AnXiety

Anxiety lives with kids these days. Family bumps and rumbles, grief, friendship ups and downs, illnesses, schoolwork difficulties. Most of this stuff has always been with our youngsters. But the news is everywhere. And some of that news is awful.  Parents can't just hide the headlines, or unplug the radio or the TV. Schools run active shooter drills. Most school require masks to fight the spread of a virus.  Children have a lot to worry about.

Just Right Jillian by Nicole D. Collier  , (due out in February 2022), follows Jillian, a ten-year-old, who lives in her classmate, Rashida's, shadow. In class competitions, Jillian is always neck in neck with Rashida but even if she knows the answer, Jillian bows her head and keeps still. Jillian blames Rashida for her own self-doubt and crippling shyness. 

An energetic teacher, a year-end scholastic contest, the comforting memory of her grandmother, and Rashida, herself, all help Jillian deal with her worries.

Best things about this book?

• Jillian, herself. She is smart, creative, and trying to handle the loss of her grandmother, and her jealousy of a classmate. She KNOWS what she CAN do. She just has trouble doing it. BUT she is creative and - big SEL* word here - proactive. She takes small steps to rebuild her confidence and energy.
  
• Chicks!!! This is the best description of the egg-hatching activity that I have ever read. The teacher's comments have as much to do with life as they do with science. (Science and Life - so much better together!)
  
• Barely visible parents, for the most part. Jillian's parents are there and supportive but you don't get any lectures from them.  BUT when they are needed for a dramatic plot device, WHOA! - they are awesome.
  
• Enemies to friends - and I am not talking about Jillian and Rashida here - or at least not that much. A small perception changes everything between a classmate and Jillian and her new friends - for the better.
  

When kids hit the double digits, their worlds grow. Their older eyes see more - sometimes more than is actually there. Seeing more means there is more to wonder about, learn about, question, worry about.  Just Right Jillian is a perfect book for this age group. 

(My advice though. Make Jillian look a tiny bit older on the cover. The chick is great. Keep the chick.)

* Social Emotional Learning

On Saturday, I came home to a surprise! The copy of Stuntboy, In the Meantime by Jason Reynolds (cheer! cheer!), illustrated by Raul the Third, that I ordered two months ago finally arrived.

First, let me list all the things I liked about this book.

1. Best character name: Portico Reeves. Let that roll off your tongue. If you know the meaning of the words, forget them. LISTEN to the sound. It's lovely.

2. Best setting: In a castle! Actually in a highrise - although 10 floors may not be very high. But Portico tells us he lives in a castle and isn't that the best way to think about a big building with so many doors and windows and walls? It is.

3. Best best friend: Zola Brawner, who lives next door and who helped Portico discover his superhero identity - Stuntboy, the hero who takes all the risks.

4. Best segues between the story and a TV show:  I can't remember if the show is called Super Space Wars or Super Space Heroes - or something else!  But the two main characters - and heroes - Mater and Pater, seem to mirror some of Portico's problems. Also all the chapter openings, public service announcements and other TV inspired stuff is just plain fun!

5.The stunts! 'Nuff said. 

5 1/2. The graphics. Duh!

Portico loves his building and his neighbors - except for one - but his life is full of anxiety. His parents keep shooing him out of the way "in the meantime". He hears "Mean Time" because of the shouting. It's up to Stuntboy to save the day!

A laugh out loud book, like Stuntboy, in the Meantime, shows different methods of calming oneself down - meditation, yoga, breathing exercises -  and lets readers know that their feelings are THEIRS and those feelings can be bearable.

The kids will be all right.

Not READY for Jingle bells

Tomorrow is December 1st. Sunday was the FIRST SUNDAY of Advent. My house is still full of pumpkins and silk fall leaves. I am not ready.

Prep work happens, though, ready or not. Here is something to consider before the fracas of present presentation begins. I wrote some of the following tips for our local Peace and Justice group's (LEPOCO) newsletter in the Young Peacemaker's column.

Get off the gift wrap carousel. 

Many families celebrate winter with gift-giving. Every thing that comes into our houses during the holidays can change the environment. Look at where gifts come from, (travel costs and exhaust), how each gift is made, (chemicals and waste), and how it is packaged,  (plastic and styrofoam). Even if we make all of our gifts (homemade gifts are the BEST!), we can go nuts worrying about the wear that each gift has on our climate. Let’s pick ONE part of all this merriment and see how that effects our climate - gift-wrapping.

In a British study done in 2011, the UK used about 227,000 MILES of wrapping paper over the winter holidays - enough paper to wrap around the world NINE times. In the US, we average 4 million pounds of wrapping paper a year. All that paper, all those bags, all that ribbon goes straight into the landfill, creating greenhouse gases as it decomposes. Here are some ideas on how to reduce that stress on our earth.

Make your own wrappings. 

1. Decorate newspaper with drawings or stamps. Use paper grocery bags for gift bags. If you get a package stuffed with paper, reuse it!
2. Save shiny packaging materials (the foil paper in boxes of teabags, ie. ) to decorate your gifts.
3. Wrap a gift inside another gift. Use a scarf or a bandanna or a cloth napkin as wrapping.
4. Make cloth gift bags that can be used over and over again. This article shows you how. https://www.greenchildmagazine.com/diy-fabric-gift-bags/
    (Hint: Decorate old pillow cases for those bulky gifts!)
5. Decorate packages with nature, -pinecones, dried leaves, pine needles- instead of ribbon. Tie them on with cotton twine or raffia.                                                                                                                           

Reuse what you already have.

1. Save as much gift wrap as you can from presents you receive. You can reuse it next year, even if all you do is save scraps to decorate newspaper or paper bags.                                                                                 2. Save pretty shopping bags and gift bags. If your name is stuck on with super glue, cover it with another name tag.                                                                                                                                                         3. Don't throw away ribbons or bows, or pretty yarn or string.                                                                      4. Cut up holiday cards from last year for gift tags, and for decorating packages.

For more info on how our actions can change the world, check out these books:

31 Ways to Change the World. 2010, Candlewick Press.


Everything Is Connected, Reimagining the World One Postcard at a Time. Keri Smith, 2013.  Penguin Group.


Climate Action: What Happened and What We Can Do. Seymour Simon, 2021. HarperCollins. (PS. I adore Seymour Simon!)

Now, what else can I do with all the pretty cards I save from year to year? I would love to hear YOUR gift wrapping ideas - and your holiday card ideas.

Two Tasty Books

 Just in time for Halloween, I read a book about a monster AND a book about a ghost.  

But first let's discuss reading as a kind of nutrition. The books that teach you a LOT but are hard going are like, um, that soup that you get when someone wants to build up your strength. Good for you but not the easiest thing to swallow.  Sad to say, I avoid those books unless I need to learn something for a project.

The books we read for fun - romances, mysteries, graphic novels - they count as snack food, chips and dip, pretzels, chocolate. You could survive on these books but you won't be very healthy. NOW, some of the snack books are more like pretzel sticks and hummus or celery and cream cheese. Still you don't want these fun books to be all you read.

Some fiction is tasty AND good for you, too. Think Thanksgiving dinner (go light on the stuffing and potatoes, though). They are delicious and sooo nutritious. Here are two books to  savor.

Willodeen by Katherine Applegate  This book is so yummy! Willodeen is an orphan brought up by two ancient women. She loves creatures of all kinds and sizes but she is especially interested in the animals that others abhor - the monsters.  The "screechers", large, ugly, loud and very smelly, have a special place in Willodeen's heart - along with her wounded hummingbear.

Hummingbears are crucial to Willodeen's hometown's survival. When the hummingbears return each spring to the blue willow trees, tourists come from all over.  But the screechers and their horrific odor scare people away. So the town puts a price on the screechers' heads.

What happens is disastrous to everyone. Willodeen makes friends with a boy who fashions hummingbears from branches and vines. Can the two friends save the screechers, the hummingbears and their town?

Let this book sit on your palate. There are more flavors to this book than a four course meal. It is food for thought, tastefully served.

 

Dead Wednesday by Jerry Spinelli .  Everybody calls him Worm. He's in eighth grade, shy, pimply, not so very tall and his best friends is a popular, athletic, Boss of the School. They are off to the best day in an eight grader's year, Dead Wednesday. It's a half day and once the 8th graders are assigned their "Wrapper", they become INVISIBLE to the teachers and adults in their school. Because they are "dead".

"Wrappers" are teenagers who lost their lives in the past year in car accidents caused by drinking, texting, willfully ignoring traffic precautions, reckless driving. The School Administration goes through Dead Wednesday in hopes that the "dead" will learn enough from this experience to avoid reckless driving. HAH! What eighth graders get from this is a half day to go INSANE!

Except it doesn't work out that way at all. Worm is haunted for the whole day. Seriously weird.

  This book will feed your soul for a long time. And the ending is sweeter than pie.

 

I Read Books for Young People

I love Miss Silver, a "personal inquiry" agent of old. She features in books that were written before I was born. She is genteel, old-fashioned even for her time, and very clever. People tell her things. But, her books were not written for young people.  (Kids could read these books. The author hints so broadly at certain characters' misdeeds that even I wrinkle my brow. Kids would probably be bored, though. Just saying.)

I do read books for young people and here are three that I read in the past month.

Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price. Jane Austen's character, Elizabeth Bennett, appears here as a feisty 17-year-old, who desperately wants to work in her father's law office. When a young gentleman acquaintance is accused of murdering his scoundrel of a brother-in-law, Lizzie "takes" the case. Being a young woman of the early 19th century, (please read the author's notes at the back of the book if historical accuracy is important to you), Lizzie is discouraged from investigating the murder by every single male in her sphere and even some of her female friends. Does that stop her? Indubitably not!

Her would-be client is represented at the bar by none other than the arrogant and irritating Darcy. Yep.

So we have all kinds of evil-doers here and a lot of social practices are flaunted. There is a bit of melodrama when the culprit is exposed. But it's the 19th century when footpads and villains of every stripe traveled the byways and alleys of London. 

 

Three Keys  by Kelly Yang. If you read Yang's triumphant debut Front Desk, then you will be all ready for this sequel. Mia and her parents are now the proud owners of the Calivista Motel - along with their many investors. BUT the year is 1995, and immigrants are not particularly welcome in California. A bill to severely restrict immigration into the state is up for a vote. Mia's sixth grade teacher is not impressed with Mia's writing at all and appears to approve of Proposition 187. And even though the Calivista Motel was on TV, a sign saying Immigrants Welcome causes business to drop. 

Mia and her best friend, Lupe, have to find ways to help the motel thrive, protect fellow students whose families are not here legally, and convince their teacher that Mia has talent. 

The book addresses an issue that still raise hackles here in the USA. A country of immigrants still fights over whether or not to keep our doors open.  Mia's family is stalwart in their support of other immigrants. When problems arise, it is Mia's friends who find the answers.

The book is an inspirational read. For us hardened adults, it may be too optimistic. But kids love it when kids save the day and the kids save the day in Three Keys.

 

Linked by Gordon Korman. Korman addresses vandalism, anti-semitism and racism in his latest book. This is a lot less fun that Korman's usual fare. When Michael runs back to school to fetch his forgotten phone, he discovers a huge swastika painted in the hallway. Michael is the president of the Art Club and his locker is full of paint so, guess who comes under suspicion.

This book concentrates on Michael, his circle of friends, Link, one of those friends who is a popular athlete and prankster, and Dana, the only Jewish student in the whole school. As more swastikas appear all over the school, Link discovers his family's connection to anti-semitism, the community revisits its shameful racist past and Dana finds herself the center of unwanted attention.

Then a social media vlogger moves into town to cover the frenetic attempts to "solve" this by making a paper chain to represent the Jews killed during the Holocaust. Michael spearheads this attempt. But the swastikas keep coming.

The ending stretched my credulity a bit. Then, I saw how Korman laid the framework for his climax. This is not my favorite Korman book, (The Unteachables is awesome), but it is a worthy effort.

Avoidance Part 3 - TIME LIE!

 NOTICE: Chances are HUGE that most of the personal remarks - about me -- in this post will be lies.

Friends, I am completely honest and I NEVER EVER lie to myself. BUT, I have been given to understand (isn't that an awesome phrase, "given to understand"?) that some people DO lie to themselves.

In doing that, those people - not me, of course, - find themselves suddenly short of time. Here are some examples of this that I have been made aware. (Should I add "of" there?)

1. Telling yourself that this will be the LAST game of solitaires that you will play. HAH! I have personally seen someone make that last game stretch into four or five 'last' games.

2. Watching videos of crafters because they will give the watcher cool ideas - that will never be made.

3. Looking outside and deciding that it is too hot or cold or muggy or windy to do whatever it is  without even stepping outside.

But the biggest worst lie of all is this. I WILL DO IT LATER WHEN I HAVE MORE TIME.

Look at that statement. With every second that passes, we have LESS time. We will never have MORE time than we do RIGHT NOW. So sitting back on the sofa with one's feet up and thinking, "I'll do it later when I have more time." doesn't work. It is physically impossible to have more time than now.

That said, we all have obligations and neglecting those obligations does not make us good people. There may be future periods where we will have uninterrupted time. 

Even saying that "I will do it when I have a stretch of uninterrupted time," easily turns into a lie. Uninterrupted time gets snipped apart if we allow ourselves to become distracted (a future avoidance topic.)

Successful "task completers" do not wait until they have more time. They get stuff done in the time they are given.

Don't lie to yourself. You WILL probably play another game of solitaire especially if that last game ends after one deal of the cards. Watching other people make crafts is satisfying in itself.  Go outside! 

But most importantly:  You will NEVER have more time. Do it - whatever it is - NOW.

Avoidance Part 2 - I'm TIRED

Oh, PERSONS! This excuse is is universal. I should practice the piano but...I'm TIRED.

I wake up in the morning and before my eyes are fully open, I tell myself that...I'm TIRED.

And so it goes.  Edit my poems? Too tired.  Get out the ukulele. Too exhausted.

A half-hearted swipe over the counter, a push of the broom. STILL tired.

So what do I do about all this tiredness? Sleep? Eat better? Take a walk to encourage blood flow to my "tired" body? HECK, NO!

I lie around, move like a sloth. Nothing gets done and the NEXT day I am even more tired.

Yesterday was one of my tired days. I DID get out the accordion after months of neglect.  (Whoopee!)

At 7:45 pm, I decided to sweep off the back porch. I had been (say it with me) too tired to do it earlier. The back porch looks great by the way. (A "discussion" is ongoing about the sand box. The grand is entering double digits. Does she still need a sand area? Maybe not, but I think I do.)

Suddenly, I was not so tired. And I was awake until 1 am.  But just doing that one chore, gave me...

a Lightbulb moment! I am going to be tired whether I do stuff or not. I am older and the less I DO, the harder it gets to DO anything.  Once I start moving, the fog lifts.

WHY THIS EXCUSE IS POPPYCOCK

If I am so tired that I can't function, it is time for me to consult a medical professional. I have, actually, and there is nothing physically wrong. 

I am not too tired. I am afraid - afraid that any effort to create will fall short of my expectations. So I grab whatever excuse I can come up with. At my age - and in this trying time - being "tired" is an easy quick all-purpose excuse. 

I am not tired. I am resentful. Why should I have to do whatever stupid chore needs to be done when I don't want to? And that resentment spills over into the activities that I actually enjoy. (This is actually Avoidance Part 3. Stay tuned.)

I am not tired. I am waiting. Exactly what I am waiting for has never been clear. But I will receive a sign when the waiting is done.

The answer to all these avoidance techniques is to push through. I know it. You know it. Push through. There are bouquets to build and skies to view and rain to inspire our music. So, tired or not, do ONE beautiful thing.

The world will thank you.

(I wonder if this blog post counts or if I have to do something else. Because, you know, I'm....tired.)

 

Avoidance - Part 1. Who Do I Think I am?

 For Mother's Day, I got a gift certificate to a painting party place. So, yesterday, three generations, (me, my son, my granddaughter), joined other party goers to create paintings.

I do not "art". I don't draw, color, paint with any regularity. I get the art stuff out when D is here and we mess around.

That said, the two hour class was delightful. We each produced a sunlit underwater ocean scene.  There were 8 people in the class and 8 colorful wall-worthy pictures at the end.

It was so much fun that I had to ask myself, why I don't do more visual art-y stuff? 

Because avoidance is one of my real talents, I have a lot of different excuses for not doing things. Visual arts have always been hard for me. So, I understand my reluctance to indulge in them. But I avoid writing and writing has always been something that I WANT to do and do better than a lot of people. (How do I even have the nerve to say that?) And that brings me to Avoidance Excuse #1.

EXCUSE #1.

Who do I think I am?

Art is created by ARTISTS. Am I an artist? Am I? Well? Um. I don't think so.  Am I a writer? I want to be a writer. I have wanted to be a writer for the past 60 years. 

Producing stories or essays or poems or blog posts requires a level of faith that one can put ideas, images, feelings, into words in an engaging way. Who Do I EVEN THINK I Am to imagine that I can do that?

 If I just accept my unworthiness, if I face up to the sheer effrontery of my feeble attempts at composition, then I save myself a lot of trouble AND rejection.

This feeling of misplaced humility(?) is perfect for allowing me to avoid taking action. I am nobody, so I should not write that story or poem. I am a mere inkblot in the copybook of literature. 

WHY THIS EXCUSE IS POPPYCOCK

This excuse makes the assumption that all art is produced for the consumption of others. My two hour dip into painting yesterday showed me that the ACT of creating is enough. Even if no one else ever saw that painting. I brought it into being. And that is enough. 

AND this excuse assumes that artists, writers, etc., are preordained to those positions. The excuse assumes that there is a hierarchy to creators. Yes, some people do have innate abilities that are better than others. But there are a lot of published authors, with wildly popular books, who are merely average at putting words together. Their plots carry the books. Other authors produce simple plots but their fluid writing wins over readers. Asking, "Who do I think I am?" before I even attempt to write ignores the truth that one who writes is a writer, regardless of their talent or skill.

So I wrote this post. Hence, I am a writer.

THAT is who I think I am... well, for now, anyway. 

 

 

BTW, if you are looking for other excuses to avoid following your passions, or trying new things, stay tuned. I have dozens of them.

Book Report

I decided to re-read some of Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness mysteries and found a recent addition that I never read! The Last Mrs. Summers!

Georgie (Lady Georgiana etc, etc, Rannoch, of late 34th(?) in succession for the throne until she married Mr. O'Mara in a Catholic ceremony and gave up her place in line) and Darcy have been married for three whole months when he is "called away". He is some sort of undercover agent in the service of the Crown. Bored and lonely, Georgie goes to London and finds that no one is available to cheer her up. Even her old Granddad -(not a royal AT ALL) - has a volunteer job.

She arrives home at Eynsleigh, the estate that one of her step-fathers has "given" to Georgie and Darcy, to find Belinda, her best friend arriving. Belinda has been left a cottage in Cornwall so off the girls go to check out the property.

Note: Bowen opens the book with a tribute to DuMaurier's classic suspense novel, Rebecca. If you ever read that book or watched the movie you will appreciate the setting.

Anyway, the cottage is a wreck and they go into town to find a hotel. Belinda meets a childhood friend (she spent her summers in Cornwall) who invites them home to a large and possibly haunted estate. A gruesome murder takes place. The ladies are suspects. There is some sort of tomfoolery at a nearby stately home. Smugglers? Ghosts? 

And was that Irishman really Darcy? 

Bowen knows her audience so well!

____________________________________________________________________________

I have read Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity and have found a few that I know I never read. Ngaio Marsh and her lovely Inspector Alleyn has gotten me through some hot days. And Patricia Wentworth's endlessly patient and serene Miss Silvers continues to unravel startling mysteries. 

But what about the Kids' Books?

Most recently - The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm finds Bell living in the American station on Mars. The station has cut itself off from the other stations on Mars for the past 10 years. Bell takes us through his routine with the other young people and their mentors. When a stow away mouse brings a virus that attacks only the adults in the station, the children and teens have to get help. Help from earth can take 8 months! Bell and his former best friend head out in the train tunnel and they discover that the other stations are filled with lively, generous people. Why did the Americans cut themselves off?  I will not tell you who or what the LION is in this book.  Read it.

Max and the Midknights: The Battle of the Bodkins by Lincoln Peirce is a quick, heavily illustrated fantasy by the author of all the Big Nate books. Max and her fellow knights in training must battle an outbreak of Bodkins - evil spirits that look exactly like people already in the kingdom. The real people are imprisoned while their evil twins destroy the kingdom. It's a romp through a Middle Ages-ish landscape.

Stefan Bachman returns with another delightful fantasy, Cinders & Sparrows.  Zita Brydgeborn receives a letter - delivered by a scarecrow - telling her she has inherited a castle, Blackbird Castle the ancestral home of a long line of powerful witches. Zita is the last.  And, of course, she must quickly learn all she can to fight the forces of Evil. It is much richer than this formula promises. Zita and the reader struggle to see who is a friend and who is a foe.  Spritely written, this book is classic fantasy.

Keep cool and READ ON!

Fans, Films, Folderol

 Grab bag blog post coming up.

FANS: Moving air is a blessing in these sweltering times. We function on window air conditioners in this house and some rooms are out of their reach. So, we use fans. They work. You can find hacks to lower the air temperature on YouTube. Hanging bottles of ice on the back of your fan, or placing a block of ice in front of your fan is a decades old fix. But moving air against your moist skin will cool just enough to make life bearable.

 FILMS: I am not a movie fan. I never want to sit still for that length of time. I can sit still and, if it's thinking or reading time, I will. But watching someone else's story for 90 plus minutes does not appeal to me. 

However Vox put together a look at the 25 best films of 2021 and some of them are so enticing, I may sit through them. I want to watch Concrete Cowboy. The film, Truffle Hunters, looks fascinating. There is a documentary - without a voice over - that features farm animals. And The Heights! The Heights! I love singing and dancing movies.  Take a look at the trailers. Find a film to love.

https://www.vox.com/22538640/best-movies-2021-so-far-half

FOLDEROL: a list of all the things that occupy my mind.

My Mom turns 95 tomorrow.  We will gather for lunch at a restaurant to sing Happy Birthday. Hopefully, we can get the youngest sibling on FB Messenger to help us sing. He lives in Japan and it will be wee hours there. Mom will not be the oldest person there. Her sister, Aunt Mary, will turn 98 this year. 

Peace Camp at Home. The local peace and justice organization, LEPOCO, has held a week long camp for kids for 30 plus years. Last year, we went virtual because no one was going anywhere. This year, we decided to do virtual again because kids are not vaccinated yet. We put together a packet of activities for each day and send them out to registered campers. So I have been hunting up ideas to go into the packets. Click on the link above and look for Peace Camp at Home for more information. 

 And I discovered PORCUPINE VIDEOS!!!!!!

Teddy Bear is a North American porcupine, I think. And he LOVES to eat.

 Kemosabe is a South American prehensile tail porcupine who loves to eat, too. 

 The noises they make are so adorable.  They sound like cartoon animals!

 Books: I have read so many books lately -kids' fantasy and adventure and family stories - but mostly, as recent posts have reported, mysteries written in the first half of the 20th century by Patricia Wentworth or Ngaio Marsh (Dame Edith), or cozy mysteries I read so long ago that I can read them again with gusto. I stray into non-fiction from time to time. I keep promising a full report. Someday.

Other Amazing Stuff:  The grandgirl is awesomely fun. We made some puppet show videos this week. They need editing but they are typical homemade silliness. We are so lucky to have her in our lives.

I have given up on getting any beans. That plot of ground is not even growing weeds - well, not many. I suspect that my salt and vinegar weed killer may have leached into that area. DO NOT SPREAD SALT on your weeds. It will render the ground infertile. Get horticultural vinegar at your garden store if you want to kill weeds without killing bugs and birds or the soil. Save the salt for paved areas.

 

Slow down!

 Slow down! The street outside my window, so quiet for the past 14 months, hums with passing cars and clonks with trucks as they hit the uneven patch of macadam. I asked Hub if he missed the quiet streets of the pandemic. I sure do!

Our families and friends are all catching up with the celebrations they postponed, the visits they longed to make. They dragged their luggage - cases, backpacks, totes and duffel bags - out of storage. They are On The Road Again!

Meanwhile, daily life does not slow down. Workers are back in the office or the stores or the factories. Some of those workers never stopped working. Now, they welcome their far-flung families into their homes. Their joy knows no bounds. Then, the guests go home and the workers can't afford to take time off to recuperate.

I spoke to one person who will play host to a niece and her brood this weekend. She already has her three grown children at home, as well as her retired husband.  She sounded sooooo tired. I bet she visits her luggage longingly.

I know I miss quarantine. I AM grateful that I can go to the stores. Delivery services saved us for the past year. BUT I have an overflowing box of items that I could not return - because I wasn't going into stores - but that were NOT what I requested.

I miss the quiet nights of quarantine. I resent the pressure to DO things. During quarantine we could stay home alone with little or no guilt. I LOVE spending times with my family and friends but...

Could we do it slowly? Please?

Quick! A book trailer!

I have been reading up a storm - wentworth, Ngaio Marsh, Nancy Atherton - all my faves from the past. But I have added a few middle grade books to my list of READ books.

 Scrolling through all my favorite book newsletters, I ran across this little sweetie on Shelf Awareness. It's a picture book trailer and the artwork makes bats love soft and cuddly. Enjoy!

The Love Affair Continues

I read this one, too

 

 My love for Patricia Wentworth titles continues. Her plots are convoluted. Her solutions are sometimes way too simplistic. But I don't care. I love her characters, whether they are independent young women navigating life in a changing Britain between the wars, or frightened wives trapped in confusing relationships. The fashion updates are awesome. The dialogue borders on Noel Coward-esque.  You MUST enjoy the time period between 1920 and 1955, and the cinema of that period, to fully appreciate these books.

When I shared my need to read these older mysteries with a friend, SHE shared Gutenberg.org. Almost any book in the public domain is available to borrow from Gutenberg.org.  Only a handful of Wentworth's titles have slipped into public domain. I read The Astounding Adventure of Jane Smith, downloaded from Gutenberg, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh, the plot was totally off the wall. It included hidden underground chambers, nefarious international organizations, grief-stricken beauties and way too many secret passageways. The main character sparkled with gutsy independence. Her "suitor" stayed well out of the way until the very end. All sympathetic characters had their reputations restored. The book was the stuff of black and white mysteries of the 1940s.

Check out Gutenberg.org for all kinds of impossible to find older titles.

My friend also shared Open Library. This site attempts to offer as many books as possible to just as many readers. They have a dozen or more Wentworth titles available for loan. There are limitations and if you look at the FAQs or Help & Support pages these limitations are explained. For instance, I borrowed a book - BUT - because it was the only book of that title in the library at the time, I could only read it for one hour.  You can borrow audio books, as well.  Some titles are marked Not in Library. You can request those books and will be alerted if the book is added. OR you can search for the book in a nearby library through Library.Link. (You have to share your location.) Or look on WorldCat which simply lists all the libraries in their database that hold that title.

FREE BOOKS! Talk about endless love!

My local library offers all kinds of books to love and I have cheated on Patricia by reading a few Aunt Dimity books. Written by Nancy Atherton, this series of cozy mysteries offers a delightful rags-to-riches heroine, Lori Shepherd, who now shares her adventures with Aunt Dimity - long deceased - through a blue notebook. I KNOW!!! Totally insane but so comfy! 

These mysteries are rarely, if ever, fatal so when I read the jacket flap for Aunt Dimity and the Widow's Curse, I was flabbergasted. A new resident of the village of Finch confesses to murdering her first husband. No worries about spoilers here - the publishers put in on the jacket flap! I snapped that book up and, as an Aunt Dimity title, it is perfect. Think Hallmark mysteries minus gore and overacting.

I haven't forgotten books for young readers. I have a couple of THOSE to tell you about in my next post. Let's hope I get to it soon.

Keep reading!

Food! Glorious FOOD!

In High School, I became enamored with the soundtrack from Oliver! (Singing softly, "Whe-e-ere is LOVE? Does if fall from stars above? Will I ever know that sweet hello...? etc.) Of course, my favorite song to belt along with was "FOOD! Glorious Food!"

Why not? We need food. Some food tastes heavenly. Creating deliciousness from not necessarily delicious ingredients is clever, challenging and fun.

Authors know this and they add food elements to their books for kids. I just re-read "Listen, Slowly" by Thanhhà Lai and the foods of Viet Nam are touted on almost every single page.

The books that allow their characters to bake, cook, fry, broil their own recipes are especially engaging. (Hot book review word alert - 'engaging'.)

Pie in the Sky by Remy Lai   After Jingwen's and Yanghao's father dies, their mother moves them to an English-speaking country. (I think it's Australia but it may be New Zealand.) Yanghao, being younger, makes headway in learning English by Jingwen has a lot of trouble. He is angry that his mother "left" their father behind and followed through on the family's plans to move and open a special bakery.  Jingwen decides that he has to bake every single one of his father's cakes to make things better for his family. BUT his mother, who must work, has forbidden the use of the oven. And Jingwen speaks so little English that he bribes Yangwao to help him.

I can't remember recipes in this book but the descriptions of the baking process, the ingredients, the temperature, the sneakiness make a recipe of sadness. The cakes sound delicious. The memories are bittersweet.

Roll With It by Jamie Sumner.  Ellie's CP and wheelchair don't keep her from trying to win baking competitions. After she and her mother move in with her grandfather to help watch over him, she is suddenly the only disabled kid and the new kid in a small public school. It does not help that she lives in a trailer park - hey! I lived in a trailer park for awhile. Stop with the judging! - across town. Her new neighborhood nets her a real friend with a can-do attitude.

Once again, no actual recipes that I remember. Where are the recipes?

 

The Doughnut King (The Doughnut Fix #2) by Jessie Janowitz.  Well, I never read the first book so I don't know how Tris's family moved from NYC to the nowhere town of Petersville, BUT in this book, Tris already has a doughnut stand selling the most delicious chocolate cream doughnuts ever. Problems abound. As people move out of Petersville, he has trouble creating demand. When he solves that problem, he can't keep up with demand. A spot on a cutthroat kids' cooking show creates even MORE demand. 

I want a doughnut, now. 

I probably mentioned THIS book back in 2017 when I read it. The Apple Tart of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald wins the Best Food-Related Title to Date.  Oscar has gone missing. His bike is found at sea. Everyone, but Meg, assumes that this is an accidental death or a suicide.  Meg doesn't believe Oscar is dead at all. But, she has been away for several months. Maybe something happened to Oscar to make him depressed enough. No! Meg can't believe that the baker of the best apple tart in the world is dead.  

NO RECIPE!! So disappointed!

Blast from the past! Touch-Luck Karen by Johanna Hurwitz is an entry in Hurwitz's Sossi family series. Karen, 13, would rather baby-sit or cook than do schoolwork. Her grades are so bad that her parents refuse to let her continue babysitting.  She MUST bring her science grades up by doing a project.  Karen uses her other enthusiasm to demonstrate chemical reactions. Cooking to the rescue.

This book was published in 1982 and I read it during the next decade. I remembered that science demonstration and LOVED it and remembered it all these years. Was there a recipe? Now THAT, I can't remember.

 

I forgot how to blog...

I have not blogged for 6 weeks and I don't remember how!! Do I come up with a topic and stick with it? Is that a thing? I don't think that's a thing. I think people's thoughts jump around like bunnies in Spring. And it IS Spring. So stream of consciousness and random thoughts, here goes!

I play an online game in which you need to fit a set number of tile arrangements into a big 9 x 9 tile square. Is it unreasonable for me to take a violent dislike to any column of five tiles - horizontal or vertical? I really do NOT like those five tile rows in a deeply personal way. 

Dana Simpson just came out with Book 13 of Phoebe and her Unicorn, Unicorn Famous.  What will happen when Phoebe ages out of the believing in unicorns thing? Maybe I do NOT have to worry about this, actually, since Phoebe is no more real than her fabulous friend, Marigold Heavenly Nostrils. Simpson should get an award for naming unicorns.

Why are books about orphans who live in great big old buildings so popular? (I linked to Ally Carter's first Winterborne Home book but you don't have to think hard to come up with another one.) I get the orphan part. Having no parents sets the character free of any expectations or parental protections. At the same time, it's so sad!

And why big - as in city block big - and old? OK! That doesn't take too much imagination. But, I believe that setting a foundling school in one of the growing number of abandoned malls or strip malls might be intriguing.  Those buildings have back passages that the general public never see.

Wait! That reminds me of the Hobie Hanson books by Jamie Gilson. When their school got flooded, Hobie's school moved into a series of empty stores in the mall. I loved those books but I bet they are dated now. I have to let Goodreads know that I read every one of them - as an adult - (because I am old). People who read these books as kids might even have children of their own who are graduating from secondary school soon - maybe.

Loss... When we lose an author we adored, even though that writer was really old and deserved some rest, it is HARD. Beverly Cleary was over 100. Sid Fleischman was in his 90s. But they were supposed to keep writing until my grandchild had grandchildren. It might be time for me to read Ramona and her Father again - or By the Great Horn Spoon.

I made my LAST book review presentation at the Kutztown University Children's Literature Conference on Saturday. This year, I worked with Mary Hyson, who loves to talk about books more than I do and who works with books for middle grades and YA every working day. I don't do that anymore, because - see paragraph 6.

Anyway, if you want to see our awesome slide show click here. 

I am all tired out from jumping all over the place. The view out my window is beautiful. I hope your view is, too.

Our tulips in the late afternoon. In the morning they are even more glorious.

 

 

Freedom!

 I received my second COVID-19 shot today.  Within hours, a friend texted me to say she and her husband received THEIR second shot today, too. And could we come to dinner in two weeks? Dinner? At someone's house? IN PERSON???  Hallelujah! Praise God!! Amen!

(The HUB gets HIS second shot in two days. Life is good.)

We WILL wear masks. Hugging is still not recommended. But visiting in person!!! With someone I am not related to? Wow!!!

The funny thing is this: I was not aware of the negative effects of insularity on me. Yes. I have dragged and yes, I also felt sluggish and reluctant to engage every morning. 

Still, when I sat in front of my computer screen to talk with groups of people, I felt huge waves of gratitude. I enjoy NOT going to stores. My younger sister started a music sharing hour with me each week. That would NOT have happened in non-quarantine times. See? Things worked out for me! I prefer eating at home and don't miss restaurants.

Right now, I feel so light, so unburdened that I suspect the whole looking-on-the-bright-side thing kept me sane but not unaffected by quarantine.

Some things will change. In a couple of weeks, Hub will want to go out to eat. If I need one ingredient to make a recipe, I will run to the store and get just that one thing. We might drive to upstate New York to visit the above mentioned sister's palatial new home. We CAN GO PLACES!! Masked, of course, socially distant, but NOT HERE!

Here is what I hope will not change:  Music with my sister; Scrabble games with my Mom two or three times a week; walks - but NOW I can walk more places once the snow melts; staying home - I do like staying home; a slower pace; an appreciation of what we have.

It may be the Spring sun returning. It may be my second vaccine dose but Hope is in my heart today.

Make Your Bed - Sunday Selfie

Awhile back, Adm. William H. McRaven started a commencement speech this way, "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."

I never saw the sense of making my bed until the last decade. After all, you're just going to climb into that same bed in a few hours anyway. 

The first thing to change my mind and my habits was noticing the delight of climbing into a bed after I change the linens. "Ahhh," I think as I sniffed the sun dried scent. "Clean sheets."  

After that, I made my bed more days than not.

Then I read one of those little motivational commentaries that our search engines toss up every day. It assured me that making my bed would revolutionize my life, even if I made the bed 5 minutes before I climbed in for the night!  That's crazy talk!

So I make sure my bed is smooth and nest before I climb in at night. Here are 5 ways that making my bed makes a difference in my day.

1. I feel cared for. Hub and I sleep in separate rooms because of back conditions and huge snoring issues - both of us snore hugely!  So, why bother?  The fact that I do bother means that someone cares enough to make my bed. Sure, that someone is me. I still feel that I am worth caring for. Make your bed.

2. That piece of discipline, if done early in the day, sets me off in a "getting things done" mode. I get the message that the day has started. Make your bed for a good start to your day.

3. I do get more things done. Once that bed is made, I don't want to waste the effort by climbing back in. So, I go do other things - like writing a blog post, or cleaning, or walking or hanging out with the Man, Make your bed to feel like you accomplished something.

4. The habit of bed making gave me permission to buy a lovely hand-quilted quilt. Spreading that quilt across my bed every morning makes me feel rich. Hand-quilted quilts can cost hundreds, if not thousands,  of dollars. The fact that I bought mine at a church Christmas Bazaar from the Quilting Group for not-so-much does not matter. Each morning as I toss that quilt out like a fisherman casts his net, I feel like the quilt is catching and keeping the blessings that come from a group of women all stitching at the same frame.  Make your bed beautiful. Find something lovely to spread on your bed and you will want to look at it every day.

5. I sleep better. I do. And on the nights that sleep evades me, the neatness of my bed reminds me that I am fortunate. Make your bed. Make YOUR bed. You HAVE a bed. You are blessed.

Secret Agents of Good - Spy School

 Little Blue Bunny and his compatriot, Franklin, are back at SAOG (Secret Agents of Good) school this week.  With all the white stuff outside, they decided to hone their spy skills.

(What they get up to when they are NOT in SAOG training!)

Today they plan to become...SUPER SMELLERS!!! AND TERRIFIC TOUCHERS

Yes, the Blue Bunnies of Beneficence will use their noses to sniff out (hehehehe) different scents. Why is this important, you ask?

Well, a SUPER SMELLER can warn others of gas leaks, or of possible bad tastes, or of garlic overload.

But also, a SUPER SMELLER can stay safe by avoiding food that smells "off" - usually a sign of spoilage.

Here are some Spy School ideas.

-What's That Smell Game?

1. Gather some small cups or containers.

2. Gather an equal numbers of items with strong smells - like onions, vinegar, flowery perfume, peppermint, vanilla, or coffee. NOTE: stay to food safe items. Some very smelly items should be avoided - like cleaning supplies.

(Smelly things.)

3. Place a little bit of one smelly substance into each cup, one smell to a cup

4. Cover the cups with a thin tissue.  Some things that smell also have identifiable looks.

5. Challenge your spy student to identify the smell in each cup.

(Franklin is taking the plunge. I hope it smells good.)

 

Make it harder.

Place the cups around a room and ask your SAOG trainees to find them, using their sense of smell. 

-AAHHHH! What did I touch?

Sometimes we have to reach into containers to find things like lost toys, or lost crochet hooks, or lost pocket change or lost keys. Actually, I am thinking of sofa cushions right now, which are not containers. I think you know what I mean.

When reaching into dark places, it is helpful to know when to NOT grab something - or to be able to figure out what we DO grab. Just saying. This is where TERRIFIC TOUCH power comes into play.

For this game you need an empty box with a hole big enough to reach through. I suggest a tissue box, because those boxes come with holes.

(Could you guess what this was, if it was in the box?)

1. Place something with a particular shape or texture into the box. NOTE: for safety sake do NOT use sharp, poisonous or dangerous items for this test.

2. Cover the hole with a cloth so the trainee can NOT see inside.

3. The trainee must reach inside.

4. a. The trainee can tell you what they think is in the box.

    b. The trainee can describe how the item feels.  

5. If the trainee is successful in step 4,  it is the trainee's turn to test the tutor, (or trainer or teacher or....).

 

Good guessing, Franklin!

-Grab it!

This game is like a scavenger hunt for the senses. Make a list of words that describe things, like fuzzy, or furry or fluffy or feathery or - moving on to another letter now - smooth, sleek, slippery, slimey, shivery..

or any other describing word. You can add words that use other senses, like "bright" for the sense of sight, or "sweet" for taste or smell, or "loud" for hearing.

Challenge your SAOG trainees to GRAB something that matches your word. If you are keeping score, give extra points to trainees who grab creative choices. Or not. Play it by ear. Or eye, or tongue or nose or fingertips. It's all good.

Extra Points for putting everything away.

The Final Installment of SAOG Spy School will show up here sooner or later.

 

Clean Windows - Sunday Selfie

I rearrangd my office in the Fall. I wanted to watch the changing seasons from my windows while I worked on the computer. This is especially nice during Meeting for (Quaker) Worship - heretofore referred to as MfW -, when long periods of contemplation are broken by thoughtful messages. Looking at the trees in the Fall and Winter, watching the passers-by, even noticing cars on the street below me, - all this adds to the meditative feel. 

  The first thing I noticed after I changed the room around was how dirty the windows were. Sigh. How many cleaning services announce that they DO NOT clean windows? But windows today are easy to clean. So I tipped the panes in and cleaned the dust and street grime from my windows. The result was startling.

 It's time for us to clean our windows. This past year has thrown all manners of grime, dust and dirt on the lenses through which we look at the world around us. Mornings have become littered with the burdens of the day before. 

 We should never forget what happened in 2020. Forgetting is a sure way to repeat mistakes. We can wipe it away from our daily view. We can see more clearly what we need to do. 

 The light shines in differently through clean windows. 

 Messages at today's MfW focused on Hope. One message quoted a poet as saying that hope was an "axe" to break down doors. To me hope is a cleaning rag or a broom, to clear away the cobwebs and dust. The doors are open. We just can't see the way through if we don't clear away the anger, fear and despair of the past year. 

Clean windows...a world of hope.

A NIght Time conversation

Happy 2021 everyone! THAT is an ORDER!!!

 

This morning at about 1 am, I paged through my most recent journal. Wow! For all the staying home and all the "I didn't do much" opening sentences, I, and I really mean we - Hub, D, and Little Blue Bunny, et al, and I - did a huge bunch of stuff.

I had forgotten about the night time reading sessions with the stuffies and the conversations we sometimes had in the dark. But this conversation made it into my journal. I had stopped reading to the stuffies for awhile. LBB noticed. After we talked, I turned on the light, grabbed a pencil and I wrote it down as best as I could remember.

Here it is with a tiny bit of editing...

Sept. 21, 2020

LBB: You don't talk to us anymore.

Me: I know.

 

 (Actual journal entry above.)

LBB: It's like you forgot all about us.

Me: I could never forget all about you...It's just I worry about  grown-up things.

LBB: Want to talk about it?

ME:  It just feels like this whole year, we are just waiting, waiting for things to get better.

LBB: Are things getting better?

Me: No. We started waiting for all this waiting to feel normal.

LBB: Ha! Hahaha! Normal?

Me: I can hardly remember going to Meeting for Worship, or going to the library or stores or to parties with friends. It almost feels like we never did those things.

LBB: I know you went on ships because you never took me.

Me: You would have jumped overboard.

LBB: Not!

Me:

LBB:

Me: I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to talk about Wizard World.

LBB: Ahhh! Yes!

Me: Yes! Wizard World where a shy quiet Wizardy Wizard made a wing kite to fly her friends into a magic land.

LBB: .. and Little Blue Wizard thought that dancing princesses should be turned into flowers.

Me: I remember that! How about the time that Prince Philip,  I think, was turned into a platypus by his own brother?

LBB: Did I save the day?

Me: You and Wizardy Wizard.

LBB: We both did.

Me: Hmmm. Now I remember. You had new magic because you flew to Australia.

LBB: I did. Queen Apple Tree took my Wizard World magic away because of the whole princesses into flowers thing. Then I got new magic when I flew to Australia.

Me: You know, I wrote a lot of this down back then. I just have to find those journals.

LBB: I would like to read that someday - to refresh my memory.

Me: Me, too.

LBB: Nana?

Me: Hmmm?

LBB: Do you feel all worried now?

Me: Not so much. Thank you, Little Blue Bunny. You are a good friend.

LBB: Thanks, Nana. Go to sleep.

I wish magic lands to you all - wherever you find them - and good friends to drag along on your adventures.  2021 will be full of wonders. Look forward with courage and hope.

There's a bunny in that manger!