I need a t-shirt that says, "Five days in ARUBA and all I got to read were two books and two magazines." I'm not complaining - they were good books and good magazines. As a good deed, I left the National Geographic mags on the plane to save the next passenger from those hideous Skymall catalogs. (Apologies to the wonderful writers employed by said publication.)
I digress more than usual; let's just say the Aruban sun overheated my brain. More later on the books I read, both fiction, both of which I'd recommend, with caveats - Cinda Williams Chima's YA The Warrior Heir and Kevin Henkes' MG Olive's Ocean.
The vaca wrapped up nicely with a brief but warm chat with my seatmate, another Barbara Kingsolver fan. Ah, I love vacations, those temporary interludes away from most of life's little details. Te Aworo!*
*Te Aworo means "goodbye" in Papiamento, the language of the people of Aruba.
Must runnies? Crust funnies? That's all my sinus-suffering head can produce. Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas is a great picture book, especially for the just-learning-to-read set. At the risk of giving away too much, I'll tell you the cute mob of main characters - Ed, Ned, Ted, and Bob - get it in the end. (Sorry, I couldn't come up with anything that rhymes with vacuum cleaner, either.)
The book's interactive nature reminded me of another of my recent favorite picture books, There Are Cats In This Book. For what it's worth, I discovered them both through the books section of The Plain Dealer. (Yes, you can consider this a plea for readers to follow the reviews in The Plain Dealer, and/or your local paper.)
Gender defender: Lilly's got something to say to kids.
I'll admit it; I usually buy the old children's book advice that girls will read about boys but boys won't read about girls. Kevin Henkes' lovely mouse Lilly is one good reason to ignore that advice. Case in point: Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Greenwillow Press (c) 1996. I am embarrassed to admit I never read it to my daughter; I am making up for that omission by reading it MANY times to my son.
In fact, Lilly has become the leading lady in my quest for books about going to kindergarten. The title doesn't convey a fraction of the story; the purse is a mere prop. This is a book about loving school - and then having a terrible day that makes you hate school, hate your teacher, hate yourself... and you parents know what happens next. Child learns something. Has an aha! moment. Learns something important about her/himself. Sorta the whole point of childhood, you know?
Look; I'm babbling. I'm always overjoyed to discover a truly delightful author - and beside myself to open a book that speaks directly to my kid! (Thank you, Mr. Henkes! Thank you!) So, since I'm clearly incapable of a decent, succinct description, here's the summary from the book's title page:
"Lilly loves everything about school, especially her teacher, but when he asks her to wait a while before showing her new purse, she does something for which she is very sorry later."
Before kindergarten starts my son needs to learn a little more anger management. Lilly is just the lady for the job - heavens knows mom's lessons have failed!
School is fun! Well, it can be. Kindergarten, especially. (They still have snacks in kindergarten!) Yet when I was seeking enticing titles about kindergarten, my local librarian offered two titles. Two! The mammoth Amazon came up with fewer titles than I expected, and frankly, fewer still that appealed.
So what's up with the dearth of good, exciting, books about going to school?! If we read about one more kid who is afraid to go to school, my son might get the idea he should be worried about going to school.
I think Karan Mahajan's family planning (c) 2008 is a very realistic farce, but it was hard for me to be sure just what the author was trying to convey at times...fortunately, his prose was pleasing enough to keep me reading through some of the rough spots in this, his first book.
The HarperCollins website offers a lovely synopsis of the book, so I won't try to duplicate it. In a nutshell, family planning is set in modern Delhi, featuring the large and ever-expanding Ahuja family. Father Rakesh, utterly disappointed in his (deceitfully) arranged marriage, finds he is, thankfully, attracted to his wife - but only when she is pregnant. Ergo, the couple has produced thirteen children and Mrs. Ahuja is pregnant again as the book begins.
Fifteen-year-old Arjun is the only one of the children we get to know, following the teen drama of his crush on the girl who rides his bus, his attempt to form a band explicitly to impress said girl, and Arjun's utter despair when he realizes that he can never have the band over to his house to practice, as he's unable to admit to his friends that he has twelve siblings, not six, as he's always maintained.
Ah, adolescence.
Ironically (and comically) Rakesh's antics at work are as juvenile as his son's high school foibles. But again, it's hard to say whether that comparison was intended by the author, or not.
One of my frustrations with this book is that Mahajan seems to have a lot of talent, but instead of showcasing his best talents in this book, he chose to give us a collage.
Mahajan drops readers into modern India on every page, with descriptions of unfinished flyovers, political corruption, plates of chappati. He drops humor into the mix too, with running gags about Mr. Ahuja's hearing problem and Mrs. Ahuja's pronoun usage. (Mrs. Ahuja rarely uses her children's names; instead, she's constantly saying, "tell him to come here" - which is both confusing and useful in a house with 13 kids.) But at odd spots - sometimes in the middle of one of those gags - the author stops to jab the reader with savvy but melancholy observations on love and marriage and the lives lost in between. At such a spot, however, when the jerky pace annoys, Mahajan's well-crafted narrative soothes.
He knew nothing about this woman, this wife of fifteen-odd years. Vague details, yes--the tough jackfruits of her elbows, the sullen hump of her jaw, the bulbous nose she had proudly passed on to each child except Arjun...a fierce protection of her Right to Eat at the table--but nothing more. He twisted and turned in his head the Rubik's cube of domestic details and arrived at no sustainable patterns. His mind was a drawer rummaged of all its contents. - p 228
family planning had its merits, but unlike some reviewers, I'm not completely smitten with Mahajan's storytelling. His insight is delightful, and he has a tendency to surprise with it, rather than with plot twists or tension between characters. The lack of external conflict was disappointing to me.
family planning is so ripe with potential clashes among its many unique characters that every chapter seemed ready to burst. It never did. You might enjoy it anyway. I did.
I got lucky: I'm sifting through a few books for a Mother's Day-themed review round-up. All of the titles are for, about, or addressed directly to, moms. Allegra Huston's Love Child, frankly, doesn't appeal to me - but those who long for Hollywood backstory will surely enjoy it. The stunner of the pack so far has been Margaret Leroy's Yes, My Darling Daughter, a haunting tale the publisher (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) had the audacity to suggest was a modern Rebecca. Well, it is. 'Nuff said, for now; I have some more reading to do. Yippee!
Ah, I love vacations, those temporary interludes away from most of life's little details.
