Learning Dangerously
Title: The Year of Learning D
angerously
Author: Quinn Cummings
Genre: Parenting/ Education/ Humor
I found The Year of Learning Dangerously tucked on a clearance shelf at work as I was cleaning the last hour of my shift. I bought it that night on my way out the door, and spent the following day off reading it.
I laughed. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breath. I loved it, every page, every moment, every encounter Cummings had with fellow homeschool families as she tried to find “her tribe.”
I couldn’t sit and read silently, every few lines I had something to share with whoever happened to be sitting next to me. I laughed, they laughed, we laughed until we cried. We felt for Cummings, all her quirks make her endearing to me. Her anxieties and personal electro-magnetic field make her my spirit animal.
While I laughed and felt camaraderie with Cummings in all her panic attacks, all her self doubt, but ultimately in her absolute decision that this was the lifestyle for her – my husband, apparently, spent that time doubting our educational plans. Plans we’ve had in place since before kiddo was even born.
It’s interesting how everyone’s life experience can be so different despite living and breathing the same air and being part of the same bubble. I see the world for what it is and find more determination for our lifestyle choices. Others look at the exact same thing and come to a completely contradictory conclusion, and give up.
Whatever your life choices, whether you are a homeschool family or simply people who love to laugh – Quinn Cummings’s memoir is fantastic. I couldn’t put it down and my abs thank me for it.
On a kick for parenting humor, I picked up It Sucked And Then I Cried by Heather B. Armstrong. I’ll let you know how it goes, but so far her snark is outstanding.
Spend the Holidays with Pout-Pout Fish
Title: The Not Very Merry Pout-Pout Fish
Author: Deborah Diesen
Illustrator: Dan Hanna
Kiddo and I fell in love with The Pout-Pout Fish about three years ago when we discovered The Pout-Pout Fish in the Big-Big Dark. We had a slight aversion to the possibility of “baby talk” in the writing, but were won over by the fun poetry and the fabulous underwater illustrations. (Read my original post here.)
In addition to our joint love of underwater children’s stories, Kiddo has taken on a serious love for Christmas that can be countered only by my mother’s. These two, I’m not kidding, have enough Christmas spirit for the entire nation. All of America could abandon the idea of Christmas altogether and my kid and her grandmother would still have us all covered. (I’m a little more ba hum bug, but you know – yin and yang and all that.)
So you can imagine our excitement when the publisher sent us a copy of The Not Very Merry Pout-Pout Fish.
“The Pout-Put Fish is like SANTA!” the kiddo exclaimed, seeing his very merry Santa hat atop his very un-merry face. We’re not Santa promoters in our house – in the modern day sense that has become tradition, but rather in the currently untraditional traditional sense where we talk about the history of the original Santa stories and how the legend of a good man became a magical myth. Yet, with all our reading and exploration of wonderful tales and things that promote vivid imaginations, we’ve fallen in love with stories like the Rise of the Guardians by William Joyce and so on…
Come the holidays, we have another household tradition. We like the concept of four gifts (or gift categories that promote specific, well-thought out gifts in moderation): What You’ll Wear, What You’ll Read, What You Want, and What You Need. So as a parent of such a household, I especially love the line, “And his gifts had meaning/ Plus a bit of bling-zing/ And his each and every friend loved/ Their just-right thing.” No meaningless haphazard gift giving for the Pout-Pout Fish! (Thank you, for that, Deborah Diesen, it truly does mean so much to us.)
“Can we read it again tomorrow?” Kiddo asked when we were through.
“Of course.”
The End of Summer… Beginning of Christmas
The thing about living in Texas is, the second summer truly ends – it’s not really fall, it’s already Christmas.
The weather tells us so. Retail tells us so – we went from Back to School displays to Christmas trees almost over night. Halloween and Thanksgiving disbanded before we even manage to get there.
The reality of this set in as we read picture books tonight. Kiddo selected a book by Adam Rex called Tree- Ring Circus, a summery affair regarding a lot of animals and a tree losing it’s fall leaves. It’s got a deep south summery vibe, because even though the tree looks bare, it radiates warmth and feels like a warm summer day. I’m craving pop corn, ice cream, and trail mix just looking at the illustrations. The tree becomes an unlikely “hiding place” for a runaway circus clown and his friends, even though there is no hiding in a barren tree on the verge of keeling over.
Of course the animals and the tree itself seem to be lost on my five year old. She’s more interested in the rapid growth pattern of the tree that grew from the seed and the thunder storm at the beginning of the book. A tree that grew from a seed to something large enough for an elephant to perch atop in a matter of three sentences. We do so get hung up in the funniest of details sometimes around here.
For me, it’s details like the fact that my daughter LOVES Christmas books. We’d read them year round if I let her, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I limit her to one Christmas book a month in non-Christmas seasons. But as it is November, and therefore practically Christmas in Texas – we’re upping our Christmas book game. I already have one Christmas picture book review scheduled to post and now, we’re posting another…
Title: Casey’s Bright Red Christmas
Author: Holly Dufek
Illustrations: Paul E. Nunn
Publisher: Octane Press
We were sent a promotional copy in exchange for a review. We’ve never heard of Casey & Friends until this book, but apparently it’s a fairly established series with several previous titles.
As good old Texas girls, we were equal parts excited about the country farm aspect as well as the novelty of the snow featured in the background of all the pictures. So far, we’ve had snow one time since the kiddo was born, and it didn’t manage to stick to the ground. She’s fascinated by the stuff and is constantly asking me when we’re going to get some. I think this may be part of why she likes Christmas books so much – they’re almost fantastical when you’ve grown up in the Lower Coastal Plains Region of Texas. We have sun, rain, woods, and beaches – no snow, no mountains.
Now, that we’ve met Casey & Friends, we’re definitely going to look for the other titles: A Year on the Farm, Big Tractors, Combines, and Planters & Cultivators. (I’m not sure if this is the best idea for a little girl who already prances around singing the FarmersOnly.com jingle every chance she gets. I promise we’re not THAT country.)
“Can I have a note?” kiddo asks.
“Of course, this is technically *your* review,” I tell her.
“My favorite part is where they all say SURPRISE. Also, dear people,” I love the way she says this, like she’s addressing a letter to my blog followers, “I wonder if you would like to read this book. It’s an awesome book and it’s a great time to read this book right now. Because it’s lovely. And I would like it if you read all the other versions. I bet we could get them at the library, I always have a great time there. I wish everyone would have lovely days at the library…”
There are more glowing superlatives, but they are mostly the excited ramblings of a five year old loving to hear herself talk.
It’s a Keeper
Title: Keeper
Author: S. Smith
Genre: Middle Grade/ Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
Length: 200 pages
Many moons ago, it seems like forever now, S. Smith sent me a copy of Seed Savers, the first of her young adult series set in an America where growing your own food has become illegal. Children were being taught about seeds and produce gardens in whispers; collecting, saving, and planting seeds a prison-worthy offense.
The story couldn’t have come at a better time for me. It was the summer of 2012, I had a small daughter at home, my husband was out of work, and I had just started spending more time and care actively growing more of our groceries. On top of that, I was beginning to learn how to forage and was focusing my daughter’s future education on as much regarding sustainability and self-sufficiency as possible. I wanted taking care of ourselves to come as naturally as literature does for me. I wanted finding edible grapes in the forest to be as simple as knowing that 2+2 = 4. Then Seed Savers happened and it felt like the stars had begun to align.
Several books later (Seed Savers, Heirloom, and Lily), we finally have the fourth installment of S. Smith’s world. The girls, Lily and Clare, have done a lot of growing up. Siblings Dante and Clare have received a lot more education during their stay in Canada. Rose is being indoctrinated… bad guys are getting closer and closer to turning everything upside down as rebels have begun starting riots in the street. Soon, all four kids find themselves in Portland, Oregon, where Seed Savers headquarters has been stationed under a forested park in the city for years.
More and more, the series is resembling the fast paced action political drama of the Divergent series – without the killing, and with the added fun of things like Dandelion syrup being discussed.
Although I was sent an advanced reader’s copy of Keeper, I still made a point to pre-order a final copy for my kindle. The book is a keeper in every format, and it’s just worth it to be as supportive as possible of this story, help it get told. I’m looking forward to the day Smith gets a movie or mini-series deal. Better yet, the homeschool mom in me votes for it to be a Netflix original.
Peace Like a River
Title: Peace Like a River
Author: Leif Enger
Genre: Fiction/ Literature
One of the few tragedies of working in a bookstore is seeing the popularity aftermath of a book. When there are fifty copies of something for $1 we clerks get in the mindset (if we haven’t read the book yet) that the title was a fad. Not just a fad, but it was clearly a book not worth keeping or re-reading.
Note to shoppers: just because a lot of people don’t keep their books and just because a book isn’t something people jump to re-read, does not mean it’s not worth reading in the first place.
For this very reason, it has taken me years to getting around to reading Peace Like a River. Not just that, but I was tentative and checked the book out – I didn’t even purchase it!
Next time I see a beautiful hardback, I will.
Peace Like a River is all soul filled and gorgeous with running themes concerning miracles, family, God, and consequence. It’s not what I would call a happy book, but it’s not a sad one either. I think it is one of the few in this world written truthfully about human experience, religious families, and the nature of people who function within the knowledge of an ever present God. People without the faith of Jeremiah Lands just don’t live lives like Jeremiah Lands. Some might think that would be a blessing – to go through life without such scruples. I mean, look where it got him. The fictional character finds himself in the precarious position of being a good and godly father to a fugitive, his other son – though revived from death at birth by a miracle – is a severe asthmatic. His daughter is an insanely intelligent poet, but becomes a target in their war with existence.
How exhausting.
But Jeremiah Lands, even in pneumonia and illness, never seems exhausted. The guy is a far cry from energetic, but he is steady. He is solid. He is the kind of father I think many hope for, despite his oldest son’s resistance to him. That sort of resistance is natural, I think, when it comes to family and God. It happens. And it happens very much just like that. Davy is a good person with scruples of his own, he was raised right and chooses I think what many of us would choose in certain situations. But the consequences of his choices make faith hard, and the lack of faith makes each choice harder than the next.
I needed this book this year. And if you see a copy in a bookstore for a dollar, snatch it up quick.
October Birthday Books for a 5 Year Old
Kiddo just turned five. With that come some serious growing up perks – like, for instance, a public library card of her very own. She now can check out up to 30 books each time we visit and she is over the moon with excitement. She even wore her fancy new party dress to the library this morning to sign up for her card.
But before we went to the library and checked out new books on her new card, which we will write all about next week – I bought her books at Barnes & Noble that we are pretty thrilled about. (It was a big deal to buy them from B&N because we’re such used book and library fiends.)
Snatchabook
Of course, because the main theme regards the characters’ love of books, this is a great story to share with little ones to get them excited about stories; or, in our case, to celebrate our existing passion.
We adore the illustrations, which always affect our purchasing habits, and look forward to finding more stories from Dochertys.
Julia’s House fo
r Lost Creatures
The story is about generosity and expectations, community and the need for chores, but within the fantastical fun of monsters, ghouls, mermaids, trolls, and more.
No child should go another Halloween without it.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Author: Neil Gaiman
Review by Guest Blogger Elis
abeth K. Simmons
There’s no right way to love a book. For me, there are books I am in love with because of their story and there are books I am in love with because of the figurative and literal places in my life I ended up reading them. The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is brain-fluff wrapped up in too many truths about growing up. Because of that paradox, and the fact that I’m currently ignoring that I am technically an adult, I fell in love with it immediately.
The week I found it was one of the longest weeks of my new adult life. I worked 30 hours in closing shifts at work in six consecutive nights on top of going to school four days in a row and all the homework that comes with it. I was in no way looking for something to occupy my time. There was none to spare.
In between class and work, I walked into Book People in Austin just a couple blocks down from my campus. This two-story bookstore has become my new happy place in between responsibilities since it is large enough to wander and contains hundreds of books to leaf through. Usually I pick a book at random, read a couple chapters and put it back on the shelf when I leave. I haven’t wasted my time and a book gets to feel loved.
On my second day of work, I wanted something easy. I didn’t want to wander, I just wanted to hide. In this particular bookstore, Neil Gaiman’s works have their own shelf and almost every book, its own personal review by the booksellers. Without pausing to even read the synopsis of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, I grabbed it and rushed to hide in the chair resting up against the classics section with a cup of coffee.
And I disappeared.
Gaiman has this magical simplicity to his writing where a 19-year-old college student can cancel out the constant foot traffic of a busy bookstore and be emotionally invested in the life of a 7-year-old boy who grew up suddenly and quickly after he met the strange Lettie Hempstock at the end of the lane with her ocean. The story is told in a flashback of a middle-aged man who you can tell never quite felt young. Innocent maybe, but he didn’t know that until he no longer was.
When I came back to reality an hour later, I decided this book was what I needed that week. I couldn’t have even told you why, but there wasn’t any way I could’ve left without it.
I didn’t pick it up again for several days. Work and school got the better of me and I might have gone insane a few times over the course of the weekend. Sunday night was night 6 of 6 of closing and after serving angry people their coffee, I had an insane craving for diner food. I wanted coffee and waffles and the kind of food coma that comes shortly after. And I wanted a place to read my magically simple book and not worry about having to leave.
So Magnolia’s it was. A 24 hour diner in the middle of Austin with omelets and giant pancakes sounded wonderful at 9 pm on a Sunday. Little did I know that the last day of the Austin City Limits music festival was just letting out.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I looked behind me and saw the multitudes waiting to cross the street and wait for hours for the same pancakes and omelets. My mission then changed from finding diner food to racing the masses for a table. They had won Magnolia’s, but there was the 24 Diner off of 6th Street that they wouldn’t have time to walk to. I raced to the heart of downtown Austin and beat the majority of the masses.
After saying it was just me, the hostess smiled at me and said there were several spots open on the bar if I wanted to eat immediately. I had beaten the swarm people. I had my spot. And I was not moving. Busy people behind the bar gave me menus and I told the waitress I just wanted a cup of black coffee and a waffle. 10 minutes later, I had a giant waffle in front of my face and the ACL crowd had begun to take over, yelling drink orders over my shoulder and squeezing in the 6 inches of air available at the bar. I did not care. I had my spot. I was not moving.
I opened my book and disappeared again. I met the villainous Ursula Monkton and her twisted desires and methods of making everyone happy. She was a Dolores Umbridge-like character that you hated simply because there are too many controlling, manipulative, and oppressive people like her in real life. I got to know the Hempstocks better and found out they were the family everyone wishes they had as friends growing up. The kind that just took care of things and knew enough to make you think they knew everything.
I was vaguely aware people being replaced with more people on my left and on my right, but I couldn’t tell you how many. The bartenders ignored me entirely, leaving my sticky plate as a marker that I deserved to sit there, only interrupting me to ask if I wanted more coffee. I looked up and it was 11:15. Neil Gaiman had done the impossible and canceled out a swarm of ACL attenders.
The next day, I had no brain function. I went to class and stumbled through the day just waiting for when I could disappear again. I made it to Mozart’s on Lake Austin and fought my way through the line of fellow Austinites to buy a bottomless cup of coffee and made my plan to disappear.
I discovered that oceans can be put in buckets, if you ask nicely enough, and that there are some people whose hearts just need more time to grow back. Different people remember events in different ways and some things are best forgotten.
And then it ended.
I felt like I had gotten pulled out of a dream by having a bucket of ice water dumped on my head. I had not planned on it ending and now that it had I was a little lost. The only thing I could think to do was write a thank you note to Neil Gaiman and share it with everyone. Whether he will ever see it is anyone’s guess, but anyone who can make a week like mine slightly less defeating deserves some recognition.
Moby Dick
We’ve all read Moby Dick – I think – unless you’re a very small child, like my child. As a classical homeschool Mom, I like to expose my kiddo to classic literature early, even before she’s redy to read it for herself. So, finds like Eric A. Kimmel’s picture book Moby Dick with paintings by artist Andrew Glass are gems.
My four year old had a lot to take in – the enormity of the whale, the importance of Ahab’s obsession, and why anyone would kill a sperm whale anyway. This picture book has a neat educational page in the back regarding Melville and the ship Essex and how that true event played a role in the cultivation of the original novel.
The illustrations are gorgeous… we love paint work, 
as the kiddo considers herself a painter and has been mastering her technique since she was 15 months old. (I vote to always give kids real paints and actual canvases, if you can. It’s helped her to be much more adventurous in her artistic pursuits.
We can’t wait to read this one again and again, and hopefully, by the time she reads the novel, she’ll have these beautiful images so ingrained she’ll fall in love with Melville – despite the fact that it takes forever to even get to the whale.
September
September, when you’re a stay at home mom, is an easy going month. It’s when the weather cools to the point that you spend every waking moment outdoors soaking up sunshine in a relaxed state. It’s when you read and collect your thoughts and make plans for your “school year” while all the other moms are scrambling. It’s always my favorite part.
But I’m not a stay at home mom for September this year. So I’m scrambling with the rest of y’all. Instead of basking in the stay at home mom/professional writer glory that I’ve enjoyed (don’t get me wrong, it’s work, but it’s my favorite kind of work… so I’m saving that discussion for another post), I’m back in the store full time AND keeping up my professional writer work AND homeschooling my kiddo. But at least homeschooling a preschooler involves mountainous amounts of play time and audio books. So while she buries herself in legos, I’m taking advantage of one last chance to make our family debt free and figure out our lives…
Of course, that simply means I’ve been posting less, not that I haven’t been reading. So here’s to September, all in one post.
It’s Abo
ut Time – Liz Evers
This is a fun history of clocks and time keeping. I enjoyed it quite a bit, after checking it out from the library, and read it fairly quickly. It’s a good one to add to the homeschooling reference books for a middle grade student, I think. Evers writes on the level of Dava Sobel in both content and vocabulary. Worth owning if you have kids.
The Secrets of Droon – Abbott
Between what we can find
in audio at the library and me filling in with my vocal performances where the library is lacking, we have been binge reading The Secrets of Droon. It’s fun adventure like the Magic Tree House series without the educational twist. Me? I’m partial to the educational twist. Kiddo? She’s digging reading a fantasy story where someone isn’t sneaking a lesson in on her. I think magic carpet rides void of research material on Mummies is refreshing after all the information she gets plugged with. As much as we moms love to douse our kids with education, it’s good to remember that sometimes they just want some brain candy, and that’s ok.
Better With You Here – Zepeda
This is not my typical reading cup of tea. But I read it because it had tea cups on the front cover. Ha! The marketing gives you a sense that the book will be a cozy one about friends partaking of scones and quiche while they solve their problems over southern tea – but the reality is that it’s about some pretty real and raw struggles of single moms in the ghetto of Dallas who can’t take time for tea if their life depended on it. Despite the conflict between the marketing and the story, I had a hard time putting the book down. Zepeda nailed my old neighborhood (which I didn’t know I’d be reading about until a chapter or so in, it was not included on the back jacket and had no bearing on me picking up the book in the first place). Oak Cliff, when I lived there, was exactly how she described it – and she did a lovely job of describing it by describing the people rather than the streets and buildings. Although I’m on the fence as to whether I should keep this book or donate it to the library, I am not on the fence about whether or not to read more of the author’s work in the future – I’d definitely read something by her again.
Rain – Kirsty Guns
This is a short novel that I read in a series of lunch breaks at work. It’s one of those pieces you’re not sure whether it’s meant to be for teens or grown ups until you read the first chapter and then you’re sure – it’s for people. I will always house Gunn in the adult literature section, if I have a say, but I would certainly hand her work to high school students as well. She reminds me of Frascoise Sagan in the Bonjour Tristesse sense, except there’s far more true sadness in Rain than Sagan ever touched on.
Sackett – Louis L’amour
I’ve officially begun a kick. I want to write at least one western under the name of one of my characters from my Bookshop Hotel series, but to do that I decided I must actually read a few. I grew up watching westerns with my dad, most of which were based on books, but I hadn’t actually picked up a western to read until I read The Quick and the Dead last month. I have to say, I’m kind of in love and hope to read at least one western a month till the day I die. They’re so calming and quick, and I find the men that star in them familiar and pleasant to be around.
Transcendental Wild Oats – Louisa May Alcott
Anyone who loves Louisa May Alcott or the transcendentalist movement, will find this an interesting read. It was originally published in 1873 as a bit of satire to illustrate Bronson Alcott’s utopian dream commune (that quickly failed). I can’t help but snicker at descriptions like the one for Miss Jane Gage who “was a stout lady of mature years, sentimental, amiable, and lazy. She wrote verses copiously, and had vague yearnings and grasping after the unknown, which led her to believe herself fitted for a higher sphere than any she had yet adorned.” How many times have you found yourself face to face with a Jane Gage in your life? Daily! Haha. Daily.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty starring Ben Stiller came out a while back. I watched it. Five times. I cried. Five times. It’s a beautiful story of a man lost in his own imagination. Missing out on real life from time to time due to his passion for his work and his ironic ability to zone out – dreaming up the most extreme and exciting versions of his reality while the world around him keeps turning.
I love this story.
I had no idea that it was based on a five page short story written by James Thurber in 
1939 (it first appeared in The New Yorker on March 18th) and adapted into a movie starring Danny Kaye (probably best known today for his role in White Christmas) in 1947. I discovered the short story last week at work, and while reading it on lunch this afternoon got in a conversation about its history and development with a fellow co-worker. Apparently Thurber greatly disliked that original film, but I still find myself wanting to watch it so I may do a comparison myself. His complaint on the ’47 film was that it had nothing to do with the story he wrote.
Thurber died in 1963, so we will never truly know what he thinks of the Ben Stiller version – but I’d like to think that the screenwriters did the best they could off such a 
smidgen of a scene presented by Thurber. Even though in Thurber’s short, Mitty is married and disappearing in his mind to avoid mundane activities his wife presents as necessary, and the 2013 film is mainly about Mitty getting the girl. The common thread is the mental escape from reality spawned from a small detail in the character’s presence, a rich imagination, a desire in Mitty to not be oppressed by the world around him and instead thrive as a hero.
As a writer, often caught lost in thought, this story – in all its versions – appeals to me.
Anakalian Whims 