Archive for the ‘Child-raising’ Category
Friday, October 9th, 2009
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| Author: | Emily Chenoweth |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Not that confronting human mortality can ever be easy. But coming to realize that your mother is mortally ill must be particularly difficult for a young person old enough to understand what death is, but not yet independent.
Chenoweth's heroine, still a college student, has known but refused to know consciously that her mother's brain cancer is terminal. In a story that could have been maudlin, Chenoweth lays out a "good" way for this young person to surface the bad news: in the company of her parents' good friends, with some younger people to interact with. |
This is not a cheerful book, but it is lovely and gentle. The dying woman is not presented as a saint, but as someone who has earned her (up until now) comfortable life, and is striving to ensure that those who survive her flourish while she enjoys as much of them time she has left as she can.
In fact, nearly all the characters reveal themselves as flawed but mostly well-intentioned. I am glad I got to know them. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Hello Goodbye |
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, Reading level: Grown up | Comments Closed
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
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| Author: | Perri Klass |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | Fiction, parenting |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
The Mercy Rule is a rule instituted in some amateur sports leagues that requires that if one team is so far ahead in points as to be uncatchable by the opposing team, the game is ended earlier than it otherwise might.
In this extremely gentle, wise, moving story, Lucy, a physician who is also a mother and a graduate of the foster care system, unconsciously applies this rule to her family and work life. |
Just about every character in the story, no matter how poorly they behave, has a sweetness and realness. For example, Lucy's pre-teenage daughter is mostly embarrassed by her mother and especially by her probably autistic-spectrum brother. And yet, she Does the Right Thing by them when crunches come. It's also the Right Thing in that it's probably not the thing that the mom would think of having Isabel do.
Anyway, if you are having one of those existential weeks, one of those where you know that you are actually a very lucky person, but you are feeling ungrateful and unhappy nevertheless, reading this book might cheer you up a bit. It did that for me.
-- Emily
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Mercy Rule, The |
Tags:autistic spectrum, book review, existential guilt, Fiction, foster care, Gifted, parenting children on the spectrum, Parenting gifted children, private school
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Grown up, School | Comments Closed
Monday, September 14th, 2009
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| Author: | Nanci Kincaid |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Sweet story having to do with making lots of money, holding friends, family, and even former spouses close, and continuing to be able to trust both strangers and those you love while spending freely.
Perhaps coming from a small town in Mississippi helps with that? |
The story mostly takes place in the Bay Area of San Francisco, there's lots of Bay Area geography to parse.
Not at all deep, but I found it relaxing to read. After all, how often do you read a story in which, after the warning music pulses and the protagonists steel themselves for a confrontation with danger, everyone (including the scary lurker) jumps in a metaphorical hot tub (actually, they go fishing) and has a heart-to-heart? |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi |
Tags:"places to visit in bay area ca", book review, Gifted
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: Grown up | Comments Closed
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
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| Author: | Markus Zusak |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
Good book. About a girl during the Holocaust, but on the side we don't usually hear: She is German, but suffering as well. In the very beginning of the book Liesel's brother dies, and she is shipped off to live with "scary" foster parents. And by the middle her family is trying to keep a Jew hidden, and still "Heil Hitler" everyone they see.
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The story is told by Death, which is a little bit spooky sounding, but Zusak makes Death surprisingly compassionate. As Liesel has to face the terrors of WW2, Death adds his two cents every once in a while, giving the story an interesting edge, especially because he tells us the climax of the book in the beginning, and makes us read all the way through for an explanation.
-- Fiz, age 14
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| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Book Thief, The |
Tags:book review, Gifted, History, Holocaust, suffering in war
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
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| Author: | Irving Stone |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction, biography |
| Year of publication: | 1961 |
Reading this novelized biography of Michelangelo just now, after so recently reading the non-fictionalized Dancing To the Precipice was probably a mistake.
I did read The Agony and the Ecstasy to the end and found it mostly interesting, but -- so many unexplained wars, duplicate names, minor characters, changes of venue. Seems to me if you are going to fictionalize, you might want to streamline. If there are three characters named Ludovico, maybe rename one to be Vico?
I did learn a lot of facts, or at least I think they were facts, about Michelangelo's life and the history of the Papacy and the Italian city states. What I did not learn, and missed, was a bit more of an explanation about why this talented, obsessed artist allowed himself to be so taken advantage of? And why did the patrons who claimed to admire him so much abuse his gifts rather than help nurture them? I understand that they might need to use their enormous wealth to pay their armies, but -- Why the law suits? Why did so many popes ask the impossible when they clearly wanted Michelangelo to do great work for them?
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The story felt to me like a history text, but because the text was labeled "fictionalized", I was never sure which parts were factual.
Seems like Irving Stone's message to us about Michelangelo is that his obsession with working marble led him to make foolish business decisions. But if he had not been so totally obsessed with working marble, would he have had the fortitude to keep on struggling given the financial strain he was under his entire life? On the other hand, maybe if he had refused to take on some projects until they were funded, he would have found himself under less financial strain?
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| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Agony and the Ecstasy, The: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo |
Tags:art, european history, Gifted, History, history of art, italian history, michaelangelo, papacy
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Friday, August 28th, 2009
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| Author: | Caroline Moorehead |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | non-fiction, history |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Lucie de la Tour du Pin was born into an aristocratic family, served as lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette in her early adulthood, then went on to marry for love (not common in those days), birth and lose many children, and survive the treacherous political turmoils that began with the French Revolution.
After reading this book, I was not certain I understood much more than I did before about the French Revolution, but I did empathize a great deal more than I had before with the French aristocracy of that time. For example, Moorehead continually implies that Talleyrand was evil (and was he so terrible compared to the many other participants of the Terror??!!!) but never quite tells us what awful things he did.
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Starting in mid-life, Lucie began a memoir, not published until long after she died, and I assume that Moorehead used this document as the basis for much of her narrative.
Which probably explains why the author flits between levels of detail; there are weeks of Lucie's life described down to the taste of the food she ate but then whole years pass without much information. I came away convinced not that history is written by the victors (a quote attributed, but not definitively assigned to Winston Churchill), but instead that history is written by those who write things down.
Not a book for the sensitive reader, but a fascinating description of an "ordinary", if upperclass, women who played a small part in history and lived to tell us about it. |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era |
Tags:American Revolution, consequences of war, French Revolution, suffering in war, Terror, war, women in history
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Gifted, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
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| Author: | Susan Fromberg Schaeffer |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
Grown-up fairy tale about how the grown children and former lovers of a philandering novelist unite to defeat his widow, the children's evil stepmother, and secure his money and his legacy. |
I guess that the point of the book, which is truly unpleasant to read, is that even folks who are not gifted can destroy lives, unless they are stopped. And that stopping them can take time and strategizing, even for gifted and deserving and creative people.
Or maybe, the book makes another point, which is that tremendously gifted people can so desperately hurt their less gifted spouses that they are driven to terrible evil.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Poison: A Novel |
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual level, Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Grown up | Comments Closed
Sunday, July 19th, 2009
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| Author: | Phillip Pullman |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1999 |
This book is really cool: it doesn't have very much big vocabulary but it really goes deeply into the ideas of what is human or not and how our souls manifest themselves.
It also approaches the question of faith versus science, and blindly following versus scoping out your paths.
-- Fizzy, age 14
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As a parent, I have concerns about the themes and plot of this novel and the others in this series, which involve abuse and murder of children and other adult themes.
Please see The Golden Compass for my thoughts.
-- Emily |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Subtle Knife, The |
Tags:book review, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, religion
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dickensian, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
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| Author: | Libba Bray |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2003 |
This a spooky book about a girl with powers she doesn't understand. As she tries to survive in a "we shall civilize your daughters" kind of school, she makes friends with her enemies and brings them in on her secret.
I was always on the edge of my seat with this book, because even if no magic was happening, or she wasn't being chased by a monster, the social conflicts of teenage girls can seem terrifying sometimes.
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A good read that kept me wondering what happens next. I don't know if there is a sequel, but if there is I will read it.
-- Fizzy, age 14 |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Great and Terrible Beauty, A (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy) |
Tags:boarding school, book review, feminism, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, victorian
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual level, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dickensian, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level, Reading level: age 12 and up, School | Comments Closed
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
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| Author: | Loretta Ellsworth |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
This is a book about a girl who spends three days on a bus to visit Harper Lee, the author of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Her mom died when she was a baby, and Erin, who is exactly sixteen, just wants to know her mother before her father re-marries.
When she discovers that Mockingbird was her mother's favorite book, (it's her favorite too), Erin decides to make a pilgrimage from her home in Minnesota to Lee's in Alabama on a Greyhound bus.
On her journey, Erin meets many interesting people who cheer her on and help her to discover herself.
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I like this book, because a seemingly normal girl decides, on a whim to discover something about herself. Written between the style of a diary, or someone telling a story, it is put together very nicely, and very satisfying.
--Fizzy, age 14
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: In Search Of Mockingbird |
Tags:book review, Gifted, Parenting gifted children
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: 8 and up, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
