It's Monday. What are you reading this summer?

Hi everyone! How was your week?

It's been happy and busy around here, as my son's preschool reports used to say. We've really been enjoying summer with lots of time outside and a movie night (with ice cream, of course). My son and I even managed to sneak in some time at Barnes and Noble on Sunday afternoon.

This week, I read A Talent for Murder and The Sworn Virgin. Both are historical fiction; one imagines what happened during the week that Agatha Christie went missing and the second tells the story of an Albanian woman who swears to remain chaste in return for being considered a man by her community.

              

In a very unusual move for me, I don't have plans to pick up a book until Wednesday when I shall be whisked away on a train to Disney World. The husband and I are celebrating our ten year wedding anniversary with a trip sans kids, so I am excited to get a lot of reading done! My choices for the trip include The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, The Lauras, Rules of Civility, and Young Jane Young. Any suggestions on which book I should start with?

What are you reading this week?

Wednesdays with David: Clara Humble and the Not-So-Super Powers

Clara Humble and the Not-So-Super Powers

By Anna Humphrey

Illustrated by Lisa Cinar

OwlKids Books September 2016

224 pages

Read via Netgalley 

The Story: Clara is your typical fourth-grader, except for the pesky possibility that she might have superpowers. She is determined to use her powers of communicating with her pet chinchilla, spilling her drink, and controlling the minds of her teachers for good. It's clear that the world needs a superhero, especially with her beloved neighbor moving away and a rival school sharing their school building for the term. Clara is ready to save the day and tell readers all about it with her story and sketches.

Mama opines: David doesn't need me to read with him anymore, but I skimmed through the first few chapters of this one. Clara is a lot of fun. She reminds me of an older Junie B. or Ramona with her spunk and wit. Unfortunately we did not get Clara's comics in the egalley version, but I looked at them online and they looked exactly like the art a 10 year old would include.

Thoughts from David: Clara is funny and cool. Her ''super powers'' are kinda weird but usually they make sense somehow. Her powers seem real but they are, well, ''not so super powers." Also she's having a hard time at her school. AND at home. Her BFF neighbor, Momo,  is moving. And at school, her bitterest rivals, R. R Reginald Elementary is moving to their school for the term! Uh-oh!

As always, joke time! Why does Clara always wake up at exactly 8? To catch the villains! They wake up even earlier! Hmm, they must be super-tired! Hahaha!                

Happy reading!             

Review: Everybody's Son

It was the hottest week anyone could remember in years. Anton's mother locked him in their inner-city apartment while she went to get a quick hit. But she didn't come back. Days later, Anton breaks a window and the police find him bloody, hungry, and overheated. When his mother is finally found, she is sent to prison and her son becomes a part of the foster care system. Anton's foster parents are David and Delores Coleman. They carry the tremendous loss of their own son and hope that Anton can bring some joy to their home again. With time, the Colemans come to love Anton and he cares very much for his foster parents, even as he asks about being reunited with his mother. David's love will drive him to use his power and influence as a judge to make a terrible decision that will have repercussions for everyone in his family.

Thrity Umrigar is not an author who shies away from tough questions. In Everybody's Son, she looks at the immoral decisions that people will make for the people they love. Anton is a boy who goes through difficult circumstances, but he is also a boy who is deeply loved by his mother and by his foster parents. It would be easy for the author to portray the drug-addicted mother as the villain and the kind Colemans as the heroes. It would also be easy to rail against the rich white people who took a black child away from the mother who was doing the best she could. But Thrity Umrigar does neither of these things. Instead, she has created a nuanced story in which characters do bad things for good reasons and good things for the wrong reasons.

The ending of this book was wrapped up a little neatly for me and I wished that we hadn't jumped from a lot of action to a lot of self-reflection in the final hundred pages. But Thrity Umrigar is a careful and compelling writer and this book will give you a lot to think about when it comes to power, privilege, and the bond of family.

Everybody's Son
By Thrity Umrigar
Harper June 2017
352 pages
From the library

It's Monday and we signed up for Pre-K!

Hi again! How is everyone doing?

This week was a busy one and we wrapped it up with an open house at BG's preschool on Saturday. The school organized a painting activity and a picnic lunch. Our little independent lady decided to ignore the lovely teacher showing them all how to paint a sailboat and did her own thing instead. Now we just have to convince her that her canvas cannot accompany her everywhere she goes. BG is signed up for Pre-K in September, so expect to see lots of pictures of her and possible renditions of "Sunrise, Sunset" right after Labor Day.

This week, I read The Woman Next Door and Word by Word. The first was a novel about two curmudgeonly old ladies who might have more in common than they think. The second was an absolutely delightful peek into working at a dictionary and a general celebration of how cool and bizarre the English language can be. I also fit in the graphic novel version of A Wrinkle in Time. I've been meaning to read it for a while and seeing the movie trailer finally gave me the push to get it from my library.

             

Next up for me is A Talent for Murder, which imagines what happened when Agatha Christie disappeared for an entire week.

What are you reading?

                                         

Mini-reviews: The Home That Was Our Country and Daring to Drive

Alia Malek journeyed back to Damascus to claim the home that her grandmother lived in and loved. She returned as a woman who had lived in America, but also had a long history to trace in Syria. In The Home That Was Our Country, she delves into the history of her family while reporting the atmosphere in her homeland from Arab Spring in 2011 until she left two years later.

I was really interested in learning about recent and long-term Syrian history from someone who lived there. Unfortunately, I had a hard time with this story. Malek has clearly done her research and dives deeply into both her family's history and the history of the country that she loves so dearly. She writes deftly about the families who lived in her family's neighborhood as well as the necessity of changing what you can say, depending on the people you are talking to. But the writing was a bit dry and I sometimes had to force myself to pick it up and continue reading. The Home That Was Our Country might be a good pick for you, though, if you want an in-depth history of Syria told through the story of one family.

The Home That Was Our Country
A Memoir of Syria
By Alia Malek
Nation Books February 2017
304 pages
Read via Netgalley

Manal al-Sharif was a woman living in Saudi Arabia, but she defied expectation in many ways. She graduated with a degree in computer science and used that degree in her job, which allowed her to help her parents financially and also to care for her son. But a single mother living alone within a company compound inevitably runs into some problems, which were compacted by Saudi Arabia's rule that women were not allowed to drive. Manal never set out to defy the government or religious officials; in fact, she was a devout and severe religious adherent as as teen. But she decided she had to take a stand and became the face of the movement calling for women to drive in Saudi Arabia.

Manal al-Sharif may work with computers, but her writing is strong and compelling. Her voice is the thing that pulls you right into her story as the police bang on her door in the early morning hours and the thing that makes you continue to read. For someone who lives in the US, it was sobering to realize just how much a driving ban would limit and, in many instances, endanger women. I only wish that there was a bit of a broader lens at certain moments: I wanted to know about the other people involved and find out where Manal sees the movement going, since women still don't have the right to drive in Saudi Arabia.

Daring to Drive
A Saudi Woman's Awakening
By Manal al-Sharif
Simon and Schuster June 2017
304 pages
Read via Netgalley

Review: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Lydia Smith loves working at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. She can talk books all day and spend time with the BookFrogs, a group of misfits who wander the aisles and find a sort of home there. But one night, she makes the terrible discovery that Joey has committed suicide in the bookstore. Lydia learns that he left her everything he owned, including a puzzle hidden inside his books. The messages he left encourage her to revisit the darkest moments of her childhood that she has spent a lifetime trying to forget. Did Joey know who was behind the crime that terrorized a community and destroyed Lydia's family?

Readers love books that are about bookstores and fellow readers. But this is not your grandma's cozy mystery about a bookseller who solves crimes in a small town when she's not knitting sweaters for her cat. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is dark and a bit creepy and delves deeply into the consequences of suppressing the difficult things in our lives. It's also about the relationships we have and the ones we choose, and about knowing when to leave and when to give people another chance. It's about loneliness and finding the people who will accept you, even with all the scars of your past.

This book is one that seems to play before your eyes as you read. It's easy to picture Lydia shelving books at Bright Ideas Bookstore or spending an afternoon long ago with her childhood friends in the local donut shop. This is also a really well-written mystery. We know early on that the central question is about the crime committed in Lydia's childhood. But Matthew Sullivan has added so many layers that it's impossible to tell who might be responsible or why. As the reader, you are working just like Lydia is to uncover another clue about Joey or remember one pivotal moment from her past. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a great choice for book lovers who like their mysteries dark and twisty.


Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
By Matthew J. Sullivan
Scribner June 2017
336 pages
Read via Netgalley

It's Monday and I need to get working!

Hi bookish people! How are you doing?

I had a good week of actually getting things posted here on the blog, but I feel like I'm still terribly behind on all of my life things after my trip to Portland. The house needs some serious TLC, I have a lot of work to catch up on, and there are these two kids who seem to like hanging out with me during the summer. So I'm chipping away a little at a time and of course remembering to take some time to read too.

This week, I read The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord. I was having one of those days where I couldn't focus on anything, so I curled up with a giant cup of coffee and cried my way through the last 100 pages. I also read The Women in the Castle, which made this historical fiction reader very happy.

              

Now I'm continuing my phase of books with woman or women right in the title and reading The Woman Next Door. It's out in the US, but I actually picked up my copy in a Scottish bookstore when I went to visit my sister a few months ago.

What are you reading this week?

P.S. If you looking for a new book to read, I'm giving away a copy of News of the World!