Reading Moms

When books choose us

By Kara Madden

During times of stress or change, I have always turned to books for comfort. They're the one thing that can reliably relax me. So it was no surprise the public library was one of my first stops when I moved back home to Boston from the southwest. I'd had a difficult few weeks of house hunting and trying to get the family settled in a city that felt very different from the one I'd left behind six years before.

My first attempts at grabbing a good read were undermined by trips to the children's room. The kids were too energized by their new environment to allow more than a longing glance at the adult fiction section. On my third visit, circumstances allowed me to slip away.

I quickly scanned the shelves of some of my favorite authors -- Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Franzen –- and grabbed the first unfamiliar titles that crossed my path. I returned home with "The Namesake," "Strong Motion," and "The Red House" (by Sarah Messer -– snagged on my retreat from the L's).

Perhaps it was coincidence, or perhaps it was that the library is located just miles from downtown Boston, but, much to my unexpected delight, all three books took place in Massachusetts.

"Red House" is a nonfiction narrative about the oldest continuously lived-in house in New England. Both "The Namesake" and "Strong Motion" describe, in detail, streets and cities just miles from my home. During a time when I was feeling alone, detached, and lost every time I got in a car, these books helped ground me and provide a sense of place. They reminded me why I decided to return home.

What unexpected comforts have books brought you?

Kara Madden lives just outside of Boston, Massachusetts with her husband, preschool-aged son, and toddler daughter.

Begin the year with books

By Sherry Early

I've perused all the end-of-the-year lists of Best Books of 2006 for you, and I've come up with seven nonfiction titles that sound interesting enough to tempt me. I haven't read any of these, but out of all the possibilities, these are the nonfiction books I want to add to my to-be-read list. (I might do a separate post with a few fiction titles that made me want to take a closer look.) Maybe you'll see something that catches your eye.

"The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" by Michael Pollan.
I'm a bit afraid of this book; there is such a thing as too much knowledge. The book tells about where our food comes from, and I hear that the main character is Corn. Pollan analyzes the sources of meals from McDonald's, from Whole Foods Market, straight from the farm, and even a meal made of foods foraged from the wild. I think I'm brave enough to read about a subject so fraught with peril, but if I come out unable to eat at all and I starve to death, it'll be Mr. Pollan's fault.

"Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them" by Francine Prose.
I can learn about how to read and how to write, both at the same time. I've seen this one recommended in several places, and I qualify per the title as one who loves books and wants to write. Well, maybe not books, but I do like to write. So I think I'll check out Ms. Prose's prose. ( I couldn't resist. Don't you know she's sick of the prose jokes!)

"Cross X: A Turbulent, Triumphant Season with an Inner-City Debate Squad" by Joe Miller.
The book follows a year in the life of a Kansas City high school debate squad. I don't have any urchins involved in debate, but I do have some who might be good at it. (They practice on me.) I'm always interested in the ins and outs of competitive intellectual pursuits; athletic competition, on the other hand, leaves me cold.

"Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick.
This one is on almost all the lists. I'l be very interested to see how revisionist it is. Many of the reviewers mention that it will explode myths and cause readers to rethink their religious, political, and cultural biases. A little bit of revision of images to fit the facts isn't a bad thing, but I'm not a fan of revising the facts to fit a twenty-first century sensibility. We'll see...

"The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan.
This story of the 1930's Dust Bowl won the National Book Award for nonfiction. My grandparents lived through these times in West Texas, so I thought it might be good to find out just what it was they survived.

"Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England" by Timothy Larsen.
I know it sounds a bit esoteric, but I like the Victorians. And John Wilson, in Christianity Today's Books and Culture, says the book "draws attention to a counternarrative that has been widely overlooked, embodied in the experience of men and women who moved from doubt or resolute skepticism to Christian faith."

"A Royal Affair: George III and his Scandalous Siblings" by Stella Tillyard.
Modern day royals and their affairs don't interest me much, but take it back a century or two, and I'm ready for all the gossip. This biography tells the story of George III of England and his eight unruly siblings, also giving some attention to those rebellious "children" of his over in America.

If you want to look over the year-enders yourself, I've gathered up a list of lists over at my personal blog, Semicolon. But, trust me, as a reader who has yet to crack the covers of any of The Best of 2006, these are the Best of the Best.

Sherry Early is a 40-something homeschool teacher, foolish Christian, right-wing conspirator, bookreading fanatic, happily married, mother of eight who lives with her brood in Major Suburbia, Texas.

Title of seventh Harry Potter book released

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

By Julie Moos

J.K. Rowling has revealed the title of her final Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Her publisher, Scholastic, confirmed the title, which Rowling revealed on her Web site to readers who followed a tricky trail to the holiday gift.

When the news broke, I called my husband so he could tell our son as soon as he got into the car after school. My husband's first question was, "What are hallows?" His second was, "What is deathly?"

So. Deathly means deathlike or deadly. And hallows is "the beginning of the Witches' Year, when the Veil Between the Worlds grows thin and the spirits of the dead may return to Earth."

I'm wondering if this is a period of time during which Harry is reunited with his parents, Sirius and Dumbledore. Perhaps it's also when the two characters die.

NPR has some interesting speculation by Melody Joy Kramer, who writes:

"If you're going to spend the weekend deciphering the etymology of the word "hallows," we've come up with some tips to help you out. Start by reading up on King Arthur. In the Holy Grail myth, the Hallows refer to the four objects found in the Holy Grail castle: the spear, the grail, a sword and a platter. Hmm, four objects in the castle -- and four houses in Hogwarts. And we've already seen one sword (Griffyndor's) and one stone (Flamel's) and even a grail-shaped chalice (the Hufflepuff horcrux). And doesn't Dumbledore just remind you a little bit of a guy called Merlin?"

Earlier this week, Rowling said she had her first dream in which she was Harry Potter (and, simultaneously, the narrator). She also said "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," to be released in July, "looks fantastic," based on the 20-minute preview she saw.

You can sign up to receive an alert from Amazon once "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is available for pre-order.

Julie is a writer and editor who lives with her husband and son in Safety Harbor, Florida.

Shelving those gift books

By Anne Boles Levy

I'm probably the only mother who insists we don't need kids' books for Chanukah. None. Zero. Nada. Naturally, my relatives ignore me. Books are easy: they always fit, they're not a choking hazard, they don't get recalled. What's not to like?

Trouble is, these gifts, however well intended, just get tossed on the pile. And it's a big pile. At last count, we have 200 picture books on hand. This is after donating 150 to Katrina victims last year and an equal number to various school teachers, friends and a favorite literacy program. When we sold our house in August, a trunkload somehow never made it out of our Toyota Echo -- now in a Self-Stor in California.

We moved to a two-bedroom Chicago apartment generously termed "cozy," which would be accurate if we'd stopped growing at three feet tall and only ever stood sideways. Our main furniture is, unsurprisingly, shelves, uniformly covered with pulped trees.

If there's a spare inch atop a dresser, it sports a plastic bin of board books. And every few days there's a Post-it on our mail slot from the UPS elf. Boxes keep coming, as reliable as this city's legendary wind.

The cause of so much largess: I review children's literature at my blog. I couldn't possibly critique all the titles I receive and still keep track of whether my kids have eaten or bathed this week, but publishers are a hopeful lot. Once you get on their lists, it is forever. The universe may be flying apart and we will all be cosmic dust someday, but I'll still be somebody's best friend at Random House.

This isn't a terrible problem to have, I admit. For Seth, each day brings new discoveries or a happy reunion with a long-lost, dog-earred friend. He gets veto power over what stays or goes, a lesson I learned after a few meltdowns.

But what to do about Chanukah presents? One relative called from a store the other week, where she was browsing -- guess where. The book section! What did Seth already have?

Sigh. Where do I begin?

Anne Boles Levy lives with her husband and two children in Chicago.

The grown-up point of view

By Rachel A.

One of my favorite childhood memories is of my mother sitting at the foot of my bed, reading me chapters from a book before I fell asleep. Even when I was a fluent reader, books seemed better when she was reading them -- she used great voices for all the characters!

I try to recreate that atmosphere for my children. We read between two and four picture books a night, and then I read one or two chapters of whatever book I am reading with my older daughters (ages 6 & 8). My youngest (3) tends to fall asleep during the chapter book, but some stories keep her attention, and she doesn't fall asleep until the room grows silent, and I read my own book quietly. I hope this nightly routine will help turn them into avid booklovers.

It is so interesting to be the reader for these nighttime book-fests. My perspective is so different than when I was a kid. Things my mind bleeped right over as a kid jump out at me as an adult. Books I loved as a kid become questionable when I read them to my children. When I talked to my mom about this, I found out she verbally edited the content for several books. I haven't been alert enough to do that. Plus we listen to a LOT of audio books, which limits the opportunities for editing.

The chapter book we finished most recently was "Matilda," by Roald Dahl. I loved this book as a kid, and we read my childhood copy of the book, complete with cover that has been taped on a few times! The sweet, quirky illustrations are the same, and the story is still wonderful.

However, reading "Matilda" as an adult was different. I was horrified by the way her parents treated her, and the school she attended was worse than a nightmare. As a child, I had been thrilled with the idea of being left alone every day by my parents to read and go to the library! In today's world, though, even my kids found the idea rather frightening. 

The stories of the Headmaster harming children were horrifying to all of us, so far beyond our frame of reference. Even my homeschooled kids wished they could have a sweet teacher like Miss Honey, though! We were joined in our love of Matilda and our astonishment and excitement at her precocious reading and other skills, and then later her ability to move things with her eyes.

My 3-year-old managed to stay up late enough so she could hear the last couple chapters, as we were all waiting for the happy ending. It does my book-addicted heart good to see them so excited about a story, and so sad when it ends.

Despite the very happy ending, we all finished "Matilda" wishing we could know what happened after the last page. That, at least, was no different from when my mom was reading to me!

Rachel lives with her husband and three daughters in a small house near the New England beach. 

Booknoted: December 9, 2006

By Julie Moos

Here are some recent headlines for moms who read:

• Down With Homework (The Washington Post)
• 10 Children's Tomes for the Holidays (MSNBC)
• Chick Lit Authors Won't Be Dismissed (GalleyCat)
• Is J.K. Rowling Making Any Progress on Harry Potter Book 7? (About.com)
• Give Books That Make a Difference (The Washington Post)
• Picture Books Really Do Teach Toddlers (WebMD via CBS News)
• In Quest for Speed, Books Are Lost on Children (The Washington Post)

Julie is a writer and editor who lives with her husband and son in Safety Harbor, Florida.

What was your first book?

By Julie Moos

I remember the first book that completely captured me. It was a big, heavy, hardcover book of fairy tales, and I was so intent on reading it without interruption that I climbed into a cardboard box in the living room and stayed there until I turned the last thick, colorful page in my very tired hand. That experience changed my life as a reader. I realized I could both escape and immerse myself in life, through books.

Thirtysomething years later, I want to help others discover their world in books. So, we are making donations to "First Book" for the holidays, in honor of our family and friends. "First Book" is an organization that gives children the opportunity to own books, many for the first time. I became aware of their work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when they helped replenish homes and classrooms with reading material.

According to their Web site, "Since 1992, First Book has distributed more than 46 million new books to children in need, including more than 3.5 million to the Gulf Coast alone through our Book Relief initiative." You can learn more about First Book here and if you're interested in giving the gift of reading, you can learn more about donating here.

Do you remember your first book?

Julie is a writer and editor who lives with her husband and son in Safety Harbor, Florida.

The thing about book clubs

By Ellen Schuette

I, an English major and voracious reader of almost anything in print, have a confession to make: I don't like book clubs. I'm not sure why. I wish book clubs well; I admire what they are doing to bring literature to life in the homes and offices of America. I simply can't seem to make myself attend one.

Oh, I've tried. I visited a couple in the past where I was there "on approval." It seemed that the primary requirement was that I be able to balance a teacup with aplomb while expounding upon the latest bestseller. (Too much pressure; I didn't join). I was even the designated secretary for the one in our neighborhood, responsible for getting e-mails out to members, helping choose the book, browbeating a neighbor into holding the event and so forth. All intentions were good; the members were lovely. The problem was, when I showed up, I would rather have been anywhere else.

Maybe I'm opinionated, bossy and/or antisocial. Odd, seeing as how I'm perfectly thrilled to be with this same group of friends for a monthly bunco game. When it came to the book club format, however, I simply couldn't sit still through the polite exchange of ideas or the way we all attempted to answer questions like, "How did Lulu's demise help advance the plot?" And, "Did Roscoe really sleep with his sister or was that a metaphor?" I couldn't contribute anything without worrying: Did I say that correctly? Can they tell I didn't read the book? What if I say all I liked were the sex scenes, will I be ostracized?

It was all I could do not to run screaming back to my house and the safety of my own little reading nook (i.e. my bed before falling asleep at night).

That's why I like this Reading Moms idea. I can pass along my thoughts about books and share titles that have meant a lot to me (or conversely, books I've despised) and perhaps fellow readers will agree/react or perhaps they won't. I know I will learn from being part of this blog. But I won't have to dress up or dress down to join; I can sip tea OR chug a beer while typing my thoughts, if I so desire, and no one will ever know; and the part about reading that I most love -- that it feeds my soul -- will remain essentially private.

Now THIS is my idea of a book club!

Ellen is a 50-year-old mother of two, stepmother of two, who lives in North Carolina with her family.

Library treasures

By Sarah Rachel Egelman

Every week my 2 and a half-year-old daughter, along with the woman who cares for her while I am at work, goes to the library for storytime. Afterward, she is allowed to browse and read and pick books off the shelf, selecting some to take home. When I come home on those afternoons I am always excited to see what she has selected. Excited and, I admit, nervous. 

Some of her favorite books (and, like her mom, she is a bookworm: she has several books memorized and reads them to us all the time) are not ones I really like. It isn't that they're awful, it's just that I find them dull, or unoriginal, or the illustrations are less than attractive. I would never insult her choices: reading, even to a toddler, is about personal preferences and is an opportunity to learn and explore. Still, on library days I hope she brings home some of my favorite authors and illustrators, as well as some of her own. 

What I really like is when we both fall in love with a book together, a book whose pictures and words we can lose ourselves in, a book that transports the two of us to a new, perhaps faraway place, or one that gives us something to talk about all week (and long after).

Here are some of our recent favorite library finds.

• We love Molly Bang! For almost a year "Ten, Nine, Eight" was a favorite bedtime story. Recently, my daughter checked out "In My Heart". I really love the funky pictures, not to mention the story (more of a poem, really) about a working mom who loves her job but always keeps her son "in her heart" when she is away. It is really beautiful.      
  
• "Flyaway Katie" by Polly Dunbar is also a cool and unique book. It's a short tale about Katie, who is a bit bored and a bit gray and thinks the bright picture on her wall would be a better place to be. So, with a fancy outfit and some imagination she manages to spend the afternoon there until it is bath time.

The past two weeks Lilith has come home with books by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. First was "Look! Look! Look!" written with Linda K. Freidlaender. The illustrations remind me of Clare Beaton in this story of three mice who take a painting and deconstruct it visually in order to understand shapes, colors, patterns and other components. This week she brought home "Pumpkin Day," which is full of imagination and discoveries.

It is, of course, far to early to say if Lilith and I will have the same taste in literature. But, I am excited to watch her grow as a reader. She already likes poetry (Robert Louis Stevenson and Mother Goose!) but will she find the magic of e.e. cummings appealing? Will she discover Vonnegut and Kerouac in high school? Will she, as a grown women, dive head and heart in Rushdie and Rhys, Austen and Kafka, just like me?

Most likely we will share some of the same reading passions while each having our own unique tastes.

In any case, I am proud she is off to a good start, and that she is already a great patron of the library.

Sarah is a community college instructor and freelance book reviewer who lives in New Mexico with her husband and daughter.

Let them eat biographies

By Donna Mills

A couple of weeks ago, I inaugurated the first meeting of my informal "Mom's Movie Club" by talking a girlfriend into taking in a Friday matinee. The film was "Marie Antoinette," Sofia Coppola's controversial biopic of the French queen, which was famously booed when it premiered at Cannes.

The film has gotten mixed reviews here, but my friend and I both loved it for the beautiful scenes, the colorful costumes and the way it made a figure from the unrelatable past truly contemporary (yes, we even applauded Coppola's decision to set the story to a soundtrack of New Wave/Romantic tunes from the 1980's).

But what really struck me about seeing the film was how little I knew about Antoinette -- other than "Let them eat cake" and that she was ultimately beheaded. (And since it turns out she never said the thing about the cake, I really did know next to nothing!)

Of course, I took World History -- way back in the 8th grade -- and remember reading a few paragraphs in my text on the French Revolution. I knew it was chaotic and that most of the French aristocracy were declared enemies of the new state and sentenced to death. And that's about it.

So I decided to pick up a copy of "Marie Antoinette," Lady Antonia Fraser's biography, which was the source for Coppola's film. It's a scholarly work, full of footnotes and references to countless letters, journals and other first-hand accounts painstakingly researched by Lady Fraser, a veteran biographer of mostly royal subjects (14 in all, beginning with Mary, Queen of Scots, published in 1969). Lady Fraser also thoughtfully includes a map of 18th century Europe, a Bourbon family tree and lots and lots of reproductions of paintings and artifacts depicting Antoinette and her family).

But "scholarly" is not synonymous with "dry." Antoinette's life reads like a contemporary romance novel, at least in the first two sections of the book, which is the portion Coppola covered faithfully in her film. But as movie adaptations must use a kind of visual shorthand, a lot of detail was lost.

In the book, I discovered that Antoinette was the 15th of 16 children borne by Maria Theresa, the formidable Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. (Her other titles were Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia). She is another historic figure who would make a wonderful subject for a film, a surprisingly contemporary woman who worked tirelessly, even taking paperwork to bed after giving birth to little Maria Antonia (her Austrian name), who was promised in marriage to the heir to the French throne only after two older sisters were married off to monarchs of other nations.

The film version of Antoinette's life shows her bewilderment when she is sent off to Versailles at the age of 14 to marry the 15-year-old Dauphin Louis, a boy she had never met. Fraser paints a picture of a world where transportation is long and difficult; communication is far from instant; and marriage to a prince the next kingdom over means being cut off from the rest of your family perhaps for the rest of your life. Antoinette never saw her mother again.

She found herself in a strange country, with strange ways and a xenophobic distrust of their new Dauphine (who was referred to as L'Autrichienne -- "the Austrian bitch" -- long before her arrival).

One of the more amusing scenes in the film shows the young Dauphine's embarrassment on her wedding night –- a non-event made painfully public because half the court was sitting in their bedchamber watching! The marriage wasn't consummated for another seven years, a period when poor Antoinette had to deal with her mother's pointed reminders that her position in France would not be secure until she produced a male heir to the throne.

Today's tabloid gossip culture has nothing on the 18th century. The courtiers knew everything that went on (or didn't) between the young royal couple and they spent endless time talking about it and speculating. Worse were the publishers of pamphlets (called libelles) that depicted the Queen as the star of pornographic fantasies. These were so widespread that they became accepted as truth and are the source of much of Antoinette's bad reputation today.

The film "Marie Antoinette" ends with the French people storming Versailles and taking the royal family prisoner. This was a good decision, enabling movie-goers to leave the theater with the memory of the beautiful pink imagery of the early days of Antoinette's reign. The years that followed marked a grim descent into hell, a tumultuous period that was too harsh to describe accurately in that old text I read in middle school.

The King and Queen continued to hope for a peaceful resolution. Fraser writes about this period so well that I found myself believing that Antoinette might escape and survive, even though I knew very well how her story would end. Bu I hadn't known the details: the emotional torture that was wreaked upon the family, or that her son would be taken away from her and coached to testify that she was a child molester (one of the allegations in those libelous libelles). She performed well on trial, even though her attorneys had little time to prepare, and ended her testimony feeling that she had acquitted herself well. Unfortunately, the verdict had been decided upon long before the trial had begun; the politicians had promised the people "the head of Antoinette" and they were determined to deliver.

I finished the book feeling sad for this young girl who grew into a tragic figure. From the day she was born to the day of her execution, she was a political pawn. And for all the ills of our 21st century society, I am grateful to be living here and now.

Donna is a San Fernando Valley wife and mother.