Anne of Avonlea

"Perhaps she had not succeeded in 'inspiring' any wonderful ambitions in her pupils, but she had taught them, more by her own sweet personality than by all her careful precepts, that it was good and necessary in the years that were before them to live their lives finely and graciously, holding fast to truth and courtesy and kindness, keeping aloof from all that savoured of falsehood and meanness and vulgarity. They were, perhaps, all unconscious of having learned such lessons; but they would remember and practice them long after they had forgotten the capital of Afghanistan and the dates of the Wars of the Roses."

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

In the second book, Anne is no longer the student: she has become the teacher, and she pours her soul into it, as she does with everything.  She is home to help Marilla with their two new additions: twins Davy and Dora.  She also makes several new friends, who keep life interesting and full of love and imagination.

A wonderful read.  I love watching Anne grow up.

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell

I may as well get to the point: I absolutely loved Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat.  It was such a FUN read.  I remember watching Monsters, Inc. and walking away saying, "That was a fantastic show.  I can't believe they could construe such an absurd story line into something cohesive."  I felt much the same way about Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat: I could never adequately describe the book but it was just so good.  And so, I'll take a stab at describing it.  :)

Since Emmy's parents inherited a massive fortune from a great uncle they never knew, they have been traveling the world, leaving Emmy in the care of a nasty nanny, Miss Barmy.  Miss Barmy is simply not kind but she is also very odd: she makes Emmy drink all sorts of strange things, rub things behind her ears, keep a remarkably full schedule, and be the perfect child.  It's a mess.  But one day Emmy stumbles on Miss Barmy in an area of town she's never seen before: a rodent store that houses all sorts of animals with unique tags on them, listing powers and abilities of each. 

And on the story goes: a well-woven plot about some impressive rodents and a smart little girl who figures out Miss Barmy while dealing with her own innocent emotions.  It was such a fun ride: one I will certainly purchase for my children and read with them again and again.

Seedfolks

"Gardening boring?  Never!  It has suspense, tragedy, startling developments-a soap opera growing out of the ground.  I'd forgotten that tremolo of expectation produced by a tiny forest of sprouts.  A fact bobbed up from my memory, that the ancient Egyptians prescribed walking through a garden as a cure for the mad.  It was a mind-altering drug we took daily."

Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman

TJ and I went out to eat with some long time friends at Cafe Madrid, our favorite (...only) local Spanish restaurant.  The food was delightful and the company was great: we sat at the table for three hours.  For a good 45 minutes we discussed books, which is something I can certainly get excited about.  As usual, I suggested Funny in Farsi, which is probably in my top 3 favorites of all time.  Our friends suggested Seedfolks, which they said was a "good, quick read."  They were right.  I picked it up from the library three days later and read it in an hour.

There is an empty lot in the middle of Cleveland that has turn into a dumping ground of sorts: it's filled with old tires, refrigerators, a sofa and rats.  But a little girl who misses her father starts an unexpected change in the old lot when she plants a few beans: she hopes her dad will look down from heaven and see that she is just like him, gardening.  Each chapter introduces a different character, who goes to the lot for a different reason, planting hope with their various seeds.

I anticipated that the same 3-5 characters would each have a few chapters of narration but every chapter, from start to finish, was a different character, thirteen in all.  I really enjoyed it.  My favorite books are happy books and I loved seeing this group of strangers work together to make something beautiful.

I'm uncertain the best age for reading this but you could certainly have some good conversations with children about acceptance, service, kindness and hard work.  I heartily recommend this one.

Half Magic

"Still, even without the country or a lake, the summer was a fine thing, particularly when you were at the beginning of it, looking ahead into it. There would be months of beautifully long, empty days, and each other to play with, and the books from the library.”

Half Magic by Edward Eager

As with most of the book recommendations I pursue, I picked this up based on a recommendation by Janssen at Everyday Reading.  She lists it as one of her favorite middle grade books and I agree completely.  In fact, I told TJ that this is the exact kind of book I imagine reading to our kids on road trips in the future.  It was innocent, fun, entertaining and plain old wholesome: my favorite combination for a book.

Four siblings - Jane, Katharine, Mark and Martha - find a charm one day and, after a sequence of odd events, figure out that the charm grants them exactly one half of everything they wish.  With that understanding in place the four of them set out to have several wonderful adventures together, fumbling through some wacky wishes (caused by unsound math).  It was a lot of fun to see what sorts of adventures were the most exciting to them (they take turns with the charm) and it was quite funny to see what went awry. 

I also really enjoyed the narrator's voice, which I felt was the perfect tone for children.  I imagined the narrator as a he, since the author is a he, and he acknowledged the audience by saying things like "you know exactly what I mean" or "as I'm sure you know."  They were the sort of acknowledgements that I would bet make children feel connected to the book even further.  A great touch, I think.

I did close this book with a homework assignment to read something by E. Nesbit.  I'm ashamed to say I don't even know who it is but Edward Eager, the author, mentions Nesbit in every book he writes in an effort to point children to her books.  I'll add her to my list!

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

I love people with good hearts, both in literature and in real life.  The protagonist of this book has a good heart, which is put to the test when the new family in town, with a girl just his age, is black.  The setting is the early 1900s and Dit (the main character) hoped for a new boy his age to play baseball with: proper Emma, with her avid love for books and distaste for dirt, is the last person he  could imagine spending time with.  But he does, and soon enough he starts liking it.  As a child, he struggles to understand why everyone can't be treated equally: today we do too.  I found myself cheering for Dit as he stuck up for Emma, more strongly over time, throughout the town.  The ending was bittersweet, but it was the right ending which I always appreciate.

I thought this book was especially neat when I realized the title is more than 3 words long and still all the words are capitalized - you don't see that everyday.  :)

A very good read, especially for teaching kids good lessons about the value of each person (or for reminding yourself of them and of the battles the nation has been through to get here).

No Biking in the House Without a Helmet

"We so loved raising our four children by birth, we didn’t want to stop. When the clock started to run down on the home team, we brought in ringers."
-Melissa Fay Greene, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet

No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene

Have I mentioned lately how much I love memoirs?

I passed this book in the Book Club section of my library several times before finally picking it up and giving it a go; I am so glad I did!  I pride myself on finding enjoyable nonfiction (it's not where I most comfortably reside) and this one absolutely did the trick for me. 

No Biking in the House is an autobiography of sorts about Melissa and her family.  She and her husband, Don, have four children of their own that they loved to pieces; aside from two busy careers they both love parenting best.  She describes parenting with genuine humor and I found myself laughing as I flipped through the pages as quickly as possible.  Such funny kids!  What a humorous husband!  It was enjoyable to just get a glimpse into their home.

When their four start growing older, threatening to start leaving the house for college (just as parents hope they'll do) Melissa and her husband start looking seriously at adoption.  They don't go about it lightly, but rather work tirelessly to find the right child, one that's healthy, that will be able to love and be loved and will fit into their family.  Melissa finds him in Bulgaria, and as a reader my heart ached with hers as she worked for years to make him feel comfortable (when she takes him to preschool he panics, thinking she's leaving him in another orphanage).  Eventually, she and Don adopt four more children, each one brought in with great love and described with great pride and humor.

The nine Greene kids become quite an adventure: their English is nothing short of hilarious, their antics entertaining (hence the title of the book) and their struggles heartfelt as they work to become a true family.  The author describes situations so adeptly it wasn't difficult to imagine being there myself and witnessing an epic adventure.

As fair warning, the "f" word does come up a few times in this book (maybe 3-5).  I typically put a book down at the first encounter but overlooked it this time and still found a great read.

My Life in France

“This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!”
- Julia Child, My Life in France 

My Life in France by Julia Child

Not because of the movie Julie and Julia (though it first introduced me to Julia Child) but because of my recent love of cooking and the kitchen and creating beautiful food, I picked up the book My Life in France by Julia Child.  What a beautiful read!  I found Julia to be such a delightful person - I loved following her thoughts and opinions, reading about what she found beautiful and what she found atrocious, and fantasizing about living in another country and establishing a unique but rich and full life!

These kinds of books are some of my favorite; I love simply exploring a person's daily life, finding out about what makes them tick, what makes them smile and how they deal with struggle.  I'm not sure I could say there was any single struggle in this book, though there was a lot of time and energy focused on publishing the cookbook, and sometimes I think that's the best kind of book of all.

PS The picture on the cover (which I was very curious about) is the picture from one year's Valentine card, which Julia and Paul always sent out.  :)

Hattie Big Sky

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

I found Hattie Big Sky on a list of Janssen's favorite books (see the list of her book index here) and picked it up at the library simply based on the catchy title (I would submit that readers absolutely judge books by the cover...and the title and the author, etc.)  This book was so intriguing, delightful, heartbreaking and enjoyable; I can absolutely understand why it merited a Newbery Honor.

Hattie is a young (16-year-old) girl who was orphaned early in life and has been tossed from relative to relative for as long as she can remember.  While living with distant relatives that she calls aunt and uncle, she receives a letter from a Perilee in Montana.  Perilee has sent a letter from Hattie's now deceased uncle inviting her to Montana, to take over his plot of 320 acres and his house if she's interested.  Without much thought she packs her single bag, boards the train with her cat (a delightful character) and heads out to Montana, where she finds her "house" is a clapboard 9' x 12' shack in the midst of very difficult terrain.

Over the next year you'll watch anxiously as Hattie works to "prove up" her plot of land, building a whole lot of fence and planting her crops for the harvest.  Along the way she becomes genuine friends with characters she did not initially anticipate loving and she learns a lot about what makes a person truly good. 

I really enjoyed learning more about homesteading, farming (which I have not learned a lick about through life experiences) and WWI (which I am deeply grateful for not living through).  My heart hurt with Hattie as she struggled through difficulties and I was so excited for every little victory she achieved along the way.  A worthwhile read.

The Happiness Project

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

The subtitle for this book says "Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun," which I think gives a great glimpse into Rubin's fun writing style as well as insight into some of the goals she made. A quick check on goodreads shows this book has more than 28,000 ratings, and I can see why: I loved this book.

he book is arranged by month, with 3-4 goals being set each month that are focused around a specific theme: Boost Energy, Lighten Up, Make Time for Friends, etc. As someone that tends towards an all-or-nothing attitude, I can appreciate the sincerity with which Rubin tracked her progress on goals every single day: what a way to hold your own feet to the fire.

Though I'm not certain I could take on a full-fledged Happiness Project (though you can read about how you can do one at Rubin's website http://happiness-project.com/), I walked away with a number of little ideas for increasing my own happiness. My personal favorite is making computer passwords goals: what a brilliant idea! My computer login is now H@ppiness, as a reminder (at least a dozen times a day) to seek out happiness, even just in the small things.

This book could be overwhelming, read with the wrong attitude, but I was impressed with how personable Rubin was: I was always relieved when she would admit that she had failed at a goal, just because it made her seem more human (twisted logic, I know). I appreciated that she was real, genuine, and acknoweldged that some things weren't as worthwhile as she anticipated or that she just couldn't make herself do them as she'd hoped. I conscientiously chose to not get overwhelmed when I read this, and maybe loved it even more for that reason: for me this is a nightstand book that I come back to for a new idea from time to time about a small change I can make to be a little happier.