics.

Zamperini is in fact still alive and kicking, at age 95. Here is a short video about Zamperini:

Go read this book!! It will make you look at your life in new ways and stop you from taking things for granted.

The 100 Thing Challenge

The 100 Thing Challenge, by Dave Bruno

I picked this up at the Garden Home Library because it looked appealing, but it was a huge let down. I knew the book would be disappointing when I got to the page where he began talking about the "doll plan" he and his wife had for both of their daughters. I literally laughed out loud. A "doll plan" for someone who espouses simple living? He then went on ad nauseum about how fabulous American Girl dolls are...before then asking his young daughters to downsize their doll collection, and then realizing that this project was about him and not about his family.

Bruno developed this book based on his blog, and he really did not have enough content for a book. In a word: BORING. I also found it truly bizarre that he got rid of so many things only to replace them with more expensive things (e.g., jackets). He had bizarre rules such as counting all of his books as one item (library) yet counting separately three bibles. What is with that? And why would you keep three bibles if you could only have 100 things?

Technically, he didn't really have 100 things, because he didn't count everything he shared with his wife or family.

In short, what might have been an interesting experiment was just a really boring book with not very good writing and a lot of brand names thrown in. The man has a huge love of brand names, such as Patagonia. I finally gave up before finishing the book.

Glow

Glow, by Jessica Maria Tuccelli

This is a tough book to review. I found the writing to be absolutely exquisite. At first, I thought this would be a four- or five-star book for sure. The story starts with Ella McGee, daughter of NAACP activist Amelia McGee, who is put on a bus down south to Georgia in 1941. Unfortunately, the bus breaks down and she is left stranded--and soon beat up by two strangers--on the side of the road. She's rescued by former slave Willie Mae Cotton and her partner, Mary-Mary Freeborn. Starts on an intriguing note, right?

Ella is part Cherokee and part African-American. The book description promises that it traverses Ella's family history. It does indeed do that, in the form of beautiful individual stories of various people closely or distantly related to her or Willie Mae. Tuccelli deftly tells each story in a distinctly different voice based on her character. The descriptions and language were colorful and vivid.
Mother love is a strong theme throughout the book.

Where the book fell short for me, though, was that it never adequately circled back to Amelia and Ella. Rather it was almost a book of interwoven short stories...and I'm no fan of short stories in general.

I loved so much about this book, but I wanted more out of it, and it fell short of what I was expecting it to be.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

Author Rebecca Skloot, daughter of acclaimed Portland writer Floyd Skloot, takes us on a journey back into the 1950s, when an African-American woman named Henrietta Lacks contracted aggressive, advanced cervical cancer. Her cells, taken without her permission,
became the first immortal human cells grown in culture. They are still alive today and have multiplied billions of times. All of her cells multiplied today would weigh more than 50 million metric tons. Her cells were instrumental in critical research for polio, cancer, and viruses and contributed to major medical advances.

But before Rebecca Skloot published her book, Henrietta Lacks was virtually unknown...even by all of the scientists, doctors, and researchers whose work benefited from her contributions to the field.

Skloot tells the story of how Lacks was treated in the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital. She excavates her family history and gradually develops trusting relationships with Lacks' children and other family members, many of whom are too poor to afford steady health insurance.

This is the story of Skloot's journey into this story, Henrietta's history, her family, and medical research and ethics over the decades. It's history, race relations, science, and personal journey rolled into one book. What's particularly amazing about this book is not only its insight into this fascinating story--and how a poor black woman was taken advantage of--but the fact that it was written by a young white woman who grew up in Portland, Oregon, a long way from Baltimore or Clover, Virginia. It took her a long time to get the Lacks family to trust her, but she did it. Now she has established a foundation with educational and medical scholarships for Henrietta's descendants, so they can finally get some financial benefit out of her legacy.      

The Mama Boy's Myth

The Mama's Boy Myth: Why Keeping Our Sons Close Makes Them Stronger, by Kate Stone Lombardi

This is SUCH an important and desperately needed book.

New York Times contributor Kate Stone Lombardi makes the fascinating point that of all the possible parent-child relationships (e.g., father-son, father-daughter, mother-daughter), the most circumspect and maligned is that of the mother and son. This was an illuminating beginning to this book.

Close mother-son relationships are abundant, but they are kept in the closet. While fathers are lauded for teaching their daughters traditionally masculine tasks or skills, mothers are shamed for doing the same thing (for example, teaching a son to knit or just talk more openly about his feelings).

Lombardi interviewed over 1,000 moms online and in person. She found that nearly nine in ten moms described themselves as "extremely close" or "very close" to their sons. And the result of these close relationships is that we are creating a generation of boys who will become strong, loving spouses and partners, with a higher level of sensitivity and emotional intelligence. As Lombardi notes, "A new and growing body of scientific literature shows that sons who are close to their mothers are emotionally and physically healthier than those who are not."

She writes of stereotypes about boys and girls and how some mothers long for daughters so they can develop close relationships with them. In some cases (like mine), feminists look forward to raising strong women who have opportunities they or their mothers did not have. As one mom said, "When it came time to have children, what I had in mind were daughters. All of my feminist friends laughed, 'Look at the hand you were dealt.' I had to process that loss. I had daughter envy." Why do women assume that girls will be more emotionally available than boys?  We make assumptions that boys will grow apart from their mothers, based on culturally acceptable mother-son norms.

Mothers battle not only cultural expectations of how they relate to their sons, but also sometimes their own husbands or family members. Some women shared examples of their husbands accusing them of babying their sons if they showed any affection, even at very young ages, and one woman told a story about a power struggle with her husband about her nearly-two-year-old son's curly hair. She told him she'd cut his curls when he turned two, but a month before he turned two, her husband cut off all the boy's curls while he was taking a bath. "He thought I was turning his boy into a girl." Mothers are criticized for hugging their teen sons or touching them at all. Then there's the nosy strangers who think they know best and think that mothers are scarring their boys for life if they allow them to wear a "girl's" Halloween costume. She cites the work of artist JeongMee Yoon, who has a project with side-by-side images of actual girls' and boys' rooms, entirely in pink and blue. It's incredibly sad (and also another good example of why it's good I have boys--I am no fan of pink!).

Lombardi delves into the origin of Freud's Oedipal theories and the hidden fears of homophobia inherent in this bullying of moms and sons. Mothers involved in their sons' lives are made into the villains in popular culture, at best (think "Psycho"!), and at worst are thought to create "sissys," "Mama's boys," or overly dependent and feminine. She talks about the "boy crisis" and some prominent authors' views that boys need to disconnect from their mothers and instead form stronger relationships with their fathers, instead of recognizing the need for both father and mother bonds. Well-known author Michael Gurian "argues that mothers' apron strings are strangling the manhood out of boys." It's all the mother's fault, of course!

In a fairly well-known parenting book, Get Out of My Life, but Please Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall? by Anthony E. Wolf, the author talks about the "problem of mommy," which he defines as the theory that adolescent boys' strong feelings for their mother might be "tinged with sexuality and might therefore become really unacceptable." Why is that mothers' close relationships with their sons are often described as sexual? Thank you, Mr. Freud!

Since when do people say that teen girls have crushes on their fathers if they feel close to them? Lombardi points out that we never see "mother-son dances," but only "father-daughter" ones...because no one ascribes anything sinister to that relationship. However, as a brochure for a North Carolina father-daughter dance said, "Every father needs to 'date' their daughter, and every daughter needs an example of how a young lady is to be treated by a man." This dating analogy is creepy because sexual abuse in families is much more likely to occur between a father and a daughter. Incest between mother and son is exceedingly rare (female perpetrators are between 1 and 4 percent of all sex abuse cases). So why is that relationship such taboo?

When boys reach a certain age, they are often embarassed to be seen alone in public with their mom or to talk about close relationships with their mothers. It's really only the big, tough football players or otherwise macho men who are allowed to get away with close relationships with their mothers.

Then there are the men and women who play into the idea that feminism or stronger women's roles are creating weak men. Lombardi mentions the book Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys. Although author Kay Hymowitz notes that it's important for young men to have strong relationships with both their moms and dads, the title makes it sound like weak men are all the women's fault. Lombardi notes that she agrees that this can be a confusing time to be a young man, but "mothers play an important role in helping their sons through this transition by giving them the skills they need to help them mature and succeed in school and in the workplace." As she concludes, "Why on earth would (women) want to do anything to harm men? We are the mothers of sons."

Gradually, our culture will find mother-son relationships more acceptable. The younger generation will see that this changes. In 2011, many of the Academy award nominated films featured difficult mothers (The Fighter, Black Swan, and The King's Speech). In the acceptance speeches, however, many of the winners thanked and paid tribute to their moms. Tom Hooper, who won best director for "The King's Speech," thanked his mother for giving him the idea for the movie. "The moral of the story is," he said, "Listen to your mother."

I confess that I always imagined having a daughter, but I am so thankful to have sons. Although many women idealize mother-daughter relationships, I've observed that in many cases, these relationships can be strained or not meet expectations. Daughters can be very hard on their mothers.

This book affirms that I can have truly deep relationships with my sons, and they will be better prepared for adulthood because of our strong mother-son relationships. It also made me feel incredibly grateful to be a parenting partner with a man who affirms my close relationships with my sons and (1) is not afraid to share his sensitive, emotional side, and is just as likely as I am to be brought to tears during a touching moment, and (2) never tells me I need to toughen the boys up or worries about them not acting manly enough! It also made me feel thankful for all the wonderful men I know, including my dad, brother, brother-in-law, and many male friends, who build strong relationships with boys and support women in doing the same.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who has a son or works with boys.

The Book Thief

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

I read this for our May book group selection, and I loved it. I have been aware of this book for many years, and in fact we gave it to our friends' teenage daughter one Christmas. But it wasn't until one of our book group members highly recommended it AND both my sister and my husband read it for their book groups and also loved it, that I finally dug in.

It's the story of Liesel, a German girl living in a small town near Munich during World War II. It's about the Holocaust, of course, but more than anything it's about Liesel and her relationships with others, including a Jewish man who hides in her basement, her foster parents, and her best friend Rudy. This book is unique because it's not directly about the Jewish experience but rather about the Germans. It gives one a different perspective of a German child's experience of the war.

Liesel finds a way to transcend her difficult circumstances (she loses her family of origin) by finding herself in words, through the books she begins stealing. She doesn't steal very many books, but just enough to make her life more interesting.

I loved the way Liesel's foster father teaches her how to read (in the middle of the night), the rough way her foster mother calls everyone a "saumensch" and a "saukerl," the unrequited young love between Liesel and Rudy, the beautiful books Max creates for Liesel and her unconventional friendship with him, the stolen trips to the library of the mayor's wife, and the beautiful way words and music are woven through the book. In the midst of a society full of distrust for books and words, Liesel reads aloud from her books to all of the people gathered in the bomb shelters. My book group friends all liked the narrator being death, and especially found the last page to be beautiful.

This book is undeniably sad, but well written and beautiful at the same time.

Nightwoods

Nightwoods, by Charles Frazier

I picked this one up because I loved Cold Mountain, Frazier's first novel, which takes place during the Civil War. Nightwoods, which takes place in 1960s Appalachia, paled in comparison. Luce is the caretaker of an old, decrepit resort lodge, and after her sister is brutally killed by her evil husband, Bud, she finds herself to be the guardian of her sister's mute, damaged children. Bud gets away with the crime and comes after the children, convinced that they have his money.

We know from Cold Mountain that Frazier has a gift for writing, but Nightwoods suffers from too much description of place and weak description of characters and story. The plot plods along until the end, when it finally explodes in a few pages. As a writer/editor, I didn't particularly care for the incomplete sentences and odd lack of quotation marks (Frazier's style).

I didn't feel much sympathy for any of the characters, even the main character, Luce. I appreciated the fact that she took her sister's children in and tried to become the surrogate mother than she never had herself...but beyond that she was a bit hollow. What had she been doing all those years since high school? How old was she? What did she look like? We just didn't get a real sense of her. That goes for the other characters too...what made them into who they were?

This book is a coldhearted reminder of how children can be so easily damaged by neglect, cruelty, and violence. It's a brutal story, but without a whole lot of redemption in it.

What joy to give away free books!

This is a cross-post from Every Day Is a Miracle. Last Monday (a week ago) Mike and I participated in World Book Night 2012.

World Book Night began in the UK in 2011 and spread to the U.S. this year. It's an annual celebration of reading and books. Authors, publishers, distributors, independent booksellers, UPS, printers, and binders collaborate to print and distribute the books, for free, to reluctant readers across the country. This year 25,000 givers distributed 20 copies of a book out of a selection of 30 books (some pictured at left). (We got to make three choices, and if we were lucky, we received one of the books we requested.)

I gave away a book by one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I went to pick up my stack of books at our wonderful local bookstore, Annie Bloom's, where they had a World Book Night Giver Reception complete with sharing of stories, cupcakes, champagne, and door prizes. It was fun, and I met one of my coworkers there. (Kieran was very happy to get my cupcake, while I enjoyed the champagne.) I also picked up an extra (unassigned) box for Mike to distribute: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. (He also helped another friend, laid up, who had signed up to give away The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, by arranging a giveaway at Chris' high school.) 

We decided to distribute the books after school at Kieran's elementary school, along with another parent, Leigh, who was also participating (she was distributing Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which I recently read for my book group).

Everyone who received a book was very appreciative and grateful. I'm afraid that we were not as successful as we'd hoped at reaching "reluctant" or "light" readers. A couple of self-admitted reluctant readers studied our selection and ended up leaving empty handed, saying that they already had enough books to read. I'm wondering if that was partly because all of our books were serious fiction and perhaps too literary for "light" readers. Now that I look at some of the other possibilities, I realize that our selections probably reflect our high-falutin' fiction preferences--perhaps not as appealing to those light readers. (We chose books that we'd read and loved.) If we'd been distributing The Hunger Games, perhaps even light readers would have been interested. (The Hunger Games was one of the choices, but of course it was the most popular!)

World Book Night is celebrated on April 23 because it's the UNESCO International Day of the Book, chosen in honor of Shakespeare and Cervantes, who both died on April 23, 1616. (It is also the anniversary of Shakespeare's birthday.) In the Catalan region of Spain, the day is celebrated by giving a book and a flower to a loved one.

We had lovely sunny weather for our book giveaway--all of the pale Portlanders were wearing summer clothing!

If you'd like to be a World Book Night giver in 2013, sign up here to stay apprised.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo

This is an astonishing, ground-breaking book. Katherine Boo, an award-winning American writer/reporter who has earned accolades for reporting on the poor, married an Indian man, Sunil Khilnani. They spend half of their time in the U.S. and half in India.

Over three years, she spent countless hours shadowing the residents of Annawadi, a slum near the Mumbai airport filled with people without permanent work...each one of them struggling to make a living, mostly through garbage picking and recycling, temporary jobs, and theft. With the help of translators, she gradually got to know Annawadi's residents, and they finally got used to having the strange white woman around.

As she grew to learn their stories, a few stood out. Central to the book is the story of Abdul, a young Muslim who buys and recycles the garbage that others collect, whose family is accused of a crime by their angry neighbor. Manju hopes to become Annawadi's first college grad, but she's disturbed by her mother's constant conniving and corruption (which actually assist in paying her college bills). Kalu, a young thief, entertains the other boys by acting out scenes from Bollywood movies. A young woman commits suicide with poison to avoid the arranged marriage her family has made for her. As a Dalit, she knows that her life in a small village away from relatively progressive Mumbai will be miserable.

From Boo's web site

What struck me most about this book, more than the extreme poverty, lack of sanitation, and struggling for subsistence on the edge of the sewage lake, was the horrible corruption rife in Indian politics, law enforcement, business, and civil service. This, even more than the poverty, oppresses the disadvantaged and prevents them from advancing out of the slums. It made me think of the anti-corruption policies my company has in writing, and ponder how it does business in India or the Middle East without resorting to bribes. According to this book, when you give money to charities such as World Vision or Christian orphanages, you're lucky if the donation actually reaches the needy. Schools employ teachers without college educations (or even high school degrees), and the only way to get a government teaching job is to pay huge bribes. Boo writes about a nun who runs an orphanage and resells many of the clothes, food, and toys she receives for the children.

When Abdul and his father and sister are accused of inciting a spiteful neighbor woman to set herself aflame, everyone crowds in to make some money. They are tortured in jail and told, by many, that if they pay money, the problem will go away. Abdul's mother even goes directly to the other family to negotiate, but they believe they'll be able to extort more money through the courts.

From Boo's web site

This book is written like a novel even though it's hard-core, investigative reporting. Boo and her translators are completely invisible narrators. She took meticulous notes and recordings and documented her research thoroughly--important in the age of Greg Mortensons and the accusations thrown around about the "white savior complex." Boo's purpose was to shine the light on the Annawadians themselves and their environment instead of the white writer. Boo was threatened by the police and often felt insecure or threatened as she did her research. This book does not make the Indian government smell good.

And beyond that is an examination of the modernization and regentrification of India. Annawadi is located within sight of the huge, fancy Mumbai airport hotels, behind walls plastered with ads for ceramic tile that say "Beautiful Forever." As young Mirchi (Abdul's younger brother) is quoted in this review from The Times of India, "Everything around us is roses, and we are the shit between." Hovering over Annawadi and its residents is the constant fear that the slum--and their homes--will be leveled and destroyed.

This book has made me look at India and my own existence in a new way. It begs the question of what can be done to eradicate such corruption and extreme poverty in the world. It also makes one think about the price of affluence. When the economy began suffering, the Annawadians suffered as well. Yet on the other hand, what is the price of progress as the gap between rich and poor grows and grows?

For more information about Katherine Boo and this book, I encourage you to visit her web site, listen to this interview on NPR, or watch this video. This book and its stories of these desperately hard-working people will stick with me for a very long time.

Shine

Shine, by Lauren Myracle

Such a beautiful cover, and such a furore over this book. If you haven't heard, Shine was announced as a finalist for the National Book Awards ...but oops...the National Book Foundation staff misheard the name of the nominee. It was actually meant to be Chime by Franny Billingsley. The judges didn't catch the mistake until they heard the nominees being announced over the radio! Sorry, Ms. Myracle. Hope you'll forgive us! Oh my...what a debacle. Lauren Myracle handled the situation with professionalism and grace. Mike went out to purchase this book in support.

Because of that silly fuss and bother and also what I had read about the story, I was looking forward to diving into this book. It opens with a newspaper article: Patrick, former best friend of protagonist Cat Robinson, is in a coma after being attacked with a baseball bat and left for dead with a gas nozzle taped to his mouth. Cat, who had become an extreme introvert after a traumatic incident and shut all her friends out of her life, decides to find out who is responsible.

The book starts out reasonably enough...Myracle paints the deep poverty, ignorance, and malaise in a North Carolina backwoods town with vivid imagery and words. Soon Cat discovers secrets in her midst, such as heavy meth use all around her. Partly because of her own severe guilt for abandoning Patrick as a friend three years before, she wrecklessly dives into probing conversations with people in the town because law enforcement is inept and doesn't appear to be investigating the crime.

Unfortunately, the follow-through of the story could have been better. Many of the characters are one-dimensional stereotypes, and I found it difficult to imagine so many people looking the other way during Cat's own traumatic incident (notably her aunt and brother). I also found it implausible that Cat wouldn't have more knowledge of the drug use in her midst. And the police officers made absolutely no attempt to investigate the crime? None at all? Was that supposed to be because Patrick was gay?

And although Cat does experience a traumatic and horrific incident as a 13-year-old, it seemed strange to me that she would completely cut off contact from her friends and family, especially Patrick. I also found it implausible that suddenly Tommy turns over a new leaf and tries to make amends.

The story with Jason seemed thrown in there for a romance element, and it didn't quite fit. Also, for him to call Cat such a horrific name in the beginning...and then for him to turn out to be a good guy...didn't seem real.

The mystery doesn't turn out to be much of a mystery, either--the reader is able to see the resolution from a mile off. I didn't like the way the story resolves...and it didn't make much sense to me that Patrick's lover would attack him in such a way, even strung out on meth. But hey, I've never used meth so what do I know what it causes you to do?

Finally, once several people know who attacked Patrick, Cat and others (including Patrick, who wakes up in the end) conspire to keep it a secret from the authorities. And for what reason, exactly? That doesn't make any sense to me. (Would Robert really be able to keep such a secret, after he can't keep anything else secret??)

Of course, Patrick wakes up in the end and he's completely coherent and Cat explains everything that's happened in 1 minute before the nurses come rushing in. Everything's tied up in neat little packages. Because of Cat's decision not to share who was responsible, the town can continue to wallow in its insular bigotry, blaming the crime on out-of-towners and conveniently ignoring the rampant drug use among the town's young people.

Another concern I have is the major typos I found sprinkled throughout the novel...tales vs. tails, here vs. her, and a name incorrectly used a couple of times (Lawson vs. Larson). Sloppy!

I'm sure that Myracle intended one of the book's messages to be the importance of shining your light and doing the right thing in spite of your fears...but what kind of message does it send to young people when over and over again, people who hurt others are allowed to get away with it without exposure and without punishment? For the life of me, I can't ascertain why she decided to tell the story that way. For her aunt and brother to walk in and see her being assaulted, and do NOTHING? That made no sense at all.

Even though the book appeared to tackle the issues of homophobia and religious intolerance, in the end it did not. If anything, it seemed to send the message that this kind of bigotry is okay and to be tolerated in small southern towns. Even Patrick agreed to cover up the crime. Also, it does not accurately portray loving gay relationships. When Patrick wakes up to be told that his lover was dead, wouldn't he have been upset about it? Wouldn't he have been crushed when he realized what his lover had done to him?

The more I think about this novel, the less some of it makes sense to me. It could have been so much more!

The Missing

The Missing, by Jane Casey

I discovered this book by reading a review of one of British author Jane Casey's other novels, The Burning. Because I like to read authors (especially mystery authors) in chronological order, I sought out her first book. It needn't have mattered in this case, as it does not have the same protagonist.

Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations. I found it to be very readable, but much of what happened seemed unrealistic and unlikely to happen. I also guessed who the murderer is long before it was revealed, which I rarely do. (I'm one of those rare mystery readers who does not try to guess the perpetrator, but in this case it could not be ignored.)

As the protagonist, Sarah Finch is not entirely likeable and a bit too overcome with problems. She is a lost soul, lacking anyone she can confide in or trust, and in the end things just spiral downward in her life. Soon she is left with no one. She also makes some bizarre choices, and a few plot elements seem unlikely (such as the policeman on the case falling in love with her, and the highly convenient coincidences that keep occurring, to name a few). Life seems to just happen to her, and because of this she is not very sympathethic. For example, after she truly hates school and appears to have no motivation to succeed because of what happened to her brother, she somehow becomes a teacher herself, and does not seem to enjoy her job.

I also found it unlikely that a character who is completely obsessed with her would attack her and harm her outside of her home. And why on earth did she stick with her mother when she treated her so horribly? Of course, Casey ties it all up with a happy ending, also implausible.

I have The Burning checked out of the library, and I will give Casey one more try...I'm hoping her second novel is an improvement over the first.

Poster Girl

Poster Child, by Emily Rapp

Having suffered from birth defects myself in addition to self-image issues from not feeling beautiful or "normal" while I was growing up, I'm drawn to memoirs by people facing similar challenges. Many years ago I was similarly moved by Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face, about a girl who had to have 1/3 of her jaw removed as a result of childhood cancer.

Emily Rapp was born with a rare genetic bone and tissue disorder that resulted in one of her legs being shorter than the other. Throughout her early childhood, she had surgeries to amputate parts of her left leg and began wearing a series of prosthetic devices. The daughter of a Lutheran minister, she soon became a "poster child" for the March of Dimes, which at that time focused primarily on preventing birth defects instead of prematurity. Perky and smiling on the inside, yet grieving and deeply angry about her lot in life on the outside, she reacted by lashing out at her supportive family and becoming, in her words from an interview, a "spoiled brat."

Stricken with self-doubt and a desire to be beautiful, she devoted herself to becoming perfect in every way. This not only manifested itself as becoming a perfect student, but also becoming anorexic and obsessed with her weight. She also sets out to be an athlete, excelling at skiing and swimming, and becoming a school mascot for various sports teams.

Rapp is brutally honest about her feelings of brokenness and deep, aching loneliness. She befriends the aging, rough-around-the-edges veterans and other amputees she meets at appointments with her prosthetists. When she discovers the liberation theology of disability (pioneered by theologian Nancy Eiesland, who wrote The Disabled God) and the writings of other disabled women, her awareness cracks open. She doesn't really deal with the grief of losing her leg until she's living in Korea (a country that shuns people who are different, especially those with disabilities) and is terrified that her host family and students will discover her secret...and she has a breakdown. Later on, she undertakes a program for the Lutheran World Federation by bringing together disabled women from around the world to share their mutual experiences of disability and faith.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I too had birth defects (my mom had German Measles while she was pregnant). I was born with a cleft lip and palate, as well as a club foot (I had to wear a brace as a baby, but it was corrected). I had numerous surgeries throughout childhood and had to wear an awful, gagging speech appliance in my mouth (an obturator) until I was 15. As an adolescent, I had severely crooked teeth and had to have extensive orthodontia and two corrective jaw surgeries. My nose is not symmetrical (because of my cleft lip). Like Rapp's parents and experience, my parents never treated me as I were anything less than beautiful, but some other kids did. They stared at my scar, and even still, curious children ask me about it. In spite of their support, Rapp hates her body and cannot fathom the thought of ever making herself vulnerable enough to have sex without her prosthetis.

While I was reading this book, I discovered that Rapp went on to get married and have a child of her own. Tragically, her son Rowan has Tay-Sachs Disease and will not live past the age of three. She writes poignantly of being a "dragon mom" in this New York Times article:

"We are dragon parents: fierce and loyal and loving as hell. Our experiences have taught us how to parent for the here and now, for the sake of parenting, for the humanity implicit in the act itself, though this runs counter to traditional wisdom and advice.

NOBODY asks dragon parents for advice; we’re too scary. Our grief is primal and unwieldy and embarrassing. The certainties that most parents face are irrelevant to us, and frankly, kind of silly. Our narratives are grisly, the stakes impossibly high. Conversations about which seizure medication is most effective or how to feed children who have trouble swallowing are tantamount to breathing fire at a dinner party or on the playground. Like Dr. Spock suddenly possessed by Al Gore, we offer inconvenient truths and foretell disaster.

And there’s this: parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don’t want to see what we see. The long truth about their children, about themselves: that none of it is forever."

Again, I can relate. Even though my once-fragile baby boy has had a better outcome than Rapp's beautiful and precious baby Rowan will, I share her thoughts about shallow parenting. You know what I'm talking about...those parents who complain about the most ridiculous things or push their children to be outstanding athletes or students. And especially those who brag about their children's brilliance and look down on other children who struggle with academics,sports, or social issues. I have no patience for that...not when parenting for people like Rapp and her husband is boiled down to treating each day as a blessing, knowing that this day might be all they have. I remember trying not to worry as my son did not talk until he was three years old...and as he struggled to become potty trained, write his letters or draw pictures, play sports, make friends. I know too many parents who have lost their children in infancy or early childhood.

"What I can do is protect my son from as much pain as possible, and then finally do the hardest thing of all, a thing most parents will thankfully never have to do: I will love him to the end of his life, and then I will let him go.

But today Ronan is alive and his breath smells like sweet rice. I can see my reflection in his greenish-gold eyes. I am a reflection of him and not the other way around, and this is, I believe, as it should be. This is a love story, and like all great love stories, it is a story of loss. Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is."

I feel blessed to have read this book and become aware of Emily Rapp's beautiful writing.

Friday Night Knitting Club

The Friday Night Knitting Club,
by Kate Jacobs

Meh. I didn't like this book and found it difficult to get through. I read it all, though, because my book group spontaneously chose it for this month's selection. As Jacobs' first novel, The Friday Night Knitting Club is about a yarn shop in New York City, its owner Georgia Walker and her daughter Dakota, Georgia's past friend Cat and ex-lover James, and the shop's various employees and customers. I liked the fact it tackled an interracial romance and the challenges of single motherhood.

But this is what I didn't like:

• Georgia Walker herself. Supposedly, she is a magnetic personality who people want to be with...but I found her to be a bitter complainer about her lot in life.
• Jacobs packed the novel with too many characters, about which we know very little. In particular, Peri, Darwin, KC, and Lucie...I didn't really like any of these characters and I didn't care what happened to any of them.
• In one scene in the book, a crazy young woman bursts into the shop shouting about Julia Roberts. Then she vanishes out of the plot. What purpose did she serve? It was completely nonsensical.
• I would have liked to know more about the most interesting characters--James, Anita, Marty, and Gran--but we got just the briefest of backgrounds.
• I found the plot with Cat to be tiresome and ridiculous. Would a young woman really betray her very best friend like that? And for all the bitterness Georgia carried, why did she never try to contact and confront her?
• Same with Georgia's relationship with James. I found it difficult to comprehend how she could carry around those two letters from James without ever opening them. Stupid. If he really loved her and wanted to be part of their lives, why didn't he try harder to get involved? And when he finally enters the scene, he appears to be perfect.
• And finally, Georgia gets cancer and dies. How predictable is that?

I found the whole book to be annoying. It wasn't horrible, but I will not be reading any more of her books.