Are ye not struck with shame and mortification?

With two days to spare, I checked off #17 of the 2017 Read Harder Reading Challenge – read a classic by an author of color – with Sold as a Slave by Olaudah Equiano. 

This short memoir, an excerpt from a longer work published in 1789 called The Interesting Narrative, recalls Equiano’s capture in Africa, separation from his sister, and service –as a slave – in the royal navy, and treatment under various owners. He writes, “Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.”

The mature tone of the narrative makes the reader forget that at the time these events take place the writer is not yet 12 years old. Remarkable is the number of times he mentions a kindness of his masters. After converting to Christianity in his later years, he seems truly puzzled that any man could think that holding himself above another was what God intended.

Tragically, this practice persists today. Kevin Bales in his TED talk How to combat modern slavery tells us this:

“The average price of a human being today, around the world, is about 90 dollars. They are more expensive in places like North America. Slaves cost between 3,000 to 8,000 dollars in North America, but I could take you places in India or Nepal where human beings can be acquired for five or 10 dollars. They key here is that people have ceased to be that capital purchase item and become like Styrofoam cups. You buy them cheaply, you use them, you crumple them up, and then when you're done with them you just throw them away.”

Read more in Bales’ book Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World.

"Trying not to set the atmosphere on fire"

Challenge #18: Read a superhero comic with a female lead

Not knowing anything about the X-Men, I picked up the comic book Storm (by Greg Pak, Victor Ibanez, Scott Hepburn, Ruth Redmond, VC’s Cory Petit, and others) solely due to her day job - “Headmistress of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.”

The first few pages reveal her backstory: “Ororo Munroe aka Windrider aka Princess of N’Dare aka Queen of Wakanda aka Storm.”

In this particular volume, Storm protects villagers from resort developers, finds a group of missing kids (only to find out they want to be missed), and returns a rebellious student to her home in Mexico. Storm feels it’s the right decision since, like her, “She’ll lose and find where she belongs a hundred times.”

We also get a glimpse of her relationship with Logan (aka Wolverine).  As he sets out for his mission in a downpour, she sweetly gives him a patch of dry sky. She assists and old friend (enemy?) who’s invented a rain machine for drought-stricken Africa. Fearing the weather machine will tempt someone to abuse his power, Storm smashes the machine to force the inventor to work as a team with the people to rebuild it.

As mutant of the X-Men, if you haven’t already figured it out, Storm has the power to control the weather.  When she discovers Logan’s death, her grief lights up the world.  With Logan gone, she gets involved in a battle between underworld clans.  Not content to stand in the background and look tough, she does, indeed, make it rain. 

“Just take calm”

Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish was one of the few books published by a micro-press I could find at my library to meet this week’s challenge.

Zou Lei has just been released from jail. In the United States without papers, she scrapes together enough cash with restaurant jobs and redeeming bottles to pay for rent and food. The daughter of a Chinese soldier, she’s intent on staying strong by running and improvising workouts in the park and alleyways on her breaks.

Skinner has just returned from Iraq after a third deployment. Wandering around the city, he crosses paths with Zou Lei outside the noodle shop where she works. They begin hanging out, both desperate for human contact. Some days he makes it to the gym, but most find him getting high or drunk or manic from his meds.

Slated on the cover as the “finest and most unsentimental love story of the new decade,” each page of Lish’s novel seems to edge the reader closer to an inevitable tragic ending.  It doesn’t disappoint.

“Micro-presses are like microbrews. You’re trying to make something powerful and delicious, often in your basement with weird, smelly equipment.” – Kevin Sampsell, Future Tense Books

For more powerful titles, try these shops in Chicago, Seattle, and Brooklyn. Or browse online.  

Boxers and Saints

With less than a month to go, and five topics remaining on my reading challenge, it’s time to get creative. Companion graphic novels Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang meet both challenge 19 and challenge 24. Two down, three to go.

I vaguely remember mention of the Boxer Rebellion from World History class in 9^th grade. I’m not sure we we’re presented with any facts apart from the number of foreigners killed in the conflict. Yang tells the story from two perspectives, that of a young boy whose village suffers in the name of justice wielded by foreigners and from a young girl who converts to Christianity.

Boxers follows Little Bao who joins the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. Inspired by the heroes of Chinese opera and protected by his household Gods, he discovers how to tap into an inner strength. As the battles become bloodier and deciding who should die becomes more complicated, the righteous voice of his ancestor threatens to drown him. He falls in love with a fellow a solider, Mei-wen, a young girl who has been leading a small army of village girls. He betrays her trust when he sets fire to the library to gain access to the foreigners’ enclave. Mei-wen reveals the true depths of her compassion when those whose wounds she treats are revealed to wear the cross around their neck. Little Bao doesn’t survive a retaliatory attack by the foreigners.

Four-Girl, unwanted at home, seeks solace (and snacks) from a Christian healer in the second volume Saints. She decides to fully embrace her reputation as a “devil” and become a “foreign devil” or Christian. In baptism, she takes on the name Vibiana and draws on the advice of Joan of Arc, who appears to her throughout the novel. The expression on the priest’s face when Vibiana announces her intention to be a priest is priceless. Eventually she decides she should train as a “maiden warrior” to fight against the Society. Faced with death at the hands of Little Bao, she asks for a few minutes to pray. In the end, she refuses to renounce her faith.

Bloody and bawdy, mystical and spiritual, these novels capture the tension between loyalty to country and faith in one’s beliefs. 

Seven Books a Reading

Christmas Bundle (Hannah Swensen Mysteries) by Joanne Fluke  

Set in small town Minnesota, these mystery books may be formulaic, but always comforting – kinda like the sugar cookies you bake each December.  

The Friday Night Knitting Club Series by Kate Jacobs

Single mom Georgia Walker runs a yarn shop in Manhattan. The group that gathers to meet every Friday knits their stories together along with their latest projects. Georgia’s daughter Dakota becomes entwined in the lives of the knitters as her own begins to unravel as the books progress.

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

Credit card maxed out with holiday spending? Can’t find work as an elf? This book is free. You may have been forced-read this story in high school, but it takes on new meaning whether reading it again as a newlywed or someone who’s been in a relationship for years.

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

“But instead I am applying for a job as an elf. Even worse than applying is the very real possibility that I will not be hired, that I couldn't even find work as an elf. That's when you know you're a failure.” 

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

Arriving in Paris in 1937, Andras is ready to begin his studies in architecture. However, he is blissfully unaware that his world is about to crumble. Before that, the matchmaking plan to set him up with the daughter of a family friend is foiled when he falls for the mother. Their lighthearted moments on the ice rinks of Paris soon become a distant memory as the persecution begins in earnest.   

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I received this book for Christmas year one year and spent the rest of the holiday break feverishly binge-reading this tale of Camelot told by the women. 

Winter Street Series by Elin Hilderbrand

Always a reliable beach read, Elin Hilderbrand usually sets her stories of romance and friendship on Nantucket Island at the peak of summer tourist season. With her Winter Street series (Winter Street, Stroll, Storms, Solstice), she follows the Quinn family over four consecutive Christmases.   

42

Agreeing on a kid-friendly movie to watch in our house can be next to impossible. Mickey’s Magical Christmas…“Too babyish,” my son says. A Christmas Prince…”Seen it,” says my daughter. Talking Tom and Friends…”Um… no,” I say. Thankfully, 42, was there to save the evening.  Of course, about halfway through, I realized it was PG-13. Here’s why. Can’t win ‘em all.

Even better than watching the film was when my son, later at bedtime, searched through his bookshelf and came up with two books he had about Jackie Robinson, wanting to read them again.

I am Jackie Robinson by Brad Meltzer (author) and Christopher Eliopoulos (illustrator) begins Jackie’s story as a young boy. It tells of his mother’s generosity with the neighbors, even the ones who didn’t get along. It follows his love of sports and recounts his first professional game:  “Krakk!! Some called it a home run. Others called it history.”

Teammates by Peter Golenbock (author) and Paul Bacon (illustrator) tells the story of Jackie and his teammate Pee Wee Reese. During one particularly hateful game, Reese takes a stand and stands up for Jackie as his teammate. “Maybe tomorrow we'll all wear 42, so nobody can tell us apart,” Reese says. 

Even though I don’t follow professional baseball, I’m going to pay attention next April for Jackie Robinson Day.  

"Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory"

In honor of Veterans Day, I’ve compiled a list featuring books about - or written by - those who have served in the military.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Duke by Kirby Larson

Grunt by Mary Roach

Redeployment by Phil Klay

Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel

"time to collect one's thoughts"

I hesitate to recommend Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller. Bad things happen. But… it also made me laugh. Out loud. It made me think. And ultimately, it made me want to tell everyone else to read it.     

Widower Sheldon Horowitz lives in Oslo with his American granddaughter and her Norwegian husband Lars. One morning when Sheldon is home alone, a woman and young boy wearing blue Wellingtons show up on his doorstep. Sheldon manages to hide in the closet with the young boy, but the young woman is attacked and killed by the boy’s father.

Sometime later, Sheldon and the boy, which he names Paul, escape and try to make their way to Lars’ cabin in the country. Along the way, Sheldon seeks counsel from his dead friend Bill, relives a traumatic scene from his own experience in the Korea, and grieves for his son Saul who died in Vietnam: “He was such a beautiful boy. Can you remember? He glowed with the eternal. And you didn’t touch him. And you can’t get the feeling of it out of your hands.”

Tense with dark moments, the novel is more than a thriller. It is not the chase that will have you on the edge of your seat, but the characters when they ruminate on humanity, revenge, and death. And the writing? It brings it all to life: “He expresses himself not in a torrent of words and ideas and disruptions, revelations and setbacks, but through an ever-expanding capacity to face what comes next. To see it clearly. To say what needs to be said and then stop.”

Jezebel's Spooky Spot

Just in time for a Halloween, a repost from 2009.

When Jezebel’s Papa leaves for the war, she runs away to the forest. Despite the “googery-boogery creepy-crawly catchy” feeling in that spooky place, she claims it for her own.

As the seasons pass, the lonely feeling of missing her Papa doesn’t. Again and again she seeks out her spot even though she’s up against spiders, swamp ghosts, and pixie lights libel to steal her soul.

The book is Jezebel’s Spooky Spot by Alice Ross and Kent Ross and illustrated by Ted Rand. Like Jezebel’s Little Brother, your listener will be hanging on to every word. And you won’t mind reading it again because how often do you get to say “lawse a mercy”?

"The aliens we hoped to meet"

Prime Space is ready to initiate their MarsNOW mission. They’ve chosen three astronauts to complete a seventeen-month simulation. Helen, Yoshi, and Sergei have been selected for being “among other things, the three people least likely to kill one another under these conditions.”

Each member of the team has a support person who is responsible for sending frequent communication.

For Helen, it’s her daughter Mireille, an aspiring actress who has dealt with her mother’s fame and frequent absence since she was a child. She begins a flirtation with Luke, one of the crew members assigned to track the psychological well-being of the team.

Yoshi’s primary support is his wife. Madoka is a high-level executive that frequently travels. Her company designs robots who serve as home-health aides and companions. Confronted by her own robot prototype, she begins questioning what is her true self.

Sergei’s sons Dmitri and Ilya are adjusting to their new life in America with their mother’s new husband. Dmitri begins exploring his sexuality and worries about being discovered.

   

Meanwhile, in the simulator, each person of the “dream team” struggles to hide any weakness or perceived shortcoming that will make them ineligible for the real mission.

In The Wanderers, Meg Howrey couldn’t have chosen better characters to explore the psychological and physical limits of humankind. Luke, one of the observers, remarks on the standards they have set and the hope they represent: “Wise, creative, benevolent, possessed with an understanding about the fundamental nature of reality…We could be the aliens we hoped to meet.”

Our Deepest Fear

I’m three weeks into my graduate program in pastoral studies.

The Director of Worship and Liturgy shared this with us during orientation. My yoga teacher happens to be a fan of Williamson, so I had heard the first part of this quote from her many times. I kinda like the second part, too.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The words above can be found here:

A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson

My TBR list is growing by the week. Did I mention it was only the third week?

Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible by Bernhard Anderson

Diary of St. Faustina by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska

I and Thou by Martin Buber

Life of the Beloved by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Love and Responsibility by Karol Woktyla

Method in Theology by Bernard Lonergan

Pacem in Terris by John XXII

She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth Johnson

The Origin and Goal of History by Karl Jaspers 

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong

Banned Books Week

Celebrating the freedom to read during Banned Books Week, I picked up Nasreen’s Secret School by Jeanette Winter. According to the American Library Association, this one was “challenged” in a Wisconsin school district because it “contains an Islamic prayer.”

Based on a true story, Winter tells the story with the voice of a grandmother living in Afghanistan. When the woman’s son and daughter-in-law disappear, she tries to find ways for her granddaughter Nasreen to cope. Discovering a secret school for girls, she enrolls Nasreen. Months go by. Nasreen never smiles. Finally, after the winter recess, a classmate reaches out to Nasreen, and she smiles for the first time since her parents’ disappearance.

With books, “Nasreen no longer feels alone…Now she can see blue sky beyond those dark clouds.”

The Animators

Think of The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker as a grittier Fangirl (by Rainbow Rowell). Or perhaps a more sharply focused take on The Interestings (by Meg Wolitzer).

While I was reading it, I kept picturing a cartoon sequence from the (amazing) Amazon series Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street.

In Episode 7 (season 201), bongo drums start playing a 70s beat as one of the main characters, Ranger, ruminates on puberty. “If nature puts you at the back of the pack, you do anything you can to get to the front.” He adds, “First you get the hair, then you get the power, then you get the respect.”

In Whitaker’s work, Mel and Sharon meet in a college arts program. Discovering a mutual affinity for drawing and a love of obscure comics, they begin collaborating. When their film of Mel’s coming-of-age story becomes a word-of-mouth sensation, they begin pondering their next project. An unexpected stroke forces them to pause. 

During her recovery, Sharon opens up about a traumatic event she experienced as a child. When she is well enough, the two make a trip to Kentucky to introduce Mel to her family and the surroundings that shaped her. The two begin animating Sharon’s story. However, in some ways, the project will prove to be even more damaging than her stroke.

Through Mel and Sharon's stories, Whitaker examines the intersection of memoir, truth, and fiction. Does the storyteller, regardless of medium, have the right to reveal the lives of others central to the story? She also looks at the healing process. When our identity is tied to what we do, what happens when our abilities are changed in some way?

Read an excerpt here.

“After the initial kerplunk”

This week’s challenge was to read a collection of stories by a woman. Having loved her novel and memoir, I picked up Thunderstruck and Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken.

In the title story, Wes and Laura worry their pre-teen daughter Helen is growing up too fast. The family decides (as one does) to take a spur of the moment summer trip to Paris. “The plan was to disrupt their lives, a jolt to Helen’s system before school started again in the fall…Perhaps the problem all this time was that her soul had been written in French.” And it appears it has, as Helen discovers an ease in communicating with taxi drivers and food vendors in the French she has learned in school.

The family slowly starts to relax into the rhythm of their days and the parents begin letting their daughters venture out on afternoon excursions by themselves. However, they learn they’ve let their guard down too soon when the phone rings in the middle of the night. A nurse tells them Helen is in the ICU.

Days turn to weeks, and eventually the family decides to send Laura and their youngest daughter back to the States. As Wes watches his daughter slowly, painfully recover, he turns to art as therapy. And we are left wondering who needs more healing.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book is the interview in the back between the author, McCracken, and Ann Patchett. Writers and friends, the two discuss memoirs, the thought process behind organizing the collection in this book, and book prizes.

Find suggestions for more story collections here.

Serafina's Promise

Today is a repost in honor of #internationalliteracyday and the storms ravaging the Caribbean.

Serafina's Promise by Ann E Burg

Serafina's chore each morning is to collect water for her parents and grandmother:

"One foot forward-

stop.

The other foot forward-

stop." 

This is only the first of many chores she faces growing up in rural Haiti.

After meeting the young doctor that takes care of her baby brother, Serafina decides that she too wants to become a doctor when she grows up. First, she must figure out a way to ask her parents to send her to school. She approaches her father and together they make a plan. However, nature decides to throw several obstacles in their way. 

Told in verse, the story drums with the beat of the parade Serafina watches with her father, rushes with the waters of the flood she flees with her mother, and shines with the hope she sees in the stars. 

After my daughter and I both read the book, we discussed it using the questions we found here. We both admitted to crying through most of Part III of the book. And we both agreed that we are very fortunate to be able to go to school. As Serafina says, "Education is the road to freedom." My daughter interpreted that to mean, "If we go to school, we can be whatever we want."

One foot forward.

Then the floods came

One morning I was awakened by a knock on my door. I opened it to find some very serious officials wearing rain gear. Grabbing my passport and purse, I accompanied them up the hill to the community center. Torrential rains had caused the river to flood the first floor of my apartment building my second week in Japan.

At the community center, I clumsily tried to make onigiri with the women of the town, who were tasked with feeding the volunteer firefighter brigade. At one point, later that evening, one of the women motioned for me to come with her. She invited me to her house for tea, and we eventually worked out her sons were students at the junior high and elementary schools where I was to be an assistant English teacher.

I was allowed to return to my apartment, picking my way through the mud that now filled the foyer. It would take weeks for the clean-up, but in the meantime Junko and her family checked up on me and helped introduce me to others in the community.

As the waters recede in Texas and Louisiana (and Bangladesh, India, and Nepal), and recovery proceeds, my hope is those communities are  strengthened, not torn apart. And strangers who encountered each other by happenstance and tragedy become neighbors.

Although there have been plenty of real-life Houston heroes in the news this week, here’s a list to direct you to some fictional ones as well. 

Women in Translation

This week’s challenge was to read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love. 

Turning to Powell’s, my trusty purveyor of used books, I discovered a women in translation sale. Sold.

Liu Xia’s collection of poems, Empty Chairs, spans the years 1983-2013. Under house arrest after her husband, now deceased, was imprisoned, she is described as a poet who has “turned from a bird into a tree, her feathers becoming white and withered.”

From “One Bird Then Another”:

Back then,

we were always talking

about the bird. Not knowing

where it came from – the bird,

the bird – it brought us

warmth and laughter.

From “How It Stands”:

Why draw a tree?

I like how it stands.

Aren’t you tired of being a tree your whole life?

Even when exhausted, I want to stand. 

Shore Excursion

Recently, I dropped off my brother and his family at a Seattle port for an Alaskan cruise. I started feeling a little claustrophobic seeing the masses of people queuing up to board with two to three suitcases a piece. I kept seeing the images of this disaster as I took in the truly massive ship with lifeboats ringing the sides in plain sight. My brother and his family, by the way, had a wonderful time.

Therefore, I was curious to pick up Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy when I saw the words “holiday cruise” and “misfortune” in its synopsis.

Liv and Nora are cousins, as close as sisters. Since Nora is having a bad time of it after her mom dies, Liv decides their two families should go on a Central American cruise for Christmas.

Skeptical at first, the adults start to enjoy themselves.  Befriending a glamourous Argentinian couple Camila and Gunther, relaxing while the kids play in Kids' Club or swim with their new friends, Liv congratulates herself for arranging the trip. But even the ship’s myriad amusements grow to be too much of the same. At the next port, the moms decide to take the kids on a zip-lining adventure with a local guide while the dads golf at a club with one of Gunther’s friends.

When the tire on the guide’s car blows out, everyone is a little rattled, but unharmed. Trying to salvage the day, the guide, Pedro, offers to take them to a local swimming hole. Liv makes sure she has her son Sebastian’s insulin pump and the sunscreen, and the kids and moms trek down to the water.

What happens next is a series of bad decisions that are equally thrilling and frustrating in the reading. Just like you might yell at the young girl on the screen not to go in the basement, you’ll want to tell the kids to stay put, don’t get in the van, don’t go upstairs, don’t get on the train.

Meanwhile, Noemi who has been living with her grandmother in Ecuador, finds out one morning her uncle has arrived to take her to New York to her parents. Their journey intersects with that of the missing kids, juxtaposing the despair of the poor with that of the privileged.

The novel evokes Ann Patchett’s  Bel Canto, provoking empathy for both kidnappers and captives. It’s only fitting that Patchett has given this novel a glowing book jacket review, “smart and thrilling and impossible to put down.” Exactly. 

Sibling Rivalry

I’m reliving my childhood. My tormentor, aka younger brother, loved to sneak into my room and string my Fozzie Bear stuffed animal onto the cord of my ceiling fan. I would turn red with range, only fueling his fun, and plot my revenge.

My daughter (who just turned twelve) prefers screaming bloody murder when she finds that her carefully constructed toyscape has been destroyed or her phone’s wallpaper has been changed by her little brother.

Most of the time, like my brother and I did, they do get along and play well together. One of the most enjoyable conversations I overhear while they’re in the backseat of the car is a shared love of certain book series.

Roald Dahl books fly back and forth from their rooms at bedtime. The Giver Quartet is on its way. So far, my son has only read the first one, but my daughter has been encouraging him to read the others.

The following two series, however, are ones they’ve both read, and argued about, recounted favorite scenes from, and figured how to reserve at the school library.

Myth-O-Mania by Kate McMullan

The nine books in this series are narrated by Hades, King of the Underworld. Trying to dispel the “myths” (pun intended) promulgated by his brother Zeus, he retells each story with his own unique twist. My son’s favorite is Say Cheese, Medusa! My daughter likes Phone Home, Persephone!

The True Story of… by Liesl Shurtliff

The three books (so far) of this series are Rump, Jack, and Red.  “It’s like you took a fairy tale and modernized it, pretty much,” my daughter said. But more exciting. And funnier. My son recommends Rump. My daughter’s favorite is Jack. 

Vamos, patojos

One of my high school Spanish teachers showed this movie in her class. Made in 1983, it follows the journey of a brother and sister fleeing their homes in Guatemala to try and make a new life in Los Angeles. It was the first time I thought about what it might mean to start over without family support or even legal documents.  

I never thought almost 30 years later my daughter would be reading a book, published and set in 2016, that follows a similar premise, but with a cast of much younger characters.

In The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz, Jaime Rivera and his cousin Ángela are being threatened by the gang that killed Angela’s brother Miguel. Their family members scrape up enough money to send them from their small town in Guatemala to a relative in the United States. Ángela is fifteen. Jaime is twelve years old. 

Jaime, an avid artist, sketches their perilous journey aboard pick-up trucks, buses, and freight trains as they cross into Mexico and make the long journey north to the Rio Grande. They encounter other children along the way traveling in pairs or alone. Pooling their resources, they figure out who to trust. They pray they won’t be separated, lost, or even killed. The kindness of strangers puts food in their bellies. Veterans of the journey offer advice for survival.

Perilous and eye-opening, the novel introduces us to fictional characters who, unfortunately, are based on the stories of actual young people. Kids who fear for their lives. Kids who have no choice but to try for a better life.

To find more social justice books for kids, click here.

Profusion of Tropical Life

I’ve never been on a boat smaller than a ferry or larger than a speedboat. Therefore, sailing from Long Island to Australia on a fifty five foot catamaran sailboat is probably something I’ll only ever read about. Reading this week’s challenge, travel memoir Black Wave by John and Jean Silverwood, pretty much ensures that.

Experienced sailors, John and Jean, set out to fulfill a life-long dream when they boarded their new sailboat, the Emerald Jane, along with their four kids (ages 14, 12, 7, and 3).

Encounters with pirates, John’s alcoholism, and shady dock dwellers were balanced out by amazing sunrises, swims with dolphins, and lessons only the sea could teach their children about navigation and hard work.

Little did they know their trip would be abruptly shattered by a coral reef near the Polynesian Islands. Jean tells the story from her perspective and astutely begins with the page-turning event of the journey – the shipwreck.

Knowing how the trip ends, but not the outcome, I was turning pages at a furious clip.  I found the description of the trip’s preparation fascinating and enjoyed (vicariously) the idea of living on a sailboat and living off the fruits of various islands. (Homeschooling and sharing close quarters with five other people seems less appealing.) 

Despite the nail-biting disaster that befalls them, the book does have a happy ending – a must for an armchair traveler that doesn’t have the solace of a pina colada to soothe frayed nerves. 

Braiding Sweetgrass

Botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about humanity’s damaged relationship to the natural world in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

“If time could run backward, like a film in reverse, we would see this mess reassemble itself into lush green hills and moss-covered ledges of limestone. The streams would run back up the hills to the springs and the salt would stay glittering in underground rooms.” 

“Never take the first plant you find, as it might be the last—and you want that first one to speak well of you to the others of her kind.” 

“The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.” 

“We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings.” 

Just as I finished reading Kimmerer’s book, I came across this article which only reinforces her thesis. 

Summer Reads

The high temperature lately has been 77 degrees, which counts as sweltering in the Seattle area. However, the sun is shining. Brightly! Consistently! So midway through July, I’ve conceded it’s summer.

These books have just become available on my Overdrive wait list, and so by default, comprise a summer reading list of sorts. Whether historical or contemporary, fiction or memoir, they all captured my attention and provided the most essential quality of any good summer read – escape.

First Comes Love by Emily Giffin

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Who thought this was a good idea? By Alyssa Mastromonaco

Victoria by Daisy Goodwin

We were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

Need a second (or fifth) opinion?

NPR (adults)

NPR (kids)

Washington Post

Real Simple

Tell the Wolves

I suspect this week’s challenge intended for me to read a romance of the bodice-ripper variety. However, Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a romance of the not-a-dry-eye-in-the-house variety.

It’s 1986. Greta and her sister June are having their portrait painted by their uncle Finn. When Finn’s farewell kiss on the top of the head causes June to wash her hair three times, the reader is reminded of the early, fearful days of the AIDS epidemic.

Finn dies. June mourns the loss of not only Finn, but their trips to the Cloisters and afternoons spent listening to his Requiem recordings.  

When Finn’s prized Russian teapot shows up on her doorstep, June discovers Finn had kept his relationship with Toby a secret during all those visits to his (actually, their) apartment in the city.  

Toby and June begin meeting to share stories of Finn and to help one another through their loss. As Toby’s own health begins to deteriorate, the whole family must come to terms with the man Finn loved.

Carol Rifka Brunt captures perfectly not only June’s teenage rebellion and sadness, but the complicated relationships that make up a family. Through Finn’s loss, she begins to realize her parents are people with feelings and dreams, not just stressed-out accountants. She learns more of her mother’s sacrifices and the artistic gifts she shares with her brother. Most importantly, she learns she doesn’t have a monopoly on love.

“Everything is under control”

I first read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in July of 1992. It was the summer before my senior year in high school. Along with reading, my diary recounts days spent babysitting my two-year-old sister, practicing piano and typing, making dinner using a new-fangled product called Boboli, taking tennis lessons, listening to Janis Joplin, and accompanying my mother to her doctor appointments for the baby due that August.

My 17-year-old assessment of the book? “Very, very creepy. It seems almost possible.”

My 42-year-old assessment? “Very, very creepy. It seems almost possible.”

Using my new-fangled Kindle, I highlighted the following as plausible:

“It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.”

“Better? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better? Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.”

“As the architects of Gilead knew, to institute an effective totalitarian system or indeed any system at all you must offer some benefits and freedoms, at least to a privileged few, in return for those you remove.”

Be Frank with Me

To Kill a Mockingbird –type novel Pitch is on every school’s reading list. Author Mimi Banning retreats from the limelight never to publish again. Or so she thought. 

After losing her money to a Ponzi scheme, Mimi is given no choice but to write another book. Her publisher hires Alice Whitley to fly to California and watch over Mimi’s 9-year-old, so she can complete the task.

Alice has her hands full with Frank. A fan of movie-inspired fashion, arcane trivia, and routine, Frank charms as much as he exasperates. With the help of Banning’s friend and part-time handyman Xander, Alice is able to entertain, console, and care for Frank. Xander entertains Alice.

Frank, who can expound on the national dance of the Dominican Republic, the link between tax filing day and the Titanic, and the works of Picasso, doesn’t do so well fitting in.  A bullying incident at school requires him to abandon his top hat for the guise of a normal kid - khakis. This doesn't do much for his spirit. 

Alice's solution is to give Frank a break from school. All is going well, or at least not any worse. Mimi even comes close to finishing her book. However, an ill-timed birthday present for Frank proves disastrous for everyone. Mimi disappears, and Mimi’s publisher, Mr. Vargas, is forced to fly in for the rescue.

The novel’s romance, humor, and sleuthing are punctuated with bits from old movies, Frank’s trivia, and Alice’s insecurities. It’s as madcap as it is heartwarming.