A String in the Harp ~ by Nancy Bond, 1976

I've been to Wales, via book. After completing A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond this morning, I spent the next couple of hours googling images of mid-Wales and Borth, the book's setting. Because it's such a well-written book, I felt the pictures accurately portrayed what I'd been "seeing" as I ventured through half a school year with a college teacher and his three children.

Fifteen-year-old Jen had stayed home in America when her father, brother, and sister moved to Wales for a year, after the unexpected death of their mother. When she joins them in December for a holiday visit, Jen discovers a distracted father, a sullen brother, and a young sister who misses her terribly. Peter, the middle child, finds an ancient harp key that somehow tunes in to scenes from the life of the legendary sixth-century Welch bard, Taliesin. Strangely, Peter isn't the only one to experience that earlier century; people around him -- including neighbors -- see lights and hear fighting, too.

It sounds like a fairy tale, but I thoroughly enjoyed this magical realism and learned about the life of Taliesin while exploring the countryside of Wales and visiting the farms in the vicinity of Borth. I feel like I've actually been there and felt the mysterious history still living in the people and the soil of Wales. When I "travel" in books like this, I can say with one of the characters (p. 273):

"The world looks quite different to me from this side of the ocean, I have to admit."

Click to enlarge the photos, and see if you can also feel the mystery. I give this Newbery Honor Book a rating of 8 out of 10, very good.

Four generations

I'd like to introduce you to my bright-eyed great-granddaughter Raegan Danielle. I was holding her before the church service started this morning, when Raegan was dedicated.


And here's a photo taken about an hour ago at the restaurant where we ate after church. Our four generations, from left to right: me, my daughter Sandra (I'm the mother of a grandmother!), my granddaughter Kenzie, and baby Raegan.

The View from Thursday

This was the view out my bedroom window yesterday. The sun was just right and the crepe myrtles won't stay in bloom forever, so I took this shot so I can enjoy it even on gray days.

The title of this post is an allusion to one of my favorite YA novels, The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg, 1996.

The four sixth graders Mrs. Olinski chose for the Academic Bowl became a team by doing such things as having tea together. Yes, tea, as in tea party (see the book cover). As they prepare for the big day, the reader learns about a variety of things, such as the difference between diversity and multiculturalism, taking risks, being resourceful, saving threatened sea turtles, and calligraphy. One character retired from education because students stopped asking "Now what?" and began asking "So what?" Oh, and did I mention that their teacher is paraplegic and in a wheelchair? Because Konigsburg is such a masterful writer, I learn from this story as I enjoy being in the company of such enterprising children. One reviewer, a teacher, had this P.S. for teachers: "Excellent book to use for voice, point of view, and repetition in a story."

I seem to be reading lots more than I manage to write about, though I've started several book reviews that aren't yet complete. And here I am writing about a book I have read several times, but not recently. Oh, well, this Newbery Medal winner is worth mentioning because it's that good.

Rated: 9 of 10, an excellent book

Death and traveling ~ theme of two novels

Whirligig ~ by Paul Fleischman, 1998, YA fiction

Brent, a high school boy who feels humiliated by a girl at a party, tries to end it all in a car crash and, instead, ends up killing Lea, an innocent teenage girl. Lea's mother sets him on what seems to me a "hero's journey" by asking him to create four whirligigs from a picture of Lea and set them up at the four corners of the United States. Off he goes with an unlimited bus ticket and a backpack full of wood and tools. I especially loved this fantastic image:

He tried out the words in his head: "I'm a traveling whirligig maker." It was an interim identity, tied to his previous life. He would cast it off soon, but in favor of what? He was lodged in his own chrysalis but had no idea what he was turning into" (p. 43).

The exceptional images of this novel for young adults (YA) will stay with me. Brent travels alone, having to spend time with his thoughts, very aware of his guilty feelings about taking the life of another teenager. During the time it takes to ride north, east, south, and west across the country, Brent matures noticeably. I highly recommend the book, both for YAs and for adults, who are more aware that one slip in judgment can make a life-changing difference in the lives of all sorts of people, not just within the circle of friends and family.

Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral ~ by Kris Radish, 2006, fiction

Just as Brent's journey starts after the death of Lea, Annie G. Freeman's death initiates a journey for a select group of her friends -- because Annie, a free spirit, planned something audacious even as she was dying of cancer. The story begins when the doorbell rings just when Katherine has discovered her favorite bra is disintegrating, and a UPS woman delivers a box Katherine isn't expecting. It's a shoe box with Annie's ashes in a red high-topped sneaker. Along with the box are instructions for Katherine and several other of Annie's women friends. Her idea of scattering ashes sends them on a tour to various places, thus a "traveling funeral."

While reading this book, I asked myself, if I were planning my own traveling funeral, which friends would I choose and where would I want them to go together? Annie had to supply airline tickets for her friends to travel all over the place, but my friends could mostly get by with "traveling" around my town -- even if I sent them to Atlanta or Knoxville or Nashville, all three are within a couple of hours of Chattanooga -- and because I'm so open about sharing, I can't think of any "untold chapters" my friends would need to discover. Following Annie's friends was lots of fun, however.

I highly recommend both of these books, giving each of them a rating of 9 out of 10, excellent reading.

Would you bite?

The tree must have done it.  Last night I was reading in bed, with my cat Kiki curled up at my feet, when a book jumped off the shelf onto the floor ... loudly.  Kiki was startled and stared hard at the offending book, but neither she nor I could see any reason for it to "fall."  Granted, it was standing at the end of a row of books with nothing helping it to stand upright -- but it was in the middle of the shelf.  And it was a mere three feet to my left.   I think the tree had something to do with it.

Which book was it, you ask?  Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen that I had finished reading a few days ago.  Those of you who have read the book will understand why I'm trying to figure out how the tree threw the book at me.   I mean, it IS a book about casting spells.  And the tree in question has been known to throw apples at people.  Personally, I think the tree wants me to know I am taking far too much time getting around to writing it (the tree, I mean) into a book review.  (Aside to the tree:  "Okay, I get it!   I'm writing as fast as my little fingers can type, so don't throw any more books at me, okay?")

Claire and Sydney Waverley react very differently to being part of a curious family, which has a certain reputation in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina.  Their feisty apple tree is known to bear prophetic fruit, and edible flowers from their garden have special powers.   Claire became a successful caterer, dishing out her mystical plants, but Sydney fled their town as soon as she could.  Their elderly cousin, Evanelle, distributes unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear within days or hours.  These three, plus Sydney's young daughter Bay, are the last of the Waverleys.  The story picks up when Sydney comes home to North Carolina with her daughter and turns Claire's quiet life upside down.  The two must learn to live with each other, and there's a man involved, of course.  He's a neighbor who caused one of the sisters to ... well, let me quote the author's excellent way of showing what a kiss could do:

"She got in the van and sped away, jumping curbs and running stop signs all the way home" (p. 168).

And there's the tree.   Yes, the apple tree that throws apples to get people's attention.  Eating a bite from one of its apples foretold something about the future that caused Claire and Sydney's mother to flee from Bascom, and that profoundly influenced the course of her daughters' lives.

"The garden was quiet and damp, the temperamental apple tree at the back of the lot shivering slightly as if dreaming" (p. 5).

Taking a bite of the fruit of that tree is something to ponder.  If you knew that biting into a Waverley  apple would reveal part of your future, would you bite?  Tell us why or why not in the comments. Me?  Nah, I don't think I'd want to know.   Frankly, I think it's odd enough that THIS is the book that flew off the shelf last night in my direction, and not some other book.   (Yes, it really did happen.)  How would you explain it, if not that the book was somehow influenced by the apple tree in the story?

Garden Spells ~ by Sarah Addison Allen, magical realism, 2007
Rating: 9 of 10, excellent!

Meet my newest friend Chico

When I go walking, I talk to all the neighbors who are outside and seem friendly, and there are lots of them in my part of town. This green parrot lives on the street directly behind my house. I was visiting Lynn, my new friend who happens to be Chico's next door neighbor, when she heard Chico talking in his yard. We slipped through the trees and bushes so I could meet him, and I think he likes me! When I later suggested to someone that he probably liked the jungle on my shirt, she said it was obvious he was enjoying the company of another word person.

End of Grace ~ by K. Thomas Murphy, 2009

My eyes usually glaze over when I read that a book is a "thriller." That's not my cup of tea. But this one is somewhat different. It definitely was not the "intriguing world of murder and suspense" that drew me to the book, but the fact that it's about the Latter-Day Saints (LDS), better known as Mormons. Though I taught religions of the world at the college level for a decade, I don't know as much about the Mormon church as I would like. So I agreed to review this "thriller."

Title, author, copyright date, and genre?
End of Grace ~ by K. Thomas Murphy, 2009, fiction (okay, thriller)

Summarize the book without giving away the ending.

Publicity material says the book "explores the [Mormon] church's habit of converting millions of deceased souls into Mormonism, and turns the tables when someone starts baptizing Mormons into an alternative church. Initially deemed a nuisance, Mormon leadership reacts with sinister professionalism when it's discovered the baptisms have taken a toll on their tithing revenue stream. ... It forces the reader to wonder if churches have become all too business-like, not at the local level, but certainly at the highest bastions of power." The computer geeks who are behind this are also trying to get the LDS church to pay up to get them to stop these activities.

Were the characters and their problems believable?
The author writes very well, so yes, the characters and situations are believable. And because Murphy is a technology expert by profession, he even made me believe some of the things the characters could do with computer technology.

What do you think will be your lasting impression of this book?
I wonder if the Mormons convert (or baptize?) into their church those who have died, but since this book is fiction, I won't take it as fact unless I learn more from some other source. It's an interesting thought, but I can't think of any reason to be concerned about it. I, too, "wonder if churches have become all too business-like" (see above), but the Mormon church as portrayed in this story was not shown as business-like as much as it was portrayed as predatory and evil. Was the author trying to do with this church what Dan Brown did with the Catholic church?

How would you rate this book?
Rated 8 of 10 because it held my attention and interest.