"The Summer of the Swans"

I truly enjoyed this book.  It was an easy quick read.  It is by Betsy Byars and I enjoyed her writing style.  Sara has a younger brother, Charlie, who is developmentally disabled.  She loves him and takes care of him but often loses her patience with him.  The swans come to visit their lake and she takes Charlie.  She becomes annoyed when she is ready to leave and he wants to stay. One night he wanders away to find the swans and becomes lost.  Sara has to allow others that she had previously thought didn't care for Charlie to help her.  I liked this book, not loved, but liked it.

"Secret of the Andes"

This book by Ann Nolan Clark takes place in the Andes mountains.  It is about a boy and an old man who tend to a herd of llamas.  He hasn't left is little valley for years.  He doesn't know what a family is or friends are.  He discovers there is a secret to his life and he sets out on a journey with his pet llama.  His mission is to find a family.  He searches and searches and finds a family that takes him in.  He finds that he doesn't fit in so he leaves them.  He realizes that he had his own "family" with the old man who has taken care of him.  He returns to his valley in the mountains. 

I  enjoyed this book but I think it would be harder for kids to follow.  I liked the message that we often think the grass is greener on the othr side but actually we truly love what we have.  It often takes us leaving or missing them to truly appreciate what we have.  This was an easy read and I enjoyed this book.

"The Wheel on the School"

This Newberry book is by a Dutch author, Meindert DeJong.  This was actually picked by the book club in my ward.  I was really excited that they picked a Newberry book because I haven't read one for a long time and I wanted to get back to reading them.  I was very intrigued that it was by a Dutch author since Norm's Mom is Dutch.  I had Norm ask her if she had read it and she, of course, said "many times".  I was surprised I had not heard of it or read it before.  So, I quickly began reading.  I must admit this was not my favorite Newberry book.  I was intrigued by the Dutch-ness of the story because of my Hans, my mother-in-law.  So I did read the whole thing.  I just truly didn't enjoy the writing style.  The story is very endearing though and you do feel for the little kids.  I appreciated their perseverence and I wished that I had the drive to accomplish something like them.  Their desire to have storks nest in their town became all consuming.  They searched unceaslingly until they found the needed wagon wheel.  The whole town became involved and worked together to find all the items needed for the storks to make a nest.  Overall, I enjoyed the book.  It took me several weeks to read through it though, when most Newberry's I plow through in a day or two!

"A Single Shard"

This book is very different.  No funny kids, no quirky grandparents, no humor at all.  I still really enjoyed it.  It is set in 12th century Korea in a potter's village.  The daily life is so different than what we are used to.  Living to survive.  Surviving as an orphan under a bridge.  I loved the sheer determination of the little orphan.  The kindness of the man under the bridge.  The way Min, the potter, teaches Tree-Ear.  Min is gruff but Tree-Ear learns that he is appreciative of his hard work.  There is sacrifice and hard work for something you really want.  Sacrifice for someone you love.  There were many good messages in this short little story of an orphan named Tree-Ear.

"Missing May"

This book, by Cynthia Rylant, describes the life of a six year old orphan girl, Summer.  Her Aunt May and Uncle Ob take her to Deep Water to raise her in their simple trailer.  They don't have money but they love and cherish her.  When Summer is 12, Aunt May passes away.  Uncle Ob grieves and Summer tries to comfort him.  Ob thinks May is trying to visit him and searches for a spiritual communicator.  Cletus, a friend of Summers, finds an old ad in a newspaper for a Reverend that can communicate with the dead.  They make a road trip and find the Reverend has passed on. Ob is determined to find a sign from May that will show him what he needs to do next.  He has quit making his whirligigs and feels no purpose.   They realize that they can go on with their lives without disrespecting May's memory.  They decide to take all Ob's whirligigs into May's empty garden and make it beautiful again. 

I enjoyed this book.  I love funny quirky kids, and adults for that matter. 

Day 9, 21 to go

Art, Art Night

I have been to a couple of museums in my life. I have been to the Met in New York, and in Philly and several in Europe. Always on vacations, but never a local one. I wanted to try one out. My roommate suggested the Springville Museum of Art. They have an exhibition about the the Japenese internment camps in Topaz, Utah. I didn't know much about this part of our history, and was intrigued. So my roommate Heidi met me at the museum and we set out to be observers or art.

Here's a few facts I learned about the internment camps:

There were about 8,100 Japenese Americans in the camps.

Topaz Utah was the 4th largest city in Utah

There were 42 "blocks" of apartments there.

It was interesting to look at some pictures and writings from actual internees. I would like to find out about more about what they actually did at the camp. Here are a few pictures:

There was also a wonderful sculpure garden outside! Beautiful!

This was called Rider's Edge Tea Party anyone??

This is apparantly a famous painting. If you look closely, Marilyn Monroe is at the top of a round table, with all of her dream dinner guests. Included are Judy Garland, paintings by Picasso, Manet, and Vermir.... etc. Kind of interesting. My friend Tifani met us to join in the art-tastic fun.

After the museum, we decided to go eat at the Art City Trolley in Springville to round out the Art, Art night. The food was ok, but the waiter was trying a bit too hard and a little too much eye contact. The one time I get a young, somewhat cute waiter when I am out to dinner with some girlfriends, he is socially awkward. Oh well, we had a lot of laughs.

All in all it was a very fun and art-tabulous evening.

Mocking Jay... it may get mocked

This was not my favorite book, not just of the Hunger Games series but ever really.  It's not in a top list anywhere.  I obviously finished it so I didn't hate it but I just really struggled with it.  I will admit that I should have read the other two again right before reading because I had a really hard time getting into it.  I could not remember who was who, what was what and I just felt like I was reading a bunch of jibberish.  I have heard myself complain at JK Rowling's recap at the beginning of all the Harry Potter books... "We know, we've read these before, come on, get to the new stuff" I now have a new appreciation for that, thank you JK.  My other complaint is that it just kind of ended so suddenly, people started dying and then it was over.  I may, down the road a while, read the whole series again all in a row to give it a fair chance.  I will see if I change my mind.

"Out of the Dust" by Karen Hesse

When I grabbed this book off the shelf I didn't thumb through the pages so when I sat down to start reading I was really surprised.  It looks like a whole book of poems.  I was dreading it.  I started reading and it is more of letter/journal entries.  I guess they are poems but they read like a story.  So, even though its a 227 page book I read it in a 24 hour period.  It is set during the dust bowl era in Oklahoma.  There have been a few books set in early time periods that I have referred to as depressing and sad.  They seem to suffer so much.  Family members dying, wondering where their next meal was going to come from, suffering from the elements.  It all seems so miserable.  I just had the thought that even though I don't suffer from these things we are faced with very different trials and hardships.  I know there are people in the world and even in our country who face some of these challenges but fortunately for me I do not.  I have always been blessed with the ability to feed my family.  I would not want to look a starving child in the face.  I do not worry about the physical safety of my husband while he is at work. I don't worry about my children dying from freezing or smothering in a dust storm.  I do worry about the temptations they are faced with.  Drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancy, pornography are such evils that tempt our kids today.  They are bombarded with endless forces of evil, through t.v., music, internet, friends, school.  I often think that to live back in those time when there was not such influences would be easier, but it's just a different fight.  Either way, it is not easy and you have to work through it and you just do the best that you can.

The girl in the book, Billie Jo, compares her Ma to a tumbleweed:

"Ma had been like a tumbleweed too,
Holding on for as long as she could,
Then blowing away in the wind.

My father was more like the sod,
Steady, silent, and deep.
Holding on to life, with reserves underneath
to sustain him, and me,
and anyone else who came near."

I loved this analogy.  Hopefully I am like sod and not a tumbleweed.  It is true that they hold on as long as they can and then you see them being blown which ever way the wind wants to blow them.  Sod is "steady, silent and deep".  You need to have roots to sustain yourself through the trials and temptations that come your way.

Billie tells her Dad he is like sod and she compares herself to wheat:
"and I am like the wheat,
and I can't grow everywhere,
but I can grow here,
with a little rain,
with a little care,
with a little luck."

She needs the nurturing to grow and learn and become a woman.  She realizes that running away to plant yourself somewhere else requires the same things.  She realizes that at home is where she can grow the best.

I really liked this book in spite of my bad attitude when I saw the layout.

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry

What a thought provoking book this is.  I thoroughly enjoyed it. The idea of their community being "perfect" was fascinating.  There was no crime, no hunger, no rudeness, no laziness, no lying.  With very stringent rules anything bad is not allowed.  The speakers all over the town would remind them of these rules, pointing out when someone tried to disobey.  No one can be different, everyone is the same.  The same clothes, same house, same furniture, same bicycles.  From year 1 to year 12 each child is given something different.  Nines get bicycles. Sevens get coats with round buttons on the front.  Misbehaviors are corrected with a whipping stick.  Family units can be set up as a request.  Children are assigned to a family.  Careers are assigned at age 12.  The initial thought is that this community is perfect.  No one is allowed to make mistakes, their free agency has been taken away.  It all starts to look worse, much worse as Jonas, the main character, receives his assignment.  He is to be the new receiver.  As he begins training with the current receiver it all unfolds.  The receiver holds all the memories of past, back, back, and back.  He is ready to be released, and is training Jonas, so he is now the Giver and Jonas the Receiver.  He transfers the memories by putting his hands on Jonas' back.  He transfers memories of things Jonas has never experienced, seen, or heard of.  The first memory of sledding and snow and hills is very exciting for Jonas.  The weather is controlled, there is no sun, there is no snow, it just is.  One of the most unusual things that unfolds is that in order to be in sameness all color is taken away.  No one can see colors except the receiver who has the memories of color.  Jonas feels love for the first time as a memory of Christmas Eve is passed to him.  Jonas becomes so concerned that all the people are missing out on these fantastic emotions, colors, weather, landscapes. He pleads with the Giver to find a way for the people to remember or actually learn all these things.  The Giver explains that the only way is if Jonas disappears and then all his memories would flood the peoples minds.  Jonas decides to make a sacrifice for the greater good.  He doesn't want to harbor all the memories to himself for his entire life and never share them.  He leaves his community on his bike, and endures weather and starvation.  A sidenote here,  Jonas takes a baby, Gabriel, with him.  Jonas' father is a Nurturer, he works with the babies for their first year until they are assigned to a family.  There is talk of releasing babies when they just don't progress as they should.  There is not an understanding of what release means.  Jonas requests to learn this memory.  He is shown a recording of the releasing ceremony of an identical twin.  His father injects the baby with some kind of poison and the baby dies, released.  Jonas is terrified of this concept, as he should be.  He hears Gabriel is set to be released.  He saves him by strapping him in the bicycle seat and taking him away with him.

I realized that living in an ideal world, ideal home, ideal family, at least the utopian ideal, requires that some things that are so necessary would have to be given up.  Mostly our free agency would be lost.  To create a civilization without crime, without lying, without laziness, without differences would be horrible.  Yes, a lot of hurt and disappointment would be taken away, but you lose, love, family, color, heat, cold, rain, sun and snow.  What would life be like without all these things... basically I imagine a world in shades of gray, just going along with the motions, but not enjoying anything really.  That is not how life was intended.  We are sent here to make choices, to be tried and tested, to experience all emotions, to love, to have a family that really belongs to you. 

"Sounder" by William H. Armstrong

This was not a favorite of mine, but I did read all of it.  Another book I found depressing, especially for kids.  It's a story of a black family, I don't know the era, but before electricity and running water.  At least for them, maybe some of the houses on the farm they worked for had that but it was a long time ago.  They have a coon hound named Sounder.  The dog hunts for racoons and other small game with the dad.  The Mom shells walnuts for pennies every night.  One day there is sausage for breakfast and ham for dinner.  A few days later the sheriff shows up and arrests the Dad for stealing the food.  They shoot the dog, he disappears, the boy finds his torn off ear and puts it under his pillow.  They don't see the dog for months. He shows up with half his face, a leg and an eye missing.  He hobbles around and seems happy.  The boys walks to the jail to see his Dad at Christmas and has a horrible experience.  The Dad gets put on working detail and they don't know where he is for years.  The boy keeps looking for him and can't find him.  The Dad shows up one day with the left side of his body crippled. There was an accident in the mine where he worked.  The boy found a teacher that will let him live with him and go to school.  The Dad dies and the dog dies.  I like a happy ending, I know life isn't always like that but I usually read for good uplifting entertainment and this just didn't do it for me.  I appreciate the fact that kids can learn something form this book.  They can learn that life was not always like they have it.  You had to actually work hard to get your food every day.  People were not with respect and decency.  There was not a grocery store.  People would be freezing and hungry every day.  There was nothing else to do but work to live.  No T.V., internet, sports, games, electronics, etc..  If you wanted to eat and stay warm you hunted, chopped wood and cooked.  You made soap to stay clean, you hauled water to drink.  So, for that I do appreciate this book.