Books

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (March 2016)

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A number of my blogging acquaintances are switching their end-of-the-month reading logs to the actual end of the month rather than participating in 5 Minutes for Books’ Nightstand Blog Hop on the last Tuesday of the month. I am not one of them. I enjoy the Nightstand community and don’t have any problem having my log be on a semi-arbitrary date.

What I have been having a problem with is getting my Nightstands posted, though!

I have half-completed Nightstand posts for the past 5 (FIVE!) months sitting in my drafts folder.

Which is why this month, I decided to post my Nightstand, however late it may be!

So here’s what I’ve read in the past month…

Books for Loving:

  • Concise Theology by J.I. Packer
    An excellent book with 2-4 page summaries of a variety of theological topics. I can see using this as a jumping-off point for a high school theology class (or something like that.) I especially appreciated reading this when I decided to add application – spending a brief amount of time framing a prayer of response after each section.

Books for Growing:

  • Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley
    I’ve read this book by the “Flylady” before, but it’s always useful when I’m setting up a new household and in need of some motivation to get my routines in place. I don’t follow Flylady to a tee and I find her annoying whenever she starts getting philosophical – but the idea of setting up routines to keep your household running is a good one.
  • The Accidental Housewife by Julie Edelman
    A completely worthless home how-to manual. Basically, Edelman advises you buy lots of disposable junk for cleaning, turn on music and dance while you clean, and drink lots of wine throughout.
  • On Becoming Toddlerwise by Gary Ezzo andRobert Bucknam
    I know plenty of folk who swear by the Babywise/Growing Kids God’s Way approach – but while I didn’t find anything overtly objectionable in this particular volume, the thought of trying to follow their routine with my toddler (the whole day divided into 15 minute segments of activities) sounds exhausting. I am a woman of routine, but our household routines are arranged according to the time it takes to clean up after meals and exercise and fold a load of laundry and clean the bathroom. In other words, Tirzah Mae’s routines fit into the household routines rather than trying to run a household in between arbitrarily set 15-minute cycles.

Books for Knowing:

  • Beast in the Garden by David Baron
    Baron tells the story of the mountain lion, once only a threat to cattle, and the process by which mountain lions in Boulder, Colorado became habituated to humans, culminating in some highly unusual human deaths. A fascinating look at how humans and animals interact (and how we can’t just “return to the wilderness”). I had a hard time putting this one down.
  • When to Rob a Bank by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
    A collection of blog posts from the ever-popular Freakonomics authors. I enjoyed the randomness of this collection, as well as the smaller-than-a-usual-chapter articles, which allowed me to read them in bite-sized chunks. I did NOT enjoy the many articles about gambling (which I consider to be both boring and unwise).
  • Born in the USA by Marsden Wagner
    Wagner documents the deplorably woman (and baby) unfriendly practices of American maternity care and gives suggestions for how to fix it. Marsden deftly describes how obstetric care in the US pays only lip-service to evidence, choosing to experiment on pregnant women and their children in the absence of evidence (and even in the presence of evidence AGAINST certain practices such as Cytotec inductions). Marsden’s solutions were intriguing, but I had some definite quibbles: I don’t believe nationalized health care is the answer and I don’t think litigation is the answer. It was interesting to compare Marsden’s view of litigation with the Theresa Morris’s in Cut it Out!. While I agreed strongly with Marsden’s emphasis on the midwife model of care as a solution for the current system, I was disappointed that he did not also mention how primary care doctors are increasingly opting out of providing obstetric care (in part due to litigation, in part due to the scheduling demands of obstetric care.) I think that, especially in rural areas, this is a huge barrier to low-risk women receiving good prenatal and obstetric care.

Books for Seeing:

  • I made the mistake of trying to read Homer’s The Odyssey at the beginning of the year, while I was still in my first trimester exhaustion AND moving. Yeah. No.
  • Which is why I’m trying again with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I’m about halfway through.

Books for Enjoying:

  • The Dinner Diaries by Betsy Block
    As a memoir, this fits with my generally enjoyable reading. Except that this was a memoir about feeding a family and Betsy Block did it ALL wrong. I wrote up the two main things she did wrong (and some alternate advice) in my full review.
  • The Yummy Mummy Manifesto by Anna Johnson
    Basically about staying hip even though you’ve become a mother. Occasionally interesting but generally kinda annoying (What if I’ve always dreamed of being able to wear twinsets and khakis without someone accusing me of dressing for a different stage of life? Don’t tell me that now mom’s aren’t supposed to dress like that.)

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

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories B3RD, Book Reviews

Book Review: The Dinner Diaries by Betsy Block

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Feeding a family. Raising healthy eaters. Topics I’m passionate about. Even while I was still working on my degree, I knew that helping mothers feed their families and raise healthy eaters was what I wanted to do as a career. I made that the focus of my graduate work. After a stint in long term care, I moved to WIC, where I was able to live my dream (at least as far as career goes.)

Subtitled “Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World”, Betsy Block’s book should be right up my alley, right?

Wrong.

I should have known from the blurb on the back cover:

“A harried mother of two, Betsy Block is in pursuit of the perfect family meal: local, toxin-free, humane, and healthful.”

But the book was in a Dewey Decimal category I was trying to close and I figured “how bad can it be?”

Pretty bad.

Betsy Block’s The Dinner Diaries is basically a manual on how NOT to feed a family or raise healthy eaters. In order to save you the work of reading it, allow me to summarize the main points.

Tip 1: Start with all the wrong priorities

It’s no mistake that “healthful” is last on the list of Block’s priorities a la the back of the book. In reality, her definition of “healthful” is suspect enough that you might as well knock it off the list. Block is all about the local (which has very little impact on health), toxin-free (the American food supply, with the exception of methyl-mercury containing fish, is actually one of the safest in the world), and humane/sustainable (an ideological issue but not a health one.) Her couple of concessions to actually health practices include trying to eat less sugar and (at the very end of the book) attempting to eat more whole grains.

If you’d rather actually have some success at feeding a family or raising healthy eaters, I recommend starting with priorities that will actually help you achieve health. Try: increasing fruit and vegetable intake (no, it doesn’t have to be fresh – frozen or canned are fine), increasing variety (of protein sources, vegetables, starches, you name it – variety is good), sitting down together as a family to eat (even for snacks), having sweets around less frequently and subbing fruit instead, or experimenting with forms of cooking other than frying. I can give you more suggestions if you’d like, but those are some of the biggies.

Tip 2: Lecture your children about food

There’s nothing like a good guilt trip to help kids form a healthy attitude toward food, amiright?

Okay, no.

But Block seems to think it’s a great idea. She lectures about all those wrong priorities, lectures when kids won’t eat something, lectures when kids do eat something. She sets up learning opportunities for herself (like going to see a pig that she’s later going to eat) and leaves the children behind lest it be too tense for them – not that she won’t lecture them about it when she gets home. When her daughter asks to help cook, Betsy asks if that means her daughter will eat what they prepare. When her daughter says “probably not”, Betsy declines the offer of help.

If you’d like your children to actually develop a healthy attitude toward food, start by modeling healthy attitudes towards food yourself (by the way, Block’s obsessive interest in “perfect” food isn’t healthy.) Eat in moderation. Eat a variety. Don’t obsess over food (either in a “I must have sweets now” or in a “my diet must be absolutely healthy all the time” way).

If you’d like your children to develop a healthy attitude toward food, involve them in selecting and preparing food. Preschoolers will love searching for a red vegetable at the supermarket. Kids can learn to cook early on. Gardening or going to a farm to see how food is made is a great activity for kids. BUT…not as a way to coerce your kids into eating something. That’s Betsy’s mistake. She read that when kids cook with their families, they’re more likely to eat what they make – so she thought she could coerce her daughter into eating by letting her help cook. Letting your child cook isn’t a one-time magic bullet to healthy eating. Instead, it’s a process by which children develop positive associations with food, take ownership of food (in a healthy way), and learn skills that will help them eat well when they decide that they’re willing to try eating asparagus.

If you’d like your children to develop a healthy attitude toward food, move the conversation from nutrition to habits. Dina Rose’s excellent website It’s not about nutrition is a great resource for changing the way families talk about food. The gist of Rose’s message is to start talking about proportion, variety, and moderation (Check out this article for more info.) Changing the conversation makes a real difference, both in helping kids eat healthfully, but also in helping them think healthfully about food.

In the very first chapter of Betsy Block’s book, she writes of a nutritionist who refused to work with her because of her emphasis on organic foods. Block was shocked that organic foods were controversial. Except that to call the “health benefits” of organic controversial is putting it mildly. Despite many attempts to prove otherwise, there is no compelling evidence that organic foods are more nutrient-rich or more safe than conventionally grown ones. It’s fine for people to eat organic, but they’re fooling themselves if they think that organic = healthy. Block’s choice to focus on secondary issues instead of primary ones meant that her memoir is a recounting of an exercise in frustration, accomplishing next to nothing in terms of changing her children’s habits and attitudes regarding food.

The nutritionist who ended up working with Block (although we only hear about her in the first chapter) did a good job of trying to get Block to focus on some actually beneficial eating practices (unfortunately, she did not address the task of how to communicate with children about food) – but it was all for naught. Block would not be dissuaded from her ill-informed search for dietary perfection and from her agenda of changing her children’s eating patterns by coersion. I think the first nutritionist made a wise choice.

Please, people, don’t be Betsy.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Food memoir
Synopsis: Betsy Block tries to make over her family mealtimes.
Recommendation: Ugh. No.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Mothering Your Nursing Toddler by Norma Jane Bumgarner

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“How long do you intend to nurse?”

If my experience is typical, it’s a question many a nursing mother has heard many a time.

And my answer has always been… difficult to give.

Because I didn’t have any hard and firm answer. I intended to keep nursing until we stopped.

I did know that would not be until Tirzah Mae was at least 12 months old, since cow’s milk is not recommended until age 1 due to a high sodium and protein content that can tax an infant’s kidneys (and because I had no desire whatsoever to provide formula, that nasty-smelling, clothes-staining stuff.) But after a year? Who knew.

Generally, my questioners would follow up with the question they really wanted answered: “But you aren’t going to still nurse when she’s old enough to [lift your shirt, walk up to you, ask to nurse in English]?”

And I… didn’t really know what to say exactly.

My observation has been that most mothers I’ve talked to who have nursed for truly extended periods of times (past their child’s third birthday, for example) have often delayed practices that I consider healthy (for instance, waiting to give their nursing child solid food and water until long after six months) or prolonged practices that I consider less than ideal (such as frequent nighttime nursing.) Since I intended to introduce solid foods at six months and water to go along with solids – and felt that an infant or toddler should, at some point, learn to sleep through the night without waking to nurse, I imagined weaning would occur sometime before my child’s third birthday.

When Tirzah Mae turned one, I had an easy excuse for continuing to nurse beyond the American Academy of Pediatrics’ minimum recommendation of one year – Tirzah Mae was born early, so it was really only like she was ten months old. But I also knew it would be worthwhile to read up on this “nursing a toddler” thing – and I knew just the book.

La Leche League’s Mothering Your Nursing Toddler by Norma Jane Bumgarner is THE book on the topic – and my library happens to have it.

This book’s greatest strength is in encouraging mothers of nursing toddlers through countless stories that can assure them they are not alone – a very useful thing for those mothers who often DO feel alone as they nurse their baby-who-is-no-longer-a-baby.

On the other hand, Mothering Your Nursing Toddler seems to assume that nursing for a very extended period of time is both beneficial and desirable in almost all cases. While I don’t think that nursing for a very extended period of time is harmful, I don’t know that it is necessarily to be encouraged by default. But, since that is the position Bumgarner takes, she encourages those practices that I’ve observed in prolonged nursers – suggesting that following the practices I recommend is actually parent-led weaning.

And if that’s so, I started weaning at six months, when Tirzah Mae started eating solid foods and drinking small quantities of water to go along with it. We continued weaning when Tirzah Mae turned one and I started giving her small amounts of whole cow’s milk with a couple of meals or snacks a day. If I didn’t feel like nursing when she was grabbing for the breast, I offered her cow’s milk or water in a cup first. If she was satisfied with that, we didn’t nurse. If she refused the water or milk, we’d nurse despite my not feeling like it. Sometime around a year, I stopped automatically feeding her when she woke up at night. I cuddled her close and rocked her and put her back in bed without nursing unless she made clear that she would only be pleased if I nursed her.

Now, she’s nursing a couple of times a day, usually before naptime and bedtime – although we occasionally nurse more, depending on her state of mind and my own.

I have no plans for stopping anytime soon (although I also don’t begrudge the days when Tirzah Mae falls asleep before we’ve nursed and ends up not nursing at all.)

I feel no need to pump on days that Tirzah Mae chooses not to nurse. Before I read this book, I would have assumed that was a part of child-directed weaning. She doesn’t nurse, so my body doesn’t make as much milk, so weaning commences. But I don’t think Bumgarner would agree. She seems to think it quite unlikely that a child would self-wean before age 2 and would therefore encourage pumping to keep supply up.

So…what DO I think about this book? Just like this entire topic, it’s hard to say. I suppose it could be very encouraging to the mother who feels like her child could benefit from extended breastfeeding – and I would recommend it to that woman. The woman who is pretty sure she doesn’t want to nurse past a year is unlikely to benefit from this book (if anything, she’s likely to feel overwhelmed by the suggestion that she should keep nursing until three, four, or beyond.) It’s tougher for me to say whether I’d recommend this book for a woman who is uncertain about continuing to nurse.

I think there are definite benefits to continuing to nurse as long as both you and your child want to. I do NOT think that means that your nursing relationship has to be on your child’s terms (as Bumgarner generally seems to recommend). It’s appropriate that, as your child no longer relies on your breastmilk for the primary source of his nutrition (usually around a year of age), you as the mother would take a more active role in determining when and where you breastfeed your child.

Rating: ?
Category: Breastfeeding
Synopsis: All about breastfeeding a child at age 1, 2, and older
Recommendation: I’m not sure.

Categories Books

A Bookish Meme

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A little over a month ago, Barbara H tagged me in a bookish meme. And now that I’m back to blogging (easing my way back in, apparently :-P), I figured it’s high time I answered Barbara’s questions!

Do you remember the first book you read or really liked?
I don’t remember the first book I read, but I do remember the first book (er…series) I was completely obsessed with. I LOVED the Little House books and read them dozens of times when I was maybe 7 or 8. I remember my older sister and I lying on the floor in our room, reading the Little House books in the thin crack of light that came in from the hall after our bedtime.

How did your love for reading come about (grew up in a reading family, a certain book captivated you, etc.)?
I suppose it’s because I grew up in a reading family. My mom was a voracious novel reader and, although I don’t know if I ever saw my dad just sitting and reading a book that wasn’t the Bible, he was all about information and was always looking up soemthing in an encyclopedia or dictionary. I was maybe four or five when my grandma bought us three different sets of Encyclopedias: a Children’s Encyclopedia, the Compton’s Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica. We loved those – for reference, sure, but also for reading (the “cows” article and the “American Indians” article in the Compton’s Encyclopedia are wrinkled and stained from much love from a pre-adolescent Rebekah.)

What is your favorite genre to read?
Right now, it appears to be nonfiction of the practical sort: how to make curtains, how to raise a reader, how to have a baby, etc. But I’m not sure that’s really a genre. I’ve historically been pretty eclectic, but have fallen into something of a rut over the past couple of years – one that I’m aiming to get out of with my reading resolutions.

What genre do you avoid reading?
I’ve often said that I avoid reading “genre fiction” – science fiction and fantasy, romances, westerns, mysteries. But that’s not quite accurate. I love C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, both fantasy series. I read Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances rather often, and Christian romances not infrequently. I have recently very much enjoyed reading a couple of Agatha Christie mysteries. So maybe westerns are really the only genre I really and truly avoid?

What is your favorite movie based on a book?
The A&E miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. I love the book – and the movie’s reliance on dialogue from the book. I love the period costumes and dancing. I love Elizabeth as played by Jennifer Ehle and Mr. Darcy as played by Collin Firth. Really, I love it.

What’s your least favorite movie based on a book?
Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightley. Skipping entire plot lines while spending five minutes of precious screen time on a lovesick Elizabeth mooning on a swing? Ugh!

What is your favorite time and place to read?
I don’t know that I have a favorite, unless maybe in bed before a nap on a Sunday afternoon. I do most of my regular reading while marching in place to music between sets of weights in my living room.

Are you in any “real life” book clubs or discussion groups?
My church has a monthly book club that I participate in. We read mostly fiction, but the occasional nonfiction item as well. Since I don’t read a whole lot of fiction, the club helps me to broaden my horizons.

How many bookcases do you have?
I have five full-sized bookcases and three half-sized ones. I only have two of the full-sized and one of the half-sized currently set up and full, since we’ve decided we’re going to do things right and brace our bookshelves before we fill them here at Prairie Elms (and we haven’t done so with the basement ones yet.) Of course, that’s not counting the shelves full of library books in our entertainment center.

What is a favorite quote about books or from a book?
It’s a bit hard to pick favorites… but a quote that I come back to frequently is from C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy, the most logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Thanks, Barbara, for tagging me in this – it’s so fun to talk books!

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Animals of the Bible illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop

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Books are about words, right?

Of course, right.

Or at least that’s what I’ve always thought.

While I read picture books, I really only care about the words.

While I’ve been reading picture books for years, I’ve typically only cared about the words.

But after reading Baby Read-Aloud Basics, I’ve been trying to pay more attention to the pictures, especially when reading out loud to Tirzah Mae. Then, I read Donald Crews’ Freight Train (recommended by Baby Read-Aloud Basics) and was absolutely enthralled by the illustrations. The library copy I’d borrowed featured a Caldecott Honor Medallion – which inspired me to look at the Caldecott Award.

I discovered that the Caldecott Medal is given by the American Library Association (ALA) to the illustrator of an outstanding picture book.

Okay, okay. If the ALA considers illustrations important enough to give an award for them, maybe I should pay a little bit of attention to them.

And what better way, I figured, than to read through the Caldecott Award winners?

Dorothy P. Lathrop received the very first Caldecott award for her Animals of the Bible, published in 1937.

My library’s copy had to be retrieved from storage, and I was interested to see the penciled-in note on the front flyleaf indicating that water damage had been officially noted 9/17/70.

The text of Lathrop’s Animals of the Bible consists entirely of passages from the King James Version of the Bible, all of them pertaining to animals in some fashion. Each story (with a few exceptions) is accompanied by a full-page black-and-white illustration.

Reading this (and looking at the pictures) reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder, looking at the pictures in Pa’s big Bible and in his animal book.

I couldn’t help think of the great differences in picture book illustrations since 1937. Perhaps the easiest to note is the change from black-and-white to full-color illustrations – but even more striking is the variation in level of detail. It certainly seems that recent illustrations tend towards the cartoonish, with spare details. But the further back one looks, the more detailed the illustrations tend to be.

Lathrop’s illustrations are highly realistic montages of multiple animals in distinct environments along with carefully drawn plants. They are delightful (apart from the unfortunate addition of halos on Jesus and the angels, a convention I rather detest.)

I can see a preschool or early elementary child enjoying these illustrations, although I think said child would likely be overwhelmed by the King James English of the text. Then again, I’ve never been much of an illustration person, and I may be translating my own tastes to a child – if you can find this book at the library, I’d find it there and try it out on your child before buying.

Rating: 3-4 stars
Category: Children’s picture book
Synopsis: A collection of “animal” passages from the King James Bible along with striking full-page black and white illustrations.
Recommendation: Children might be interested in the illustrations, not sure how easily they’ll get the King James English.

Categories Books

Reading Resolutions

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January is the time of year when book bloggers everywhere are listing their reading resolutions, joining reading challenges, and otherwise posting plans for the year’s reading.

And I am stuck trying to figure out if I should join in.

First, am I a book blogger? I suppose that’s the niche I fit in best, if a niche I am to fill. But I am just erratic enough that I am unsure.

Second, dare I write resolutions this year? My pregnancy and the expected new addition to our family is just one obvious reason to keep my expectations low this year. Then again, my last pregnancy didn’t keep me from reading in the least. But we’ll be moving out to Prairie Elms in less than two weeks – and I have a feeling THAT will put a definite damper on reading, at least for this first bit of the year.

I’d love to participate in Carrie’s Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge this January as I have for the past several years. But I’m packing away our home and preparing it to be sold. Will I have time to read?

I’d love to participate in Barbara’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge in February. But I’ll be settling us into our new home (and potentially still working on getting our current home saleable or rentable.) Will I have time to read?

I’d like to participate in July’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge at Reading to Know, but that should be serious nesting time. Will reading factor into my nesting this time around?

As year-long (or almost year-long) challenges go, I’d really like to join with Amy’s Newbery Through the Decades Challenge. But I’ll be skipping at least the first month, and I don’t know how things will go from there.

I’d also love to do Tim Challies’ Visual Theology Reading Challenge. But… see above.

So I may or may not participate in one or all of the above.

What I do know for sure is that I want to make some adjustments to my reading this year.

As I’ve reflected on my recent reading, I’ve realized that I’ve been doing a lot of “how to” reading. Now, there isn’t anything wrong with that sort of stuff. It’s valuable to read about parenting and childbirth and breastfeeding and whatnot. But a diet consisting entirely of how to just isn’t right.

So I’ve resolved to try to balance my reading in 2016 around five categories.

Books for Loving

These are books that serve to deepen my love for God. They’re books on the nature and acts of God. Books about the nature and effects of salvation. They’re books that cause me to wonder at and worship the great God of the universe.

Books for Growing

These are books that help me meet goals. This is where those “how to” books can fit. Books to help me communicate better. Books to help me parent more effectively. Books to help me keep my house clean or to organize my days. Books about gardening or cooking. They’re books that help me grow in the areas I’ve identified as needing growth.

Books for Knowing

These are books that help me gain general knowledge. History, Biography, Sociology. Books about disease processes (not necessarily “how to fix this disease”). Books about politics or current events. Books about economics or foreign policy. Things that stretch and expand my mind, that expose me to new ideas.

Books for Seeing

If books for knowing help me gain general knowledge, books for seeing help me gain understanding of the human state. These books help me understand human emotion, human relationships, human problems – not from a clinical standpoint but on an experiential level. This is the place for literature and poetry, for delving into the complexities of human interaction in a way nonfiction can’t.

Books for Enjoying

While I’ve often considered this category escapism, I’m realizing that it’s important that I include the books I read for sheer enjoyment in my regular rotation. Reading adventure novels from John Flanagan’s “Ranger’s Apprentice” series or Regency Romances from Georgette Heyer aren’t simply an escape. They’re an opportunity for me to step back, to lose myself in a story, to laugh and to recharge. Yes, I can’t let these become all I read, but having escaped into one of these on a semi-regular basis allows me to return to “real life” a better and more relaxed woman. So these too will be a part of my regular reading this year.

Categories Book Notes

The Brothers Grimm: Wrap Up

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I had grandiose plans of reading ALL of the Grimm’s fairy tales, but I’m awfully glad that I gave myself the out from the beginning. As it was, I read 22 of the tales and 14 picture book versions, listened to 1 audio retelling, and watched 2 video retellings. I posted reviews of the retellings – and have a half dozen half-written posts about the other tales I read.

I’ll post those someday – but for now, I’ll just list what I read:

Hansel and Gretel

I read and reviewed eight different picture book versions of this very famous tale.

Rumpelstiltskin

I read and reviewed four different picture book versions and a video retelling of this familiar tale.

King Thrushbeard

I found only one picture book version of this fun Taming-of-the-Shrew-esque story. I’d like to see more.

The Frog Prince

No kissing! Yay! I read one picture book version, listened to an audio version, and watched a video retelling (that I didn’t like at all.)

Stories published elsewhere

So, those Disney stories I watched/read as a child? I think most of them are probably drawn more from Perrault’s French version of the stories. But I did read the Grimm’s versions of “Puss in Boots” and “Cinderella”.

Less-Familiar Princesses

“Maid Maleen”: a Sleeping-Beauty-like tale, except with more twists. “The Skillful Huntsman”: a modest man slays figurative dragons (actually giants and maybe a pig?) and wins the princess’s hand. “The Princess in Disguise”: a Cinderella-like tale, except with more twists (including a really yucky incestuous promise.)

Tailor Tales

I read two different tales about tailors (generally clever but rather self-important men). “The Gallant Tailor” aka “The Brave Little Tailor” aka “The Valiant Tailor” aka “Seven at One Blow” is the one I remember from childhood. But there is also “The Giant and the Tailor”.

Stories with Adult Themes

Infidelity and wife-beating. Not exactly great material for children’s stories. Preview these before you share them with your kids: “The Little Farmer”, “Sharing Joy and Sorrow”, and “Old Hildebrand”.

Gruesome Tales

You’ve been warned that the Grimm’s are GRIM and are eager to mine the depths of their gruesomeness? Try “Fitcher’s Bird” and “The Robber Bridegroom”.

Create-your-own Fairy Tales

A few of the tales seemed incomplete, like they’re just waiting to be made into an episode in a Shrek-like fairy tale amalgam. Wanna try your hand at it? Read “The Golden Key”, “Sweet Porridge”, and “The Old Beggar Woman”.

Thumbling Tales

Actually three different tales: “Tom Thumb”, “Tom Thumb’s Travels”, and “The Young Giant”.

Miscellaneous Tales

“The Nail”, a moral tale. “Jew among Thorns”, an anti-Semitic tale (uncomfortable). “Clever Gretel”, with a not-so-nice protagonist. “The Singing Bone”, a Cain and Abel type tale. “Fair Katrinelje and Pif-Paf-Poltrie”, an incomprehensible courting story. “The Elves”, a Christmas story. “The Goose-Girl”, a rather goosey all-too-compliant gal who gets the guy in the end anyway.

Thanks to everyone for reading along – don’t forget to go to Reading to Know to link up what you read and to read others’ thoughts on The Brothers Grimm.

Categories Book Notes

The Brothers Grimm: The Frog Prince

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I much prefer the Grimms version of “The Frog Prince” to whatever detestable variation resulted in the saying “You have to kiss a few toads before you find your prince.”

This story is (thankfully) not about playing the field, but about keeping promises.

No kissing involved.

The Frog Prince retold by Edith H. Tarcov, illustrated by James Marshall
A relatively faithful retelling of the story, written as a “level three” first reader (for 1st and 2nd grades). The large print and relatively simple sentence structures make it easier for children to read – but this still includes an abundance of words and parts of speech. I enjoyed the little rhymes the frog says. I did NOT enjoy James Marshall’s illustrations, which were cartoonish (all the people reminded me of Alice from Dilbert.)

The Frog Prince by Jan Callner (Audio)
An audio retelling of the classic tale, with a full cast of characters and accompanying songs. There are some embellishments to the story, but most of them are positive developments (showing the princess’s evolution from self-centered brat to friend, for example). Also, there were a few amusing bits – after the fairy godmother exclaims her displeasure at not being invited to the Prince’s party, the narrator asks “Do you know what she did?” and answers “She destabilized the entire geopolitical balance of the region – that is, she turned the prince into a frog”. On the other hand, the songs drove me absolutely NUTS – or at least they would if I had to listen to them more than once. Overall, I won’t be listening again.

The Tale of the Frog Prince from Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre (DVD)
Having been rather disappointed in Shelley Duvall’s version of “Rumplestiltskin”, I was prepared for her “The Tale of the Frog Prince” to be less than stellar. Except that I couldn’t help notice that these were different actors – Robin Williams is the frog, and the back of the DVD case has accolades from the New York Times. I let my hopes rise.

The opening scene, where a narrator introduces the plight of a poor king and queen who couldn’t have a child, raised my hopes further – only to let them be immediately dashed when said king and queen begin harranguing one another.

From there? Well, lots of angry yelling, lots of name-calling, lots of innuendo. Yep, that’s right – all sorts of innuendo.

And a kiss. Of course, a kiss.

I wasn’t a fan. Obviously.

Categories Book Notes

The Brothers Grimm: King Thrushbeard

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An unfamiliar tale, “King Thrushbeard” tells the story of a beautiful princess who is less than beautiful inside. She has many suitors, all of whom she turns away with mocking. One such is a king with an pointy jaw, whom the princess mocks as “King Thrushbeard”. In his anger at his daughter’s refusing all her suitors, the princess’s father vows to give her in marriage to the next beggar that comes knocking at the castle door.

And so he does.

This particular story reminds me a lot of “The Taming of the Shrew” – in which a proud and sarcastic woman is tamed by an uncouth husband (although with a bit less spousal abuse!). I would love to see this story retold more frequently.

King Thrushbeard illustrated by Felix Hoffman

This is the only retelling my library had of this tale – and it’s a quite faithful retelling. The illustrations are nice but not amazing – the people are quite angular and their garments are an odd mix of Renaissance-style tunics and jerkins and 1920’s cut flapper dresses. It’s really quite odd. However, since I like this tale so much, I think it’s worth tracking down a copy (even if the illustrations are odd).

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Inklings by Melanie M. Jeschke

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Inklings opens on the day of C.S. Lewis’s funeral. A protege of his, David MacKenzie had a change of heart as he watched the flame of a candle on Lewis’s casket burn brightly, unwavering despite the wind. David recommitted his life to God and purposed to make a difference in the lives of students at Oxford, just as his mentor had.

MacKenzie and a friend begin the “Inklings Society” at Oxford, meeting at the same “Bird and Baby” where the original Inklings had met. The group shares literature – that of their own and others’ composition – and discusses matters of life and faith.

Enter Kate Hughes, a Virginian studying in Oxford for the year. She’s reading Shakespeare with MacKenzie, and quickly develops a crush on her handsome believing tutor.

This is definitely a Christian romance, with romance being the operative word. As such, it is fairly straightforward – although with an emphasis on a sort-of courtship-ish model such as was popular among homeschoolers when this was published (the author is a homeschooling mom of many, of course!)

Not being a terrific fan of romances for romance sake (at least not for quite a while), I didn’t find the romance to be tremendously interesting. But the setting? This is like a travel brochure for Oxford. The glimpses into the life and thoughts of C.S. Lewis? Yes, please.

I think that someone reading this for the romance might feel that the travelogue and the Lewis biographical notes are heavy-handed and unnecessary. But not I. I tolerated the romance and relished the bits of Oxford/Lewis info.

Sidenote: Why didn’t I study at Oxford? The whole reading/tutor system seems a much better fit for my learning style than the lecture-style system of American education. Not that I wouldn’t love to attend the lectures – the ones that dons give that aren’t required but that anyone can attend who wants to (be still, my beating heart.)

I read this because my bookclub is reading it – one member of the club had seen it at the church library and was curious about it. And I’m glad we did read it. It’s not spectacular fiction, but passable as Christian romance (isn’t most Christian romance simply passable?) Yet the depth of information about Oxford and about C.S. Lewis made it worth reading for Lewis fans (at least, for Lewis fans who don’t mind Christian romance :-P)

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Christian romance
Synopsis: A British don and an American exchange student carry on something of a romance in Oxford just after C.S. Lewis’s death.
Recommendation: I wish I could draw a Venn diagram, but you’ll have to just imagine it. Imagine the intersection of “those who tolerate Christian romances” and “those who love C.S. Lewis”. Those people would likely enjoy this book.