Beginning ~ at her mother's feet

Beginning

Little Thérèse sat on the floor at her mother's feet, watching the bright needle as it flew through the cloud of fine lace her mother was making.  It was a winter day in the year 1875.

Saint Thérèse and the Roses ~ by Helen Walker Homan, illustrated by George W. Thompson, 1955, young adult, 149 pages

This story from the Vision Books series for youth 9 -15 years old is a beautiful story about the most popular saint of modern times, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the "Little Flower."  Growing up in Lisieux, France was occasionally painful but usually delightful for Therese and her four sisters.  For practical Marie, studious Pauline, hot-tempered Leonie, mischievous Celine, and beautiful, lovable Thérèse, growing up meant growing closer to God.  The Little Flower found her pathway to holiness right in her own back yard.

With their disagreements, secrets, visits to the convent, school adventures, and romances, these five girls are an enjoyable handful for their kindly, widowed father.  But Thérèse, because she loves her family, discovers that one of her sisters might unwittingly prevent her dearest wish from coming true.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Still musing about Coke for a nickel

The coincidences continue (a week later, see HERE, where I wrote about Coca-Cola coincidences).  I was reading Out of Time by Caroline B. Cooney (1996), and the main character had time traveled to 1898 (p. 74). On the opposite page, I read this:

She didn't have to figure out how to buy a ticket; her driver and the porter accomplished this. She did buy a Coke, which cost a nickel. It made her happy to buy a Coke in a glass bottle and pay five cents for it.

What I'm re-reading next

Out of Time ~ by Caroline B. Cooney, 1996, YA fiction, 210 pages

Strat, the wealthy boy with whom Annie fell in love during her first time trip to the 1890s, needs her help when he reveals her real origin and finds himself confined in a mental asylum.  The back cover says:

Annie Lockwood exists; everyone admits it.  Everyone has seen her.  But only Strat insists that Miss Lockwood traveled a hundred years back in time to be with them in 1895.  Now Strat is paying an enormous price; his father has declared him insane and had him locked away in an asylum.  When Time calls Annie back to save Strat, she does not hesitate, even though her family is falling apart and desperately needs her.  Can Annie save the boy she loves, or will her choice keep her a trespasser out of time?

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

The beginning of the latest book by my favorite author

Beginning

        Many years after Melina graduated from Bard College, the course she remembered the most was not a playwriting seminar or a theater intensive but an anthropology class.  One day, the professor had flashed a slide of a bone with twenty-nine tiny incisions on one long side.  "The Lebombo bone was found in a cave in Swaziland in the 1970s and is about forty-three thousand years old," she had said.  "It's made of a baboon fibula.  For years, it's been the first calendar attributed to man.  But I ask you:  what man uses a twenty-nine-day calendar?  The professor seemed to stare directly at Melina.  "History," she said, "is written by those in power."

By Any Other Name ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2024, biographical fiction, 525 pages 

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano.  But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn't level for women.  As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats.  Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own.  Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theater productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of play-wrights can move an audience.  She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage -- by paying an actor named Willam Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, this novel is a tale of ambition, courage, and desire, centered on two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face.  Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on?

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Thinking about the election ... and a cat ... and other stuff

Thoughts, so many thoughts, are going through my head after election day.  But which ones do I want to share?  That is the problem in such a divided time.  Here's a nice thought, and it's about a cat.  (Hmm, should I save it for Caturday?)

"On November 3, 2024, a lost tabby recognized herself

from her missing cat poster, and you can read her feelings

all over her face."  (This photo was with the article.)

The video shows her walking straight up to the poster and touching it with her nose.  Cats are smarter than lots of folks give them credit for.

What's on your mind today?  Please share it in the comments.

Butterflies

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science ~ by Joyce Sidman, 2018, children's nonfiction, 160 pages

This biography won the Robert F. Sibert Medal.  The Newbery Honor–winning author introduces readers to one of the first female entomologists and a woman who flouted convention in the pursuit of knowledge and her passion for insects.

One of the first naturalists to observe live insects directly, Maria Sibylla Merian was also one of the first to document the metamorphosis of the butterfly.  Richly illustrated throughout with full-color original paintings by Merian herself, The Girl Who Drew Butterflies will enthrall young scientists.

Bugs, of all kinds, were considered to be “born of mud” and to be "beasts of the devil."  Why would anyone, let alone a girl, want to study and observe them?  The Girl Who Drew Butterflies answers this question.

Two students for TWOsday

Click HERE to read about how two students discovered proof of the 2000-year-old Pythagorean theorem.  I enjoyed my math classes, so reading this fascinated me.  I remember learning about that theorem in school, just as these two did.

In mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem is a fundamental relation in Euclidean geometry between the three sides of a right triangle, which states that the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides.  (I got most of this wording from Wikipedia.)

Here's another way to say it:  The formula for Pythagoras' theorem is a² + b² = c².  In this equation, "C" represents the longest side of a right triangle, called the hypotenuse.  "A" and "B" represent the other two sides of the triangle.

Wow, look at all the twos:  a² and b² and c².  And don't forget the two students.