Friday, September 27, 2019

Beginning ~ with a memory

"The dream is always simple. The memory never is.  It's an echo from 1903 when she was almost sixteen."
No, that didn't grab me, but a line half-way down the first page does:
"At twenty-five, Anna Klobuchar Clements would be known around the world as America's Joan of Arc.  Ten thousand miners would march behind her in a wildcat strike against the richest, most powerful copper company on earth."
The Women of the Copper Country ~ by Mary Doria Russell, 2019, fiction (Michigan)
In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair.  She's spent her whole life in the coal-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries — and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs.  The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren't coming home.  When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle.


Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays. Click this link for more book beginnings.

Thursday, September 26, 2019

More banned books

How many of these have you read?

In case you can't read the tiny titles of some of the most challenged books out there, here they are:
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • The Kite Runner
  • Forever
  • Huckleberry Finn
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
  • Bridge to Terabithia
  • Of Mice and Men
  • The Catcher in the Rye
  • The House on Mango Street
  • The Giver
  • The Bluest Eye
  • The Handmaid's Tale
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
  • And Tango Makes Three
  • The Color Purple
  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
  • A Wrinkle in Time
How about these?
Do you recognize these books by the illustrations?

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Banned Books Week

Ooooh, I almost missed Banned Books Week.  Do you have a favorite banned book?  Harper Collins posted this:
"For #BannedBooksWeek, we recommend reading WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS by #ShelSilverstein (and breaking your plates instead of washing them, but please don't eat babies)."
I've read Where the Sidewalk Ends and even wrote about it in 2011 on this blog.  Here are a dozen books librarians picked this year as the best banned books.  How many of these have you read?  I can claim more than half of them.
  • The Bluest Eye ~ by Toni Morrison
  • Slaughterhouse-Five ~ by Kurt Vonnegut
  • The Outsiders ~ by S. E. Hinton
  • Heather Has Two Mommies ~ by Leslea Newman
  • Animal Farm ~ by George Orwell
  • His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass ~ by Philip Pullman
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray ~ by Oscar Wilde
  • The Kite Runner ~ by Khaled Hosseini
  • Looking for Alaska ~ by John Green
  • Two Boys Kissing ~ by David Levithan
  • 1984 ~ by George Orwell
  • The Awakening ~ by Kate Chopin

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Clawdia's friend Tiny

Clawdia has missed Tiny, since she moved to Idaho, but she seemed more interested in exploring Sheila's apartment that day in August when Tiny came for a visit.  She'd never been there before and was curious.

Sheila and Toni got in the picture with Clawdia and Tiny.

Tiny is still in town visiting her daughter Lauree, so Clawdia got to visit with her friend again last week in the lobby.  She wasn't happy wearing that leash and collar, though.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Beginning ~ with a name

"From the day they tell you the home pregnancy test was positive until the day they tell you the baby is here, you will be allowed to consider the single most complex naming problem you are permitted to solve:  what will the new baby call you?"
Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother ~ by Lois Wyse, 1989, anecdotes
This little book is a collection of wit and wisdom for today's Nana, Grandma, Goo-Goo, or Gran.  How can you recognize today's grandmother?  Easy, says Wyse.  The grandmother is the one who goes out more and complains less than her daughter.  In the spirit of Erma Bombeck and Bill Cosby, Lois Wyse tells loving and amusing stories that illustrate the joys of contemporary grandmothering.  According to the author, "A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do."



Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click this link for more book beginnings.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Thursday thoughts

Cara, Bonnie, and Barbara
Today we welcomed Cara to the Crown Center staff.  She's our new controller.  I thought someone had misspelled the word "comptroller," but Donna looked it up and found this link about the two words.

At the right, Mary is at the end of the table with Cara, across from me.  In the photo below, Cara was at a nearby table greeting Miriam and other residents.  In the background, you can see Donna and Walter at the other end of my table.  Iva (on the left) was talking to Mary.  Lots of us were in the Café this morning to welcome Cara.
One more thing ... Donna brought her new tee-shirt to show friends.  I encouraged Randi to get in the photo (below), so she is feigning surprise at the shirt.  A sloth hangs upside down with these words:
Click the photos to enlarge them
"I finally found my spirit animal ... SLOTH ... does absolutely nothing and just sleeps."
For more about Donna and sloths, read my blog post from last Friday.  Now she has a sloth keychain, a sloth book, and a sloth shirt.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Facebook meme

Every answer must start with the first letter of your middle name.  My middle name is Lillian.
ANIMAL ~ Llama
GIRL’S NAME ~ Lucy
BOY’S NAME ~ Lewis
WORD TO DESCRIBE SOMEONE ~ Lithe
COLOR ~ Lime green
FOOD ~ Lentil soup
SOMETHING YOU WEAR ~ Leggings
DRINK ~ Lemonade
PLACE ~ London
RESTAURANT ~ Lion's Choice
IN YOUR HOME ~ Lamp
REASON TO BE LATE ~ Lost
We are to tell our friends to "Copy and paste to delete my answers and add your own."  I left out the part where my friend had said we couldn't google any answers because, after all, some people may have weird middle names.  She also had posted (presumably because she copied it) that "this is harder than you think."  No, it wasn't.  Maybe it's just that there are lots of "L" words I could think of off the top of my head.

For "animal," I chose "llama," but had first thought of "lion."  Why did I change it?  Because I wanted to illustrate this post.  I had "Lion's Choice" (a chain based in St. Louis) for a restaurant name, so I went with llama for the animal in order to use that cute llama photo.

For a girl's name, I could have used my own or Linda or Louise or Lynn or Lily.  I picked Lucy for the cartoon character.  For a boy's name, I could have used Leon or Lincoln or Lester or Lonny.  To describe someone, I could have said lonely or likeable or lively or lanky.  I originally had "lemon meringue pie" for food, but I had "lemonade" for the drink.  To avoid having "lemon" twice, I came up with "lentil soup" instead.  I could go on (and on and on) with possible choices, but the real reason it's easy for me to come up with so many words is that I'm a word person.  I love words.

If you want to play along, share your answers in the comments.