All by Sandra

A New Favorite, But Not for Everyone - The Diviners by Libba Bray

A New Favorite, But Not for Everyone - The Diviners by Libba Bray

Sandra
Books

Libba Bray writes of the wind in the first pages of The Diviners, of how it swoops through New York City, silent witness to all that has been, is and will be.

The wind existed forever. It has seen much in this country of dreams and soap ads, old horrors and bloodshed. It has played mute witness to its burning witches, and has walked along a Trail of Tears; it has seen the slave ships release their human cargo, blinking and afraid, into the ports, their only possession a grief they can never lose ... It ran with the buffalo and touched tentative fingers to the tall black hats of Puritans. It has carried shouts of love, and it has dried tears to salt tracks on more faces than it can number. 

The wind also saw the  Roaring Twenties, a time when anything seemed possible, where money flowed as freely as illegal booze. 

Evie O’Neill felt trapped in a small town with small minds. She ached to jump out of the confines of he life into the glamour and excitement she knew waited for her. Her exuberance and sometimes her rashness made Evie a poor candidate for living happily in a backwoods Ohio community. 

One evening while partying with friends and drinking way too much, Evie stretches the bounds of acceptability for the last time by revealing a town scandal. It lands her in front of her parents with her head pounding from a hangover with mom and dad shouting their displeasure and despair.

Review: Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Review: Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Sandra
Books

Rosemary Clement-Moore’s name on a book assures me that I’m in for a delightful and clever  novel. It also translates to some late nights of reading until my eyes will no longer continue a marathon session filled with humor and a fantastical world.

The Goodnight family’s funny, eccentric, unique and lovable and they have the gift of magic. Their magic has wrapped itself around me from my first read of author Rosemary Clement-Moore’s Texas Gothic to her latest novel Spirit and Dust.

I first met the Goodnights with all their magical quirkiness Texas Gothic, which I loved for its humor and a thick coat of mystery with a few Nancy Drew references. None of the Goodnights fit neatly into predicable package, which is true of Spirit and Dust’s main character, Daisy Goodnight, who possesses a magical talent with a deadly twist.

The local cops kept staring at me. I couldn’t decide if it was the plaid miniskirt in subarctic temperatures, or the fact that they’d never seen anyone talk to the dead before.

Review: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

Review: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

Sandra
Books

Z is not a book for everyone.

It is a novel based on research about Zelda Fitzgerald and her life and relationship with her husband, novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Fowler states at the end of her work that it is,

Fiction based on real people [which] differs from nonfiction in that the emphasis is not on factual minutiae, but rather on the emotional journey of the characters. I've tried to create the most plausible story possible, based upon all the evidence at hand.

The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald's famous novel depicting the obsessive Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy, is a novel I've always loved. The writing flows like a poem swirling with color, description, romance and tragedy. I do not read it as a love story, rather it’s about illusion. Illusory dreams without a touch of reality based in Gatsby’s head much as Zelda’s life with F. Scott.

Fowler’s account of Zelda’s life brought a new perspective to ponder. 

Review: The Silver Star by Jeanette Walls

Review: The Silver Star by Jeanette Walls

Sandra
Books

Jeannette Walls’ latest novel, The Silver Star, opens with Jean, AKA Bean, recounting the story of how her sister, Liz, saved her life when she was only an infant. Bean (aka Jean) and Liz are sisters, one twelve and the other fifteen, who have faced life as a team. They’ve always stuck together giving one another the stability that their mother did not or could not provide for them. When things got bad in one place, their mother would slide out of town in the dead of night taking her little girls with her.

Bean and Liz, one twelve and the other fifteen, are sisters who have faced life as a team. They’ve always stuck together giving one another the stability that their mother did not or could not provide for them. In one of their quick exits out of town, a problem arose because mom in her dash toward freedom, had stashed things in the trunk leaving her infant child in a carrier on the roof. Dash, rush, run - oops - she forgot the minor issue of said infant left in a carrier on top of the car. Three year old Liz begins screaming her baby sister’s name and pointing at the roof. It took a some time to communicate to the manic mother the state of affairs. She slammed on the brakes, the carrier slid onto the hood, baby’s strapped in, so no harm’s done. 

Their mother loved to tell the story. She thought it was hilarious. Neither child saw the humor. Mom’s version tilted itself in her favor, as always.
Mom was going through a rough period at the time of the near fatal incident. She had a lot on her mind -- craziness, craziness craziness, the girls would say when hearing the story time after time.

Like Half Broke Horses by the same author, The Silver Star is considered fiction, but draws heavily on Walls' own family. The first work of Walls I read was The Glass Castle. It’s the biographical account of her wildly eccentric family, one that defines disfunction. Her father dreamed of building glass castles for his family to live in while he traipsed from one town to the next with them in tow, often leaving under the cloak of night to avoid paying bills--they had no money, so escape was the quick solution while he wove tales of magical new opportunities that would surely appear soon.

 

Mini Reviews: A Mystery Mixed Bag

Mini Reviews: A Mystery Mixed Bag

Sandra
Books

It's been well-documented that I love mysteries of all sorts. I recently devoured three, all of which I recommend--but with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Game (Jasper Dent #2) by Barry Lyga

I Hunt Killers, the first in Barry Lyga's series featuring Jasper Dent better known as Jazz, a serial killer's son, ended with a cliffhanger--a seriously obnoxious one. Game was released about two weeks after I finished “Killers” so my wait wasn't too painful.  But, Game goes beyond cliffhanger. It leaves you plummeting off the cliff with no way of knowing or guessing what the landing will entail.

Billy Dent, Jazz's serial killer father, roams free to continue his dastardly deeds while Jazz searches for him in New York City. In contrast to his demented father, Jazz has come to his own understanding of humanity and his place in the world.

People are real, Jazz told himself, repeating his mantra. People matter … Jazz had always thought that his past was his own burden to bear, but could it be possible that he was meant to have people around him? Was this the true meaning of “People are real. People matter?

Jazz confronts his past, his own emotional pain and commits himself fully to finding and bringing down his father.

Connie, his girlfriend,  goes against her parents wishes and her own common sense  to follow Jazz to the city with the intention of helping him, even saving him from whatever may come.  

I closed the pages of the second in Lyga's series, frustrated and irritated. Everyone I liked best in the novel was heading down a winding road toward a collision. Nothing is resolved, and this does not read as a complete story.

I haven't found a date for publication of the sequel to Game.  So it goes. I'll just have to wait.

Verse Week Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

Verse Week Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

Sandra
Verse Week, Books

Before putting my fingers to the keyboard to write my review of May B., a middle grade novel in verse by Caroline Starr Rose, I went to the Poetry Foundation's website to see if my confusion between poetry and prose could be clarified. The answer I found didn't particularly surprise me.

To put it in the simplest of terms, it's all about snobbery. Poetry, according its aficionados, stands several rungs above verse. Verse does not--according to them--employee the sophisticated use of language that poetry does.

Alrighty then...

Keats apparently writes poetry and Robert Service apparently writes verse. What's the difference? I've yet to answer that one but I will say that I read Service for pleasure, for the joy of his playful and often robust use of language. Keats I read as assigned work in my studies at the universities where I earned my degrees. I enjoy and appreciate Keats, so I am not picking on his work, I promise. My point is about the joy of language, pure and simple.

Review: I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

Review: I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

Sandra
Books

The cover of Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers asks,

"What If The World's Most Notorious Serial Killer . . . Was Your Dad?"

Told from from the mind of the son of said notorious killer, this book's creepy question hooked me from the first page and held me until the end.

Lyga created a complex character, Jasper known as Jazz by family and friends, whom most of us can relate to. Not because he's the son of a serial killer, but because he struggles with memories of his growing up years.

He tries to understand them and to sort through his memories to know himself for who he is, rather than what others may think he is or who his father tried to craft him into becoming.

A haunting question is seared into his mind by his experiences: Are memories dreams or are they real?

A river of images and thoughts and feeling, dirtied and polluted so that no one could drink from it without gagging... Jazz knew killers. Billy [ Jazz's father] had studied the serial killers of the past the way a painter studies the Renaissance masters. He learned from their mistakes. He obsessed over them. And he passed his knowledge down to his son. Lucky Jazz--those were the things he remembered from his childhood.

Jazz wonders about his lineage. Perhaps, he muses, caring for his grandmother whose mind flits randomly from one thought to another in a crazy zig-zag that often coalesced into cruelty causes Jazz to wonder about his relationship with her.

Review: If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Review: If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Sandra
Books

The Advance Readers Edition of If You Find Me arrived with the words "Beautiful, Wonderful, Powerful, Heart-Breaking, Impressive, Compelling and Emotional" dominating its cover. Emily Murdoch's book captivated me in all those ways and more. The words, "hope-filled, joyous and inspirational" describe my whole-hearted response.

Fifteen-year-old Carey leads you  through the story of herself and her younger sister, Jenessa, who lived in a dilapidated old camper in the depths of a national forest. Their mother, a meth addict, fabricates a reason for the life in the forest. She holds them there to keep them "safe" from Carey's father who she claims will wreak great harm and havoc upon their serene woodland existence if he should find them. 

The mother comes and goes as she desires. Her mission in life is to fulfill her need for meth; to that end, she willingly puts her children in jeopardy to keep herself high. The only people the two girls see is the occasional man coming in search of payment for their mother's drugs. The girls have lived in the forest for ten years with a few books, scant food supplies, a violin and their mother's stories of the horrible fate that awaits them outside their forest home.

​

Review: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Review: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Sandra
Books
The clouds shifted, and the glow of sun brightened on my face. “But she's from a really wealthy family, a good family, and she's a freshman at Smith College in Massachusetts. She even flies a plane. Charlotte kept telling me that I should apply to Smith. I know it sounds ridiculous, me being able to go to a prestigious school like that, but she sent me all the information.”

Suddenly, the insanity of the whole thing came into focus, and I nearly laughed.

“But for some reason, I began to want it, really badly. I told Willie, and she was mad. She said I had to go to school here in New Orleans, that I was out of my league trying to get into a college like that.”

Willie Woodley, the madam who owns and officiates over a high class brothel on Conti Street in New Orleans loves Josie Moraine as only a mother can love a child, love that never came from Josie's mother.  Set in the milieu unique to the fifties, Out of the Easy brings a flavor and cast of characters that only that time and place can offer. 

The novel's setting and characters could have been a humdrum of stereotypes, but in the hands of  gifted writer, Ruta Sepetys, who wrote the excellent Between Shades of Gray, it's the polar opposite.

Josie and Willie stole my heart. I cheered for them; shed a tear or two for them when I despaired for them; and most of all, believed in them.

Josie's mother, Louise, has no redeeming qualities. She's a prostitute with no qualms about who she uses for her own purposes, which is mainly to use others to get what she wants--money and things. At age seven Josie comes to live in Willie's brothel with her mother who has no consideration for what Josie will see or experience. This house frames its beguiling women in dark brocade curtains, crystal chandeliers and paintings on the walls of nude women with expansive nipples.

Josie much prefers the local bookstore. She wanders about the shop in awe of the many books that rise above her like skyscrapers. Charlie, the owner, notices this quiet child. He befriends her and by the time she reaches eleven, he's offered her a room in his attic. To Josie, it's a secret garden filled with the smell of paper, the whisper of pages turning and the kindness of a truly fine person.

Neither the kindness of Charlie nor the love of Willie will protect Josie from the inescapable reality of her life.

Review: Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati

Review: Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati

Sandra
Books

Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati explores the double life of Ditty, a young Haredi Jew, when she discovers the beautiful world of ballet and the passion it invokes in her. Along with this passion the darkness of an invisible wall of fundamentalist religion held together by the rigidity of her family and community.

Bavati breathes life into Ditty's dream of dancing and the depth of deceit she had to descend into to bring her passion for dance into reality.

As a young girl, Ditty happens upon a DVD of The Nutcracker while watching television in a forbidden venue--her dear friend's mother had surreptitiously purchased a television that she hides far back in her closet. Ditty could not turn herself away from the transfixing dance before her.

The movements seemed to ripple through me as my  body flowed to the music, and my spirits lifted. I felt vulnerable and vibrant and intensely alive, bursting with feeling I hadn't know existed, couldn't name.

The  television and DVD player opens a door to another world.  Ditty and her friend become enamored with the life that spread before them. Ditty, at twelve begins to question the dictates of her faith that should, according to her religious parents and community, fill her with all the happiness and joy she could want.

But what, I wondered now, did they actually mean? I knew what I'd been taught – that happiness wasn't something a Jew should strive for, it was a bonus that came from keeping the laws and strictures that had been passed down from one generation to the next.

Review: Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James (aka That Time That Sandra Read a Romance Novel)

Review: Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James (aka That Time That Sandra Read a Romance Novel)

Sandra
Rookie Reads, Books

I am not usually a fan of romances, but Julie James' Practice Makes Perfect is fantastic.

It brings to mind a delightful movie and cast: You've Got Mail. Indeed this one would make a great film. Julie James' romantic and funny novel has maybe even hooked me into romance as a genre. Anything that makes me laugh, think, "awwww how sweet" and look kindly on the characters and their actions, is a big win for me!

​The setting of Practice Makes Perfect is a fast-paced, high-pressure law firm in Chicago. The characters are a couple of thirty-two year old lawyers on the cusp of making partner in said firm. Payton and J.D.  had a contentious, but outwardly civil, relationship during their years working at the firm. But all bets are off when, only days before the announcement of promotions to partner, they're told that only one can come out victorious. 

They've each been at the firm for eight years with tension building to a nearly explosive level between them. The pressure isn't all it's cracked up to be. Everything is ready to explode between them as they await the firm's decision as to who will make partner. Whoever doesn't make the grade is expected to resign--immediately. Gone. No longer welcome.

A prank war breaks out between the two would-be law firm partners, making each scene crackle with humor and chemistry.

One hilarious scene ensues when during an important court case one of Payton's beloved Jimmy Choo heels breaks; she catapults into the jury box, rips the seam of her pencil skirt straight up the back and exposes her thong-clad butt to the courtroom. All right then! All hell breaks out in the courtroom along with much hilarity.

Review: Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

Review: Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

Sandra
Books
Lily was a spirited woman, a passionate teacher and talker who explained in great detail what had happened to her, why it had happened to her, what she'd done about it, and what she's learned from it, all with the idea of imparting life lessons to my mother.

Jeannette Walls placed this statement about her grandmother in the Author's Note at the end of her fabulous novel, Half Broke Horses. On the cover above the title in all capitals are the words A TRUE LIFE NOVEL.

Walls' "true life novel" presents the events in the life of Lily Casey Smith, a colorful and fascinating person spicing the pages of this book. This retelling of stories from her family's oral history were handed down through the years, and Walls admits that she does take a few storyteller's liberties.

Growing up in west Texas where horses and buckboards were the only mode of transportation, Lily learned to live tough, face obstacles and come out swinging regardless of what she faced. Her father spouted philosophy like a flash flood of insight that went straight into the fiber that made Lily Casey one of the strongest, most durable individuals in Texas. 

“Most important thing in life.” he would say, "is learning how to fall.”
“If I owned hell and west Texas,” he said, “I do believe I'd sell west Texas and live in hell.”
“When God closes a window, he opens a door. But it's up to you to find it.”

Lily's mother, though, stood in stark contrast to her father. Pious to a fault, she was a woman certain that everything that happened came straight from the hand of God. 

If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, Mom always said, just watch the sunrise. And if you wanted to be reminded of the wrath of the Lord, Dad said, watch a tornado.

Half Broke Horses takes the reader on a sweeping, panoramic ride.

Review: The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier

Review: The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier

Sandra
Books
...she held out a hand toward Honor. A small, ambiguous gesture, it still had the power to untwist Honor's stomach, for it said: I am running away. Help me. She and the woman were now linked by that gesture.

In Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, Honor Bright, a fresh new arrival and Quaker from England, stepped upon America's shores carrying within her an idealism bred from years of an upbringing that taught her that,

“...everyone has a measure of Light in them and though the amount can vary, all must try to live up to their measure.”

Honor feels feels bound by her morality and what she believes are universal truths to take a stand, which ultimately requires she follow her heart. Her heart would lead her to take a road less taken, to defy her husband's wishes and the law of her newly-adopted country.

Robert Frost put into words the dilemma that played upon Honor's sense of right. She looked upon the horrors of slavery that opened before her and knew she must choose. Two roads lie before her and one she must trod upon.

Honor's first less travelled road was prompted by her decision to accompany her sister to America where her sister planned to marry and settle in Ohio with her betrothed and settling into life as a farmer's wife. This road for Honor began as a roiling and wretched seasickness lasting the entire trip across the grey sea. The experience left a  horrible memory for Honor. She determined sea travel was not an adventure she would elect to again experience, so staying in America was to be her fate.

Upon arriving in their new county, Honor's sister succumbs to illness and dies before seeing the man she intended to marry. Honor continues the trip to Ohio alone where she temporarily stays with her sister's intended spouse.

In England, morality was familiar and ordered, righteousness a way of life--in America, the lines blurred.

Mini Reviews: 3 Kate Shugak Novels by Dana Stebenow

Mini Reviews: 3 Kate Shugak Novels by Dana Stebenow

Sandra
Books

I separate thrillers or mysteries into two distinct categories. 

I love the old fashioned sleuth stories consisting of smart detectives whose investigative skills rival Sherlock Holmes, where probing investigation and a nose for ferreting out truth pull you into the heart of the story. A second category is the titillating serial-killer aka psychopath who has no qualities except to do evil with a smart detective ready to take the disgusting psycho-human down.

Dana Stebenow's writing falls solidly into the first category with her Kate Shugak series.

Kate's a petite five-foot Aleut and a P.I. who lives on a 160-acre homestead in an Alaskan National Park. Her beloved companion Mutt is an impressively sized half-wolf half-husky who weighs significantly more than Kate. Mutt's love for and loyalty to Kate take them through adventures in the rugged Alaskan wilderness that completely satisfies my love of epic detective tales. (And stories involving dogs.)

Stabenow's written eighteen novels with Kate and Mutt delving into secrets and solving crimes. Old Sam Dementieff, her uncle who raised her as his daughter, her adopted teenage son Johnny and her love interest Trooper Jim Chopin are a colorful and always entertaining cast of characters. 

Kate's home in the wilderness is a half-hour trip to the closest settlement, the Ninilna village along the 600 mile long Kanuyaq River, a waterway rich in salmon that feeds into Prince William Sound. She comes in contact with recluses, dog mushers, miners, hunters, fishermen, park rangers and other natives: Aleuts, Athabascans and Tlingits. There's an inexhaustible array of individuals and an extensive history of Alaska. This in itself makes the reading of Stabenow's books a joy beyond good storytelling.

I recently read three of Stabenow's books, each one with a unique quality and story. I did not read them in the order they were written, which would be a preferred chronology, naturally. They are well-written and any references to past events are clearly delineated within each book. In fact, I read the most recent book first and will review them in the strange order in which I read them.

Review: Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson

Review: Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson

Sandra
Books
I realized then that even though I was a tiny speck in an infinite cosmos, a blip on the timeline of eternity, I was not without purpose.

Once upon a time there was a girl who was extraordinary. She could hear colors, and see sounds, and taste the difference between truth and lies.

Let go of your preconceived notions of reality. Then imagine a new reality, one where you hear colors, taste words and see sounds. You understand your sensations exist on a plane that others do not experience, so you cloak yourself in a garb of false normalcy hiding your true self and your understanding of the world from others. Even love has a unique flavor and sound only you can know.

When the music stopped, I'd been afraid even to look at him, sure he could hear my rapid heartbeat as clearly as I could see his steady teal-green one. When he'd slid away from me and gotten up, the wanting inside me had ached so hot that I'd had to stifle a whimper. Inwardly I'd berated myself, not just for feeling more than I should but for coming so close to sowing it.

At sixteen, Alison's life has turned into a nightmare.

R.J. Anderston creates a portrait of extraordinary senses in Ultraviolet beginning with her awakening in a mental institution where she pieces together her tangled memory to discover what occurred to bring her there. She's stunned by her condition, by the yellow-gray stink of sweat surrounding her. She believes her worst nightmare as become her present reality.

She's gone crazy. Alison is sure of it. Her mother has locked her away.

Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Sandra
Books

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: Horrible People Being Horrible - a review on Clear Eyes, Full Shelves

You probably know by now that I love a good thriller, so I bought Gillian Flynn’s much-buzzed Gone Girl with high expectations.

It’s received high praise, been lauded as a frightening portrait of psychopathy that’s brilliantly-written with twists and turns to rival Alfred Hitchcock. Glowing reviews snagged my attention and I bought it despite Sarah’s warnings that it may not be my sort of thriller.

A seemingly perfect, beautiful wife who is well-known as the template for a series of children’s books titled “Amazing Amy” and a husband, Nick, who’s become disillusioned with his life and his wife give some backbone to the claim that this suspense thriller will chill and thrill its readers. Amy and Nick Dunn finds them living where neither wants to be with no income other than Amy’s money from her parents who are as wacky and unlikeable as all the other characters in Gone Girl. In a rented McMansion along the Mississippi River they bemoan their fall from a life of luxury in New York, loss of jobs and their loss of passion for one another. Into this mix comes Amy’s disappearance on what should have been a celebration of their anniversary. 

This bland, yet strangly intriguing, plot concept could be viable, but it fell apart for me thanks to Gone Girl’s wholly despicable characters.

Amy aka Amazing Amy made her parents a great deal of money. They patterned her actions, her relationships with her friends, even her appearance into a series of books that found their way into grade school classrooms, libraries, bestseller lists and finally into the hands of nearly every child in the U.S.  But shocking as it becomes for the country, Amy the icon disappeared leaving her husband as the  prime suspect for her disappearance. Suspicion of murder becomes stronger with each weird clue that surfaces.

The first section of Gone Girl centers around the investigation into Amy’s disapearance. We discover that Amy is a mean-spirited, manipulative creature whose sole purpose is to make others miserable, to condemn everyone she comes in contact with and to sharpen her killer instincts with each ugly action she takes. Amy has plans and wickedly ugly and cynical thoughts to condemn anyone unfortunate enough to fall under her spell.

Getting into the mind of a person with no redeeming qualities does not make for an enjoyable read. 

Review: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Sandra
Books

“Yo, padre!” he’d say. He’d challenge the priest about the unscientific impossibility of the miracles and when the priest continued to ignore him, he’d get mad and yell out something about Pope Alexander VI’s bastard children, or Pope Leo X’s hedonism, or Pop Nicholas III’s simony  or the murders committed in the name of the Church during the Spanish Inquisition. But what could you expect, he’d say, from an institution run by celibate men who wore dresses. 

Review: The Glass Castle by Jeannette WallsThese words flowing from the always opinionated mouth of Jeannette Walls’ father made her worship time memorable and short. 

She begins her memoir, The Glass Castle, speaking not of her early childhood memories, but rather of herself as an adult sitting in a taxi worrying about whether she had overdressed for the evening’s events when she spots her mother digging through a dumpster. They’re only fifteen feet apart but in truth, a world of differences separate them. She watches as her mother hoists items from the dumpster, examines them and then laughs with glee at what pleases her. Her mother’s hair hangs tangled, dirty and matted while her eyes sink deep into her face making her sockets look like caves.

Feeling panic rising in her chest, Jeannette slides down into her seat and asks the driver to take her back to her home on Park Avenue. She’s come a long way from poverty, hunger, icicles hanging from the ceiling as she struggles to stay warm. She fears that someone going to the same lavish party as she will spot her if she speaks to her mother. Then her secret would be out for all to see the darkness from where she came.

This memoir struck a chord deep within me.

List-O-Rama: American Classics Love

Sandra
Listorama

American classics have long held my interest. They bring into focus the eras in which they were written and capture moments in our nation’s diverse and unique history.

I’ve selected six of my favorites to recommend, ones that I enjoyed teaching as well. I’m not listing them in a specific order, rather I’m arranging them as they came to mind. Enjoy!

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne*

Hester Prynne who lives in Puritan New England is condemned by her peers as a scarlet women who must wear an A upon her bodice to proclaim her adultery to all. She skillfully creates this letter embroidered onto fine red cloth with elaborate style in gold thread. The book delves into the murky world of sin, punishment and retribution with the saving grace of love woven in.

Pearl, her daughter, comes into a world where she becomes the physical embodiment of sin. Hester’s partner in passion is the Reverend Dimmesdale who allows Hester to sacrifice and carry the punishment for their crime alone while he moves about their village as a veritable saint. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth who has  long been absent, returns to see his wife with babe held in her arms pilloried in the town square for all to despise. A trap ensues by Chillingworth to snare Dimmesdale in a vicious web of lies and treachery. This is not an easy read but one that I find so complex and fascinating that my opinion about various characters changes each time I revisit it. 

I do have one caution. The introduction titled “The Custom House” is tedious. It can easily be skipped without impacting your reading of the novel.

Amazon / BN / Goodreads

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

This tale of George and Lenny who travel from ranch to ranch earning a subsistence living in the 1930s will break your heart, but you will love the novel and think about its implications long after you’ve read it.

Big and strong, Lenny is a sweet child in a man’s body. Smaller and smart, George is the classic tragic hero. He loves Lenny and has promised to care for and protect him. This slender 100 page volume packs emotion into every page. You’ll laugh, frown and cry over what occurs but you’ll  love George and Lenny. The language will not challenge you but the sophistication of the plot will alter your concepts of what is or is not moral and what choices are right or wrong. 

Review: Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt

Review: Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt

Sandra
Books

He said focus. The word focus. I hear angels singing. Everything goes dark except for a light that beams down on Sean. It is a God-given sign- like when people see the Virgin Mary in their grilled cheese, except this isn’t religious and I’m actually not a big fan of dairy. I stare at the back of his head. His HEAD. Something I see every day but never really see because it’s been there forever. Since the first day of third grade.

I crumple up my web. I don’t need it. Praise be, the Focus Gods have spoken.

I am going to write about Sean Griswold’s Head.

Review: Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt - on Clear Eyes, Full ShelvesAccording to her guidance counselor, fifteen-year-old Payton Gritas needs a focus object-an item to concentrate her emotions on. It’s supposed to be something inanimate, but Payton decides to use the thing she stares at during class: Sean Griswold’s head.

In the first few pages of Lindsey Leavitt’s Sean Griswolds Head, I found myself thinking this was too young and immature for me, but it wasn’t long before I was hooked into a story that has fold upon fold of serious and not-so-serious issues.

Payton, whose point of view the story is from, is a young high school girl who excels at everything she does. There’s nothing she doesn’t do or handle well until she stumbles upon her mother giving her father an injection which they clarify isn’t for recreational purposes—her father has MS. 

They just change. Their body changes. Their abilities - the things they do that make them who they are - leave, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Every day they wake up with that big what if?

And nothing is scarier than a life filled with what ifs - living by day without predictability and control. Some people end up losing feeling. Some have uncontrollable spasms. Some can’t function. Some end up blind or in a wheelchair. Some end up bedridden and paralyzed.

It’s hard to know who “some people” will be.

Adventures in Substitute Teaching

Adventures in Substitute Teaching

Sandra
Opinion

 I love reading. I love words. I love the worlds created in my brain from images emanating out of words. That’s why I became an English teacher.

What a perfect job for me! I spent my career promoting books, themes, poetry, writing, thinking about literature—it’s such a complex and beautiful compulsion that I could, but won’t, go on and on and on.

Via Flickr Commons - A 1950s advertisement featuring the “ideal teacher.” Click through for image credits.

I retired three years ago and now revel in my free time to do all that I love: reading, writing, talking about literature, and gardening (which actually has nothing to do with reading). For me, this is fantastic, although I came to a point this fall where I decided I wanted to connect again with kids and young adults.  

I began substituting. Once or twice a week, I get to spend time back in the classroom—and I’m loving it.

One evening the phone rang with a request to substitute for a middle school learning resource room teacher. Ummmm… I taught high school students for twenty-six years, no middle school kids were ever part of my classroom teaching experience. I almost declined the job offer but pulled back a bit and thought,

“Wait a minute! What a snob I’m being. I’ve worked with so many students with reading and writing difficulties, with second language students and students who flat out don’t like English class. I’ve taught college prep classes too. I can do this!”

When I came into the classroom the next day, I was surprised that there were only six sixth grade boys. The “regular” teacher was there to greet me. When she discovered my background and experience she told me what reading she wanted done and suggested that I come up with my own writing prompts for the boys.

To my surprise, I had a great time with these boys, especially when it came to writing.

I had a couple of good ideas—or what I thought were good ideas—for prompts. Six sets of eyes stared back at me, none with with an inkling of inspiration. One boy took pity on me and signaled to me. When I leaned down to talk to him, he whispered to me his idea for a prompt,

“Tell them they’re trapped in the desert, the sun’s sizzling and they look up and see a sand dune that’s made of ice cream.” 

Load More