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Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

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It’s not that I don’t like poetry – I just like clarity more.

And Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts is long on one and short on the other.

Having read a few of Voskamp’s blog posts, I was familiar with her style – sentence fragments, simultaneous run-ons, metaphors that carry through paragraphs and suddenly morph. I knew already that I could only handle her in rather small doses, but that when I did read a dose, I was often encouraged.

If I’d have been expecting a Christian living book, a how-to of some sort or a theology, I’d have been sorely disappointed. Because One Thousand Gifts is neither of these. It is a memoir, written in free verse, of a woman whose life was transformed as she began to practice “eucharisto” (thankfulness).

As such, it is lovely. It is a meandering book, best read slowly over the course of many weeks. I took the full three months the library allowed to read through it. I savored pretty turns of phrase and reflected not on the thoughts conveyed but on the gratitude displayed.

So long as I did that, I loved it.

The problem came in whenever I tried to think about it.

Having read One Thousand Gifts, I have no idea what Voskamp’s theology really is. I know that she quotes some people I respect greatly, theological giants – but she also quotes mystics whose connection to Biblical Christianity is questionable at best. Voskamp hints at some understanding of the cross, of God’s sovereignty – but she spends much more of her time discussing the mystical idea that eucharisto somehow makes things happen.

Yet I’m not sure if it is a mystical idea to her, or if I merely perceive it that way because of the poetical writing style. Does she really believe that eucharisto is some sort of lucky charm, that entices miracles into being (as she seems to suggest when she repeatedly references Jesus giving thanks and then feeding 5000)? I do not know.

And that’s the difficulty with reviewing this book.

It’s not that I don’t like poetry – I just like clarity more.

And Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts is long on one and short on the other.

That said, I think it is worthwhile to note that reading this book has inspired me to take more notice of the gifts God has given me throughout the day to day. For that, I am thankful.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Spiritual Memoir
Synopsis: Ann Voskamp is transformed as she begins living a life of eucharisto, listing the gifts God has given her.
Recommendation: If you like Voskamp’s style, it’s worthwhile to read and be reminded to be thankful. If you don’t like her style or know that you’ll be frustrated by theological ambiguity, go ahead and skip it.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

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Elizabeth Goudge’s The Little White Horse is a children’s fantasy book curiously set up in twelve chapters with 3-5 parts each.

In the first chapter, we set the stage and introduce a few of the main characters: newly orphaned thirteen-year-old Maria Merryweather, Maria’s governess (who suffers from indigestion and eats very delicately), Maria’s dog Wiggins (who lives to eat), the enormous Sir Benjamin with whom Maria is now going to live, Sir Benjamin’s enormous not-quite-dog Wrolf, and two individuals whom Maria’s governess is sure are entirely imaginary. Goudge’s descriptions here in chapter one are delightful.

“It was indigestion that had ruined her nose, not overindulgence. She never complained of her indigestion, she just endured it, and it was because she never complained that she was so misunderstood by everyone except Maria. Not that she had ever mentioned her indigestion even to Maria, for she had been brought up by her mother to believe that it is the mark of a True Gentlewoman never to say anything to anybody about herself ever. But Miss Heliotrope’s passion for peppermints was in the course of time traced by the discerning Maria to its proper source.

So distressing was Miss Heliotrope’s nose, set in the surrounding pallor of her thin pale face…

But chapter one also introduces us to Mysteries–Mysteries that compound over the course of the book, one partially resolving to unveil yet another yawning one. What is it about the little white horse that Maria sees when she first arrives, which Sir Benjamin seems to recognize, but which is never seen again? Why has their not been a woman in Sir Benjamin’s house for 20 years, and who keeps the house so clean and prepares Maria’s clothes each morning? Why do the Black Men of the forests of Moonacre wreak such havoc on the inhabitants of the area?

Of course, Maria manages to eventually figure out the mysteries and solve every problem Moonacre has, all the while picking up an entourage of adoring people and animals. And everyone gets married in the end.

This was my first reading of The Little White Horse, and I enjoyed it tremendously. The story was engaging, a light little escape into a fantasy world where I knew everything would turn out all right in the end.

That said, I spent plenty of time suspending disbelief. When every person takes to Maria immediately and starts disclosing deep secrets. When Maria’s stories, invented on the spur of the moment to get her out of difficulty, turn out to be true. When Maria gets married at age 13.

Yes, that’s right. Among the three marriages that occur at the end of the book are 13-year-old Maria’s marriage to her beloved once-presumed-to-be-imaginary-friend who used to visit her in London (for real but while he was dreaming in Moonacre?)

Yeah, plenty of suspension of disbelief. I nodded all the way through Carrie’s review. That said, I still liked it. I just did.

I wouldn’t mind owning a copy. I wouldn’t mind reading it out loud to my children at some point. I would point out that getting married at 13 is not at all the thing.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Children’s fantasy
Synopsis: A fun, frivolous fantasy in which an orphaned girl sets things aright in Moonacre, her cousin’s ancestral property.
Recommendation: Read, but be prepared to suspend disbelief

I read this as a part of Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club Check out what other bloggers are saying about this book there.

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (March 2014)

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Thanks to getting my final two wisdom teeth out last Thursday, I’ve had opportunity to get caught up on some reading this past weekend. I have not had much time to blog about said reading. So this is all I’ve got for the month!

This month, I read:

  • Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography by William Anderson
    A very nice biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, written at a reading level similar to that of the Little House books. See my full review here.
  • Laura Ingalls Wilder Country by William Anderson
    A nice little book with photographs of the actual places where Laura lived and some of the actual items described in the Little House books.
  • June by Lori Copeland
    Completing a series I began long ago–this one struck me as not very well written at all. Still, I like Christian romances sometimes-especially when I’m recovering from oral surgery :-)
  • Discover your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen
    A nice look at the economics of everyday life. This is less sensational and more informative than the well-known Freakanomics, which belongs to the same genre. If you’re interested in economics and human behavior, this is an excellent book on the topic.
  • The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
    I read this for the first time with this month’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club–and enjoyed it a good deal. It required serious suspension of disbelief and was certainly an off-the-cuff fantasy as opposed to a well-reasoned one, but it was fun and I liked it. I’ll review it in more depth later.
  • The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
    I expected this one to be a Regency, but it turned out to be set a century or so before. Nevertheless, it was a highly enjoyable romp that involved an affair of honor, a highwayman, a kidnapping, a love triangle, and a long-lost heir. It took me a while to get interested in the characters, since I met at least a half dozen before I could figure out which direction the tale was taking–but I’m glad I stuck it out.
  • Program Your Baby’s Health by Barbara Luke and Tamara Eberlein
    Not a terrible prenatal program, but not a great one either. It was written to 2004 and the research on healthy pregnancy has advanced quite a bit since that time. The biggest flaw with this particular program was the advice to restrict physical activity during pregnancy–advice that showed up in nearly every chapter. This one was the most readable of the several books I’ve looked at on prenatal programming, but I can’t really recommend it due to its out-of-date recommendations.
  • Empires of Mesopotamia by Don Nardo
    A very nice little book detailing the various empires of Mesopotamia from Sumer to the Second Babylonian Empire. I was impressed by how well-written and laid out this was, but a little surprised that it had been filed in the adult non-fiction section of the library. I’d say it’s perfect for a late-elementary or early-Middle School introduction to Mesopotamia.
  • Ancient Persia by Don Nardo
    A look at the empire immediately following the Second Babylonian Empire, by the same author as Empires of Mesopotamia. Certain parts echoed the previous book heavily–although this was written at an even lower reading level (early-elementary, I’d say) and filed in the children’s section at my local library
  • The 1920s edited by John F. Wukovits
    I grabbed this title to give me a bit more context on Calvin Coolidge (my husband’s favorite president) and found this to be a perfect introduction to the ’20s. The book is a series of chapter-long excerpts from other biographies and histories of the era–which meant it was easy to read in segments, and gave tastes of a number of authors’ styles (making me kinda want to read some of the books from which the excerpts were drawn.)
  • Williamsburg: a picture book to remember her by
    A book of photographs of Colonial Williamsburg. I wanted to get a taste of what to expect when we travel to Williamsburg this fall with Daniel’s family–and I’m getting really excited to see all those historic buildings and the craftsmen and craftswomen within!

Still in Progress:

  • One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
  • To-Do List by Sasha Cagen

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Notes

The Prairie, Revisited

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Someday, I’m going to be a pioneer. I’ll travel in a covered wagon, settle on an empty prairie, build a log cabin with timber cut from the creek bed. I’ll cut notches in the logs and carefully set notch upon notch, climbing the corners of the cabin to build it higher and higher.

It’s been a dream of mine since my earliest days, those days when I first read Little House on the Prairie.

But while I’ve been able to accomplish some of the childhood dreams elicited by books, I have not accomplished this particular one-and likely never will.

The closest I’ll get will be building Lincoln log houses with children.

And that’s okay.

I was struck, rereading Little House on the Prairie for the first time in several years, with how much of the book is focused on the mechanics of building a home from scratch–but also much I missed of the rest of the book.

I never caught, on my early readings, just how tenuous the Ingalls’ resettlement was. Pa heard a rumor that Indian territory would be opening for settlement, so he uprooted his family and moved in. Despite there being plenty of non-Indian land around, Pa settled within an Indian reservation–knowing that it was an Indian reservation. He considered it to be just a matter of time before the Indians would be resettled. That’s what happens when white men move forward, he assumed; the Indians move on to make place for them. And of course the US government would back up the white settlers who were squatting on Indian land. Of course.

It’s astonishing to think. How can someone (who isn’t desperate) know that the land they’re living on belongs to someone else but yet still choose to build upon it in hopes that they’ll come out on top in the end?

In some ways, Pa seems so advanced in his views of Indians. He didn’t hate them or fear them, he tended towards the “noble savage” viewpoint (which I definitely had as a child, at least in part obtained from the Little House books). Yet his attitude in settlement was almost like many would treat wild animals. Yes, suburban sprawl will impact the native animal population, but people are more important than animals and the animals will move to other places and adapt.

It’s challenging, revisiting the prairie through these new eyes.

My view of Little House on the Prairie has also changed now that I am married and have moved from being near my family to be with my husband. In the months leading up to our marriage, Daniel and I talked of various directions our life could take-of different educational and professional routes Daniel could take, of different places we might end up living. I blithely told Daniel that I would follow him anywhere.

And it’s true. I will follow him anywhere.

But, having moved once to follow him, my determination to follow him anywhere has much more fear attached.

The move to Wichita has not been easy for me. I battled a depression over this past year that was more severe than any I have battled before. I am now finally, one year out, starting to find my balance. The thought of uprooting again terrifies me.

I can’t help but think of Caroline Ingalls as I read Little House on the Prairie. I imagine how hard it must have been for her, leaving her family and “civilization”, spending months without anyone to talk to but her husband and their children, just starting to establish a home when news comes that you must move again.

I wonder if she felt more sorrow or more relief when it became clear that they must not stay, that they would need to backtrack, that they would return to Wisconsin. Was she sorrowful because of the year lost, the work done and left for others to enjoy? Or was she elated to be returning back to her family, to the little house they once loved? And what was she thinking when Pa’s wanderlust struck again later (when they left for the banks of Plum Creek)?

It’s interesting, revisiting old places and seeing them through older, more mature eyes.

I wondered at the beginning of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge if I wouldn’t try to make something from Little House on the Prairie, like I did with Little House in the Big Woods a couple years ago. I didn’t. The closest I got was creating some log cabin quilt blocks for a quilt for a soon expected nephew and building log cabins with Lincoln logs with the kids of some friends from church.

I don’t regret that I didn’t do more–this year’s challenge was thought provoking enough that I didn’t need the extra activities.

I read this title as a part of Barbara H’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge and the Reading to Know Classics Book Club. You can check out what other people have been reading at Barbara’s challenge wrap up post and the RTK wrap-up post.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Laura Ingalls Wilder by William Anderson

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I’ve read my fair share of Laura Ingalls Wilder biographies for children–most (if not all) of them fitting into the glossy paged photograph-laden category. Each biography has a tendency to veer one of two directions: either it focuses almost entirely on the information Laura shared in her Little House books (thereby adding nothing for the avid reader) or it focuses almost entirely on the ways reality deviated from the Little House books (thereby destroying a young reader’s trust in the essential historicity of Wilder’s novels.)

Laura Ingalls Wilder: A biography by William Anderson is as different from those biographies as a book can be. It is not a glossy picture book with minimal text. It is not simply a retelling of Laura’s Little House books. Neither is it a critical look at how Laura changed her story.

Instead, it’s an honest to goodness biography written at a reading level (and in a style) similar to Laura’s “Little House” books. Anderson explicitly mentions some things that are different from the books (for instance, that Laura was actually much younger than described in Little House on the Prairie when her family settled in Indian territory); but he mostly writes Laura’s story as it occurred, letting the Wilder fan take notes of where stories were slightly altered or moved to a different context in the Little House books.

I loved it.

I think this book would have been very accessible to me in the throughs of my first Little House obsession (age 6-8), and would have added to my understanding of pioneer life (and Laura’s life in particular) without dissuading me from love for the Little House series.

It is a book of substance not of fluff, written simply but not condescendingly. I recommend it highly.

Having said all that, I think it is important that I clarify. This book is written for an elementary to middle school audience, so it doesn’t go into great detail about certain things. Those who are interested in a more in-depth discussion of Pa’s squatting on an Indian reservation or of other harsh components of pioneer life will be disappointed. Don’t expect an adult biography. But, for what it is, a children’s biography of a beloved author, this is a very good book.

I read this title as a part of Barbara H’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge. You can check out what other people have been reading at her wrap up post.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Children’s biography
Synopsis: A biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder from birth to death; written for an elementary to middle grade audience.
Recommendation: Definitely recommended for the target audience (although older folks can enjoy it too).

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (February 2014)

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What with all my project doing, I haven’t been reading quite as much this month. Even more, I haven’t been finishing books this month. I still have at least a half dozen in progress.

This month, I read:

  • Wonder by R.J. Palacio
    The story of a 5th Grade boy with craniofacial abnormalities due to a rare genetic disorder. August goes to school for the first time and learns that middle schoolers can be cruel and kind and awful and awesome. Or something like that. I wasn’t a huge fan. Read my full review here
  • Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
    First, she witnesses a plane going down. A fellow air transport auxillary pilot made a heroic attempt and failed. Then she makes her own heroic attempt, and she goes down–escorted into Germany where she ends up in Ravensbruck, a witness to horrific events. This is undoubtedly the best book I’ve read so far this year–and likely one of the best I’ll read all year. If I haven’t already convinced you to read it, check out my full review.
  • Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
    I re-read this for Barbara’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge and in conjunction with the Reading to Know Classic Book Club–and found my experience reading it very different this time. I’ve become much more sensitive to the interactions between Ma and Pa–and to the reality that the family was illegally squatting on land that wasn’t their own in hopes that it would soon be available for settlement.
  • Four children’s picture books, author BO

Books In Progress

Books In Progress, Part 1

Left over from last month’s list:

  • Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography by William Anderson
    I’m still hoping to get this one done and reviewed this month for Barbara’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge.
  • One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
  • The 1920s edited by John F. Wukovits
  • Discover your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen
  • No More Sleepless Nights by Peter Hauri and Shirley Linde
  • To-Do List by Sasha Cagen
  • Sumer and the Sumerians by Harriet Crawford

Books In Progress

Books In Progress, Part 2

New Additions to Works in Progress:

  • Betty Crocker’s Bread Machine Cookbook
    I’ve never had good success with bread prepared and baked in the bread machine (I don’t have a problem with the dough cycle), but I wanted to try again. The buttermilk white bread turned out perfectly–so I’m eager to try a few more recipes (maybe I can get a good whole wheat loaf?)
  • The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch
    I started my peppers and tomatoes last night, and am eager to have a successful garden this year (crossing fingers.)
  • The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
    I just barely started this, thinking I wanted some more fiction–but the projects and nonfiction have kept me busy, so I’ve stalled.
  • Program Your Baby’s Health by Barbara Luke and Tamara Eberlein
    Because I’m interested in seeing how the prenatal program prepared by Luke and Eberlein (of Harvard School of Public Health) stacks up to my own.

I’ve also picked up The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, which I’ll be reading along with the Reading to Know Classic Book Club.

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio

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August Pullman has only ever been homeschooled, with only a few friends outside of his family. So when his parents decide it’s a good idea to send him to a local private middle school for fifth grade (go figure), he’s understandably nervous.

Except August isn’t just nervous because he’s a sheltered homeschooler. He’s worried because…well, his face…

August was born with a rare genetic anomaly (never given the name Treacher-Collins in the book, but that’s what it is) that resulted in a slew of “craniofacial abnormalities”. That’s the nice way to say it.

Most kids just call him “freak”.

My church’s book club selected this book for their February discussion, so Daniel and I listened to an audio version on our way up to and back down from Lincoln this last weekend.

Let me tell you first that the women in the bookclub were almost unanimous in loving this book. I felt a bit like a sore thumb, as the newest member of the group (it was my first discussion with them) and as one who just wasn’t crazy about Wonder.

It was a nice story. It was cute. It was the first book I’ve read in which the main character had craniofacial abnormalities. But it wasn’t great.

The story was told from the perspective of a half dozen kids, alternating narrators every few chapters (with a bit of overlap on key scenes). I liked seeing from multiple limited viewpoints. But the kids all sounded alike (that is, there wasn’t anything in the writing to make them different–the voice actors were VERY different.) A couple of high schoolers who gave their perspectives added elements I didn’t like, that I thought were too mature for a novel about a fifth grader.

Furthermore, I felt like both the story and the characters were there to serve a moral. The author was trying to make a point first and the story was just there to make that point.

I feel bad, writing such a negative sounding review. So many others loved this book–and I concede that it’s not a bad book.

But my perspective is likely clouded by my experience reading Tony Abbott’s Firegirl (link to my review). Like Wonder, Firegirl is a middle grade novel about a child with a “deformed” face. Both are told from a child’s perspective. Both have a moral of sorts. But Firegirl outperforms Wonder in every way (assuming my memory of Firegirl is accurate.)

Firegirl is very suitable for a middle grade audience, with little besides necessary discomfort with the topic to give any pause. Firegirl has dynamic, well-formed characters. And Firegirl doesn’t make obsessive mention of popular culture, making it suitable for more than just the next two years (I got so frustrated with the “product placement” in Wonder. Just off the top of my head, we’ve got mention of an iMac, an X-box 360, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Star Wars, some brand name jacket/hoodie, and a cartoon I didn’t recognize. And that’s with me not being a detail person–especially not when listening versus actually reading.)

So, yeah. Um.

Read Firegirl.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Middle Grade Fiction
Synopsis: Fifth Grade August Pullman, whose face is disfigured by a rare congenital condition, goes to school with other kids for the first time.
Recommendation: Clearly not my favorite book. It wasn’t awful, but Tony Abbott’s Firegirl did a much better job with a similar story.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

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I read this book as a part of Amy’s Armchair Cybils. Rose Under Fire was a finalist for the young adult fiction category. Sadly, it did not win, but I think it definitely deserves its position as a finalist.

It starts with a funeral and a report–the funeral of a fellow Air Transport Auxillary pilot, the report Rose must write because she saw the pilot’s failed landing.

How will Rose write about this report? In a way, she feels responsible. She had flown that plane before, the pilot who died hadn’t. She’d briefed the dead pilot on flying that plane. She’d let the other pilot take off first with Rose following behind. But the conversation Rose had with the mechanic who inspected the crashed plane complicates the matter. The plane had been damaged prior to landing. It’d had contact with something. The mechanic thought the pilot had tried tipping a buzz bomb–knocking it off course so it’d explode in an empty field instead of a city where it could injure people.

Rose becomes obsessed with the buzz bombs. They aren’t just buzzing overhead, going silent, and then knocking out whole city blocks–they’re getting much closer. Her colleague is dead. Her bus ride on her day off is spent on the floor of the bus for fear of one falling on them. She finds two boys playing with one undetonated one and orders them away, is left holding a fuse in her hand. She dreams of her little brother with his arm blown off by a buzz bomb fuse.

She talks to her fellow pilots about the buzz bombs, about this “tipping” thing. What are the mechanics? How does one do it? How does one not injure her plane like their colleague did?

Not that she’s likely to encounter a buzz bomb. The allies are advancing, have taken back France. She’s just transporting, not likely to be anywhere near the lines from which the bombs are launched.

Until she is. And a buzz bomb comes near. And she can chase it, can tip it.

And she gets caught by two German planes who escort her back to Germany.

Ravensbruck. The pilot who flew her to prison regards it as just a pilot’s navigation point. Rose finds that it’s so much more. Once there, she experiences unthinkable horrors, sees even worse.

Daily life is a struggle for survival. Physically, yes–but so much more. How does one not despair when stuck amidst maggots, when propping up dead compatriots so that the numbers can match during roll call, when left to the mercy of hellish guards and insufficient food?

Only the few who resist the temptation to despair will survive. Despair means certain death.

How will Rose fare under fire?

It’s difficult to describe a book so rich in historical details, so emotionally compelling, so horrific and so lovely.

Rose Under Fire is not an easy book to read. Ravensbruck is described in stomach-turning detail. One can sense the desperation, the horror of that time and place. One is forced to come to grips with the fact that this- this is what fallen humans can do, have done, could do again.

Davene does a much better job than I ever could of expressing the emotion and thoughts this book evoked.

“But tonight, I feel as if the veil has been lifted, and I’ve glimpsed anew what life is and has been like for so many people born into circumstances so much more difficult than mine. That chasm is so wide that I can’t even mentally reconcile it, but I can–and I will, every single day–say thank you for this life I’ve been given.”

If you haven’t read this book yet, you should. You will find yourself torn up over the reality of sin and injustice, thankful for the life you have now, and prayerful that justice and peace would reign someday over the earth (as it will, we have this blessed hope, when our Lord returns.)

Rating: 5 Stars
Category: YA Historical Fiction
Synopsis: After “tipping” a buzz bomb from the sky, Rose, a fearless Air Transport Auxillary pilot, finds herself in Ravensbruck witness to and victim of unspeakable horrors.
Recommendation: Read this.

Categories Books

Challenges in various stages of completion

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L. M. Montgomery Reading ChallengeNow that it’s February, it’s time to write a wrap up post for this year’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge. This year, I read only one book: The Blue Castle, which was also this month’s selection for the Reading to Know Classics Bookclub.

That would have been all I did for the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge, except that I took some time Saturday (I know, not in January at all) to stitch up another article of clothing for Anne’s wardrobe.

For those of you who’ve been following me for a while, you may remember the plain dress Marilla made Anne to replace her yellow-gray wincey (that was a cross between the snuffy-colored gingham and the black and white checked sateen) and the carpet bag with the funky handle (okay, I didn’t replicate that part.)

But now, Anne’s wardrobe has a third piece: the yellow-gray “skimpy” wincey. (Note the too shortness of the hem and sleeves as well as how tight the skirt and sleeves are. The goal was to have no superfluous fabric–did I succeed?)

This marks the end of Anne’s pitiful wardrobe–so the next piece will either have to be THE dress with the puffed sleeves or an outfit from after that wonderful gift. Yay! (Both exciting and scary since I’ll actually have to do some real pattern drafting to add tucks and shirrs and doo-dads for those fancy dresses.)

To see what others have been reading and doing for the challenge this past month, check out the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge at Reading to Know.

In addition to the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge, I have been trying to sneak in at least one book for the Armchair Cybils, which will be finishing up in the middle of February. Amy wrote a fantastic review of Elizabeth Wein’s Rose Under Fire–and that title just happened to be both a Cybils finalist AND in my local library system.

I’ve been devouring it. It is SO good. Rose is an American pilot who’s in the British Air Transport Auxillary, transporting planes from factory to field and back–until she finds herself landing in enemy territory and is taken to the Ravensbruck work camp where she meets a whole host of other interesting female prisoners.

One particularly interesting note for me was the early mention of (even obsession with) the German V1 “buzz bomb”. When my parents came down to Wichita to visit us last fall, we went to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson–which has an enormous museum on the history of space. The first room included a V1 buzz bomb and gave a history of it–which made reading about it in a novel all the more fun.

I’m planning to be able to finish it up and review it by the time the Cybils winners are announced on Valentine’s Day–but it’s good enough already that you might as well put it on your watch list :-)

Finally, I’m going to be participating in Barbara H’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge this month. I plan on reading Little House on the Prairie (also this month’s selection for the Reading to Know Book club) as well as a number of biographies of Laura (as many as I can manage of the half dozen or so that I checked out of my local library).

The last time I participated, I made butter a la Ma from Little House in the Big Woods–and I’m eager to see what I can come up with to work on from the Prairie (When I was little, I wanted to build a log house like Pa and Laura did, but the closest I ever got was Lincoln Logs. I think it’s likely that’ll still be the closest I get after this month :-P)

So those are the reading challenges I’m participating in this month (or finished from last month.) Are you participating in any challenges this year? What are they?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

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I knew I was going to like L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle when I got to a line in the second paragraph that I could identify with oh-so-well:

“One does not sleep well, sometimes, when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in a community and connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to get a man.”

Not that I’ve ever been on the cusp of twenty-nine and unmarried. Or that I’ve been in a community and a connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to get a man.

But I have been 27 and unmarried, feeling like I was simply one who had failed to get a man. I, like Valancy, “had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come [my] way yet.” Until I was 27 and talking to a mortgage officer about a home loan. Then, I felt sure that I’d given up hope.

I was entirely sympathetic with Valancy’s plight.

Then I got to the fourth page, where I learned of the blue castle in Spain, the daydream Valancy had been escaping to since she was a young girl. I knew at that point that Valancy and I would be kindred spirits.

I had no drab existence (at least, not in the sense of a yellow-painted floor with a hideous hooked rug and ancient photos of relatives I don’t know hung within my bedroom) or unloving childhood to escape from–but I took refuge in my own blue castles nonetheless.

Like Valancy, I decorated my castle and imagined romances for myself. I had a series of “lovers” (only one at a time, of course, like Valancy did) who each faded away as a new story presented itself to my mind.

I was never a shy child or a shy woman who cowed under the censure of a strong-willed family. I never had a dull life, was never colorless or mousy. I was not one bit like Valancy in personality or family circumstance–only in singleness and dreaming.

But that was enough for me to like her and be interested in her plight.

Thankfully, Valancy doesn’t stay a single doormouse caught up in her dreams (that’d be a rather boring book, wouldn’t it?) Instead, she receives some news that shocks her out of her complacency and compels her to start living real life.

She starts saying and doing the things she’s been thinking for so long. She throws the jar of mouldy potpouri that’s been sitting in her bedroom out the window and against the building next door: “I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things.” She announces to a dinner party of assembled family that “the greatest happiness is to sneeze when you want to.” And she moves out of her widowed mother and aunt’s house and into the home of a widowed man and his dying daughter.

And then she moves into her blue castle and building her own life–discovering along the way that her castle is a little different than she’d dreamed all along, and so much more wonderful. (I identify with this discovery completely.)

And then comes the second great shock of her life–a shock great enough to overthrow everything she’d been building for the past year (du-duh-DUH!)

I liked this book. I really, really did. And I think others will as well.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Fiction/Romance
Synopsis: The only interesting thing in dull, mousy Valancy Stirling’s life is her dream world–the “Blue Castle” in Spain. But shocking news changes everything for her and she suddenly starts shocking everyone else by building a real life for herself–in anything but a dull, mousy way.
Recommendation: Definitely worth reading if you like romances (of the unsmutty variety) or L.M. Montgomery

I read this as a part of Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club and the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge–which means you don’t have to take my word on the book as the final word. All sorts of other bloggers are reading and writing up their thoughts on The Blue Castle. Check them out!