The Garden of Fertility; Your Fertility Signals

The gold standard book for Fertility Awareness is Toni Weschler's Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I think a class on this should be taught to girls instead of that dumb "Welcome to adolescence, here's some deodorant" speech we got in my school. FA (fertility awareness) is all about knowing your body, knowing what's normal for you, and understanding what your body does, understanding how to get pregnant and how not to get pregnant, when you're healthy and when you're not. Doesn't that sound like vital information for girls? Yet I didn't hear about this, really, until after my first child was born. Thus: if you are a girl/woman, you should look into this! It's very empowering to not have your body be such a mystery anymore.

Anyway. So I read two more FA books recently; one was good, the other, not very helpful at all. The Garden of Fertility, by Katie Singer, was an excellent addition to TCOYF, with lots more about how you can use your FA to gauge your own health, and about how things like diet can affect your fertility, and what you can do about it. I loved it. Your Fertility Signals, by Merryl Winstein, struck me as more of a "fertility for dummies" book, but the problem was, it tried to be short'n'sweet and just ended up being too vague, and slightly confusing. At least to me.

So if you're going to read just one fertility awareness book, and you're daunted by the immensity of TCOYF, definitely go for The Garden of Fertility. If you just need a quick refresher or just want the absolute bare bones, you could try the other one, but it seemed much less helpful to me.

Either way, if you haven't read a book about FA, then please do!

The Sugar Queen

I love Sarah Addison Allen. I picked up her first book, Garden Spells, about a year ago, because I heard about her locally (she's from Asheville, NC), and my mom said she thought her books sounded interesting. Well, they did not disappoint! That one and this, The Sugar Queen, are both just magical, and I mean that in a literal as well as figurative sense. The writing just draws you in and the world the characters live in is just a little more full of magic than the one you and I might think of. The author's style is "magical realism" so the story is not focused on the magic, but is a well-written story in which you get so caught up in the characters you love and the writing is so good that the extra little bits of magic that happen to be present just enhance the story perfectly, instead of being cheesy or taking the whole thing over. I liked GS better than TSQ but really, they're both great. I can't wait to read another by this author.

Getting Rid of Bradley; Bet Me

Jennifer Crusie. Gotta love her. I don't think I ever read a book of hers I just outright disliked. I'd already read Bet Me, and it's probably my second-favorite of hers (after Welcome to Temptation); Getting Rid of Bradley was new to me, but actually one of her older ones, and it was still good Crusie fun but not anywhere close to being MY favorite of hers. They're just romances that are well-written, have GREAT dialogue and actually have interesting fun plots and I just completely love Crusie's writing style. Highly recommended, although like I said, Bet Me is way up at the top of my favorites list and Bradley was fairly low. But low for Crusie is still far better than your average "good romance." Seriously.

I Capture the Castle

This book, by Dodie Smith, is one of my new all-time favorites. It was GREAT!

It's a book about a 17-year-old girl in England in the 1930s, about her family's poverty and then changing circumstances, and about her growing up emotionally. Cassandra, the main character, has got to be one of my favorite protagonists ever. Although our circumstances are wildly different, I could relate to her--she seemed like a real person. The only thing that ever seemed a little false was her naivete--and of course another character discusses her character flaw of being "consciously naive," so that was appropriate. The characters were all just so real to me. Great writing. And framing the book as Cassandra's journal worked wonderfully.

I loved the secondary characters as well, especially the stepmom. Charley at Bending Bookshelf said the same thing in her review. What a hoot! I definitely didn't expect to laugh out loud at this book, but I did. Here's one quote from the feeling-nostalgic stepmom I particularly enjoyed, from p. 111:

"Look, Mortmain, look! Oh, don't you long to be an old, old man in a lamp-lit inn?"
"Yes, particularly one with rheumatism," said father. "My dear, you're an ass."

Another passage (from p. 258-9) that I enjoyed had to do with Cassandra riding on the train with her dog:

"She behaved beautifully on the journey, except that after we changed into the London trian she took a little boy's cake away from him. I quickly thanked him for giving it to her and he took my word for it that he had meant to."

Yet another thing I loved about this book, that made it seem all the more real, is how Cassandra often mentioned famous female characters in other novels and thought about them in her day-to-day life...sound familiar? Because I think quite a few book-lovers I know could relate to that part! =) Here's one of the best "she's-so-literary" quotes, from p. 233:

"I never had madeira before and it was lovely--the idea almost more than the taste, because it made me feel I was paying a morning call in an old novel. For a moment I drew away from myself and thought: 'Poor Cassandra! No, it never comes right for her. She goes into a decline."

The author had a great sense of humor. So much fun! And the story itself just seems so timeless. As it must be, since this book was published in 1948. Highly recommended!

The $64 Tomato; Enslaved By Ducks; Marley and Me

These three books are all different--one on gardening, one on unusual pets, one on a particularly quirky dog--but they have an underlying theme, a very similar voice, if you will, so I decided to review them all together.

Well, that and I'm pressed for time. =)

Anyway. I got The $64 Tomato, by William Alexander, is ostensibly a memoir about a man's gardening experiences, which sounded like just what i need. But. It turned out to begin with a litany of complaints about the landscapers and the ditch-diggers and the lawn care guys and blah blah blah he's got a bunch of money and he pays people to do a bunch of crap I don't care about, NOT GARDENING. Then he turns to trying to grow pesticide-free apple trees, the conclusion of which was extremely frustrating to me. Let me sum up: "Theoretically I'm against pesticides, but I'm too lazy to research more that can be done, so I'll use them for myself so I can get apples. Ha ha ha, I was so naive to think I didn't need them." Gag me. So I stopped reading it. This one was obviously not my favorite.

Enslaved by Ducks, by Bob Tarte, has been on my reading list for a long long time, since I first saw it in a Chinaberry magazine. This guy somehow (mysteriously, according to him) got himself involved with a menagerie including 5 or 6 house birds, two cats, maybe 7 ducks, 3 bunnies (although not at once) and maybe a few others. They're all neurotic and demanding and do silly things. The book, however, didn't keep my interest as I hoped it would. It was mildly funny. It was interesting in that I learned some things about ducks that I didn't know, and about being cautious and prepared when choosing what breed of animal you would like. But yeah. Just not nearly as great and heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny as I had heard, and hoped.

But Marley and Me (by John Grogan)? It was everything I just mentioned Ducks wasn't. I laughed out loud a million times. I cried at least twice. I just loved it. I think that's because it has so much more about the man's family and real life in it than the other two, where family plays a more peripheral role. I obviously care a lot more about family and babies and puppies than about budgies and parrots and malathion*, thus the progression of favor these books found with me. Tomato bad, Ducks okay, Marley good. And there you have it.

As for the similarities, I honestly thought the same guy could have written all three books, so similar was the flow of the narrative and the vocabulary and expressions used. Books by middle-aged guys in which they reflect back on their naivete and complain a lot and try to be funny are apparently popular right now. Just be aware that some of them are faaaaaaaaaaar superior to others. And, to be fair, that that might depend on where you are in your own life journey, and what things you value. Duh.

*Okay, maybe I do care about malathion. But in a very different way than the author did. Yuck.

The Story of B

I read this book a couple of weeks ago, but I never got around to reviewing it because I wanted the review to be something special. See, the book itself, by Daniel Quinn, is not really very different from Ishmael. Much of the story is the same, which is to say, it's actually a series of lectures about how we look at the world and what we might ought to rethink. (You like my Oklahoma-ism there? Might ought? Such a great way to express that. Wait. Is that an Oklahomaism? Or would that be might should? Hm. Food for thought.)

But the effect it had on me this time, for my personal life and living everyday, was much greater. I liked Ishmael's point but I thought it didn't apply to me as much in that I was already heading in that direction, it didn't give me a lot to think about that I'd never ever ever thought of before, it just sort of highlighted it for me. Still important, but this time I feel even more spurred into action, and I've realized what it is that I can and should be doing to help.

Anyway...this story is about a priest who is asked to investigate the teachings of a person who is called B, with the intent of finding out if he might be the Antichrist. I have to say I liked the actual STORY part of this book better than Ishmael, but it's still obviously not the point of the book, I think. I think the point of the book is to get the message across, and in that way, I loved the ending. But also, this book reminded me of something very important. You see, I tend to be of the "live and let live" school of thought. I often just sit there and stay quiet, stay under cover really, when people say things that I think are outrageous, or misguided, or whatever. For an example, when a certain person I know was discussing alligators and crocodiles and how she doesn't see any point to their existence and we don't need them and let's get rid of them all and blah blah blah...I was thinking Good Lord, how self-centered can humankind be, that if we don't personally recognize a need we have for them we think they shouldn't exist? It's not like they're a threat to her, it's not like she's ever going to see one face to face, but we humans seem to have a lot of trouble letting other creatures be...we seem to think we need to control it all, a right to control it all, and I think that is oh-so-wrong. But I didn't say anything. I just sat there.

Not anymore. This book reminded me that it's important to spread your message. Especially when that message might help some people stop thinking in ways that are potentially going to be very detrimental to life on this planet. Of course, the croc example is just a very minor, minute kind of example of more broad ways of thinking, but if I want my children and my children's children and so on to have a real chance at living sustainably on this earth instead of destroying it, it starts with me. And, I want my children to know how I feel about things, what my values are. I can't do that without putting them out there!

Therefore, read The Story of B. Everyone should at least be exposed to its ideas, whether or not you agree. And for the record, I don't necessarily agree with every single piece of the lectures. But for the most part, I think these are things people need to be considering and sharing with others. And now that's what I'm going to try to do more of.

The Ten-Year Nap

I added this book by Meg Wolitzer to my to-read list when I read this review on Ask Moxie. I couldn't resist reading a book about mothers thinking about where they've ended up compared to where they thought they'd be, among other topics. And I have to say, I am so glad I picked this one up. The writing is golden, beautiful and spot-on. So many things the mothers were thinking were real and true and spelled out things I had certainly felt but hadn't quite ever understood so clearly. Amazing.

Also, the way the book is written is lovely, because you the reader go back and forth between several 40-year-old women in New York City today, their mothers when they were 40, and a couple of passages about the husbands that are simply breathtaking. I can't say enough how wonderful the writing is, and how well I think the author addressed the topic at hand, which is to say, a very complex social issue that more often than not provokes strong feelings and arguments. Instead, this book is true and thoughtful and I loved it.

That being said, I'm not sure exactly what I thought about the ending yet. But that truly wasn't terribly important to me. It was the day-to-day, real-life feel of the writing that I loved the best, that and the connection I could feel and the....relief that other women feel this way too, that it's hard to find balance in your life, it's hard to feel devalued because you don't have a passionate career, etc.

Oh, also, the blurb in the book jacket? Total crap. It said something like "Four women friends...blahblahblah...midlife blah...shocking event changes everything...yadayada." Not the point of the book at all. No shocking event, although there was one thing that happened that I think they were talking about, but it didn't affect the friendships in the group in some catastrophic way. Just fyi. Don't read the book for the blurb, in other words. Luckily, it's much better than that.

A terrific find.

In Defense of Food

This is Michael Pollan's latest. A couple of years ago he published The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has been quite popular, and was quite good, and I happen to like this one even more. In both books, he examines American eating habits and the impact and morality behind different sources of our food and ways of eating--but this book is much more about what we can do about it, how we can, as he says, "escape" from The American Way of eating, which is so bad for us and for the world.

The book's advice can really be summed up quite easily, as is proclaimed on the front cover: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. But the author really delves into how we can navigate this somewhat obscure directive, as well as why it's so difficult for us to do that in the prevalent food climate.

Here's most of his advice points, taken from the last third of the book. My additions are in parentheses and are not in italics.

Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.

Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high fructose corn syrup.

Avoid food products that make health claims. For a food product to make health claims on its package it must first have a package, so right off the bat it's more likely to be a processed than a whole food.

Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. (He goes on to suggest farmers' markets, CSAs, and growing your own.)

You are what what you eat eats too. (Thus feedlot cattle are not nearly as healthy for you to consume as 100% grass-fed.)

Eat like an omnivore. (Biodiversity is a good thing, for quite a few reasons.)

If you have the space, buy a freezer. (You can get a lot of good quality meat at once for cheaper...You can buy in season at the farmer's market and freeze for year-round local produce...)

Eat well-grown food from healthy soils. (How we treat the earth can affect the nutritional quality of our food. Thus, organic practices ARE important for our health in ways we might not have noticed or thought of before.)

Eat wild foods when you can.

Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism. (Sure, maybe someone might come along with one that might be good for you or at least not bad for you. But history is not behind that claim.)

Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet. (Don't try to isolate the omega-3 from the fish, for example.)

Pay more, eat less. (Your food dollar can work for you and for the world in this way.)

Do all your eating at a table.

Try not to eat alone.

Prodigal Summer

I am a huge fan of Barbara Kingsolver, and it seems like I might just read all her books in the period of a couple of months--although for most of them it's a re-read. This one is my hands-down favorite of all her fiction. It is dear to my heart. It's about the connection of all living things and how fragile it is, how easy to upset. It's about challenging the human mistake of thinking that we are more important than other living things. It's about human relationships with other humans and with nature. It's about respecting nature. And it's also about some real, true people, people you care about, people you could meet on the street or at your local library.

This is the book I chose for my book club this month, and I have to say, no one else LOVED it the way I do. But I feel like much of this is due to the strong ties I have to the ideas in the book, the relevance it has to my life, and the affinity I have for this author, and the fact that, for example, one of the girls who didn't like it is just in a completely different place in her life than I am in mine. It was great to get to discuss this book with others, though, because I have a hard time figuring out how "outsiders" might view this book. To me, it's so lively and brilliant, and I love how it combines the author's passion for the topics with the truth of a really great novel. So it was good to hear that others picked up on the little details the author drops in your lap and then ties together later, and that the dialogue is for the most part very real-feeling. And interesting and fabulous to get to discuss the ideas of the book more in-depth. We had a great discussion on predators and why humans fear them and want to eradicate them and how damaging that practice is to the whole world, humans included.

One of my all-time favorites, still. LOVE IT!

The Band Never Dances

This young adult book, by J.D. Landis, was one of my very favorites as a pre-teen. It's about a 16-year-old girl who is the drummer in a band that becomes hugely famous, so it made me feel cool and hip and in the know about all these fashionable things like being in a band and being on the radio and yada yada. Plus, the writing is just great. There are a couple of great zingers that I love that really get me.

And I say this having read this book for the first time in maybe 10 years, probably more like 15. Well...that's probably not true...I probably did pick it up in college at some point. But you get the point--this was the first time I've read this book in my "adult" life, and I still love it.

Although of course now the whole thing seems very, very unreal and fantastical in a way that it didn't when I wasn't so grown-up and know-it-all-ish. Ha ha ha. The thing that was most unreal to me was that a 16-year-old would be so self-aware and mature. It could happen. But seems unlikely when said 16-year-old also becomes the most famous person on the planet. Oh well.

Here's one of my favorite quotes, with names changed to protect the innocent who have yet to read the book and don't want the ending spoiled:

"Forrest...sent us an invitation asking if we would play at their wedding....Elvis was the best man...Elvis made a speech at the reception and wished Forrest and Bambi a happy and fruitful life. Little did he know that nine months later there would be a beautiful piece of fruit, boy fruit, and that he would be named Elvis."

..."boy fruit," that gets me every time! =)

Welcome to Temptation

This is another Jennifer Crusie romance, my very favorite of hers. It has such great, funny dialogue, and seems so real even though the plot is completely impossible, and I'm still not sure exactly what makes me love it so much but I do.

But WARNING. Because the plot includes quite a lot of risky business, for example, whether or not it's legal to make movies with explicit scenes in them in the Temptation city limits. Not for those who want a book with unquestionable morals, ha ha.

That Old Ace in the Hole

It's official. I love Annie Proulx.

This was the first book I read this year, and what a way to start off. I read Ms. Proulx's The Shipping News last year and really liked it, but this one was even better for me because the subject matter was closer to home. This book is about the characters of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, and a little bit of the history of the area, and the problems it faces. There are a million fun, quirky, and lovable-if-slightly-damaged inhabitants of the small towns the protagonist travels through. And my very favorite part was having my brain repopulated with the cadences of that area--I didn't always agree with the author's rendition of certain words, but she did a great job getting that talk into my head, and it was comforting to me like a happy childhood memory.

Just wonderful.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This is another Barbara Kingsolver (yes, my life is full of her books lately. It's a good thing.). It's also another of my "personal philosophy" books. And it's especially interesting to me because I enjoy books with combined elements like this one has--it contains personal elements of the life of one of my favorite authors, as well as the chronicle of one year of their lives in which they vow to get all their food locally and in season, as well as the history of many different areas of agriculture, and why it's important to buy local and grow your own.

The writing is lovely, the recipes sound delicious, and at the end, I feel much more connected to what's on my plate and more motivated to remember the intrinsic human skill of providing for myself. Good stuff. A great last read of the year.

Small Wonder

It seems I always find myself re-reading my "personal philosophy" books at the end of the year. Perhaps this is just a good time to reaffirm my personal values, what's important to me, how I want to live my life, as we face a new year and new beginnings. Having Faith and Easy to Love are two such books, and this is a third. It's by Barbara Kingsolver, and it's a collection of essays that are beautifully written and passionately argued, all about why we should care about things like genetic engineering and heirloom plants, or why we should think carefully about war as a solution to violence. As the quote on the front says, it's "A passionate invitation to readers to be a part of the crowd that cares about the environment, peace, and family." And as I mentioned, it helps me remember how important certain things are and helps me feel galvanized for the new year, to keep these things prioritized in my life and in my growing family. This is one of my all-time favorite books as well.

A couple of quotes I like to keep in mind follow. There would be more, and maybe a more comprehensive set, if it weren't for the fact that my husband needs the computer in a minute. =)

Page 39: "What we lose in our great human exodus from the land is a rooted sense, as deep and intangible as religious faith, of why we need to hold on to the wild and beautiful places that once surrounded us. We seem to succumb so easily to the prevailing human tendency to pave such places over, build subdivisions upon them and name them The Willows, or Peregrine's Roost, or Elk Meadows, after whatever it was that got killed there....Barry Lopez writes that if we hope to succeed in the endeavor of protecting natures other than our own, 'it will require that we reimagine our lives...It will require of many of us a humanity we've not yet mustered, and a grace we were not aware we desired until we had tasted it.' And yet no endeavor could be more crucial at this moment. Protecting the land that once provided us with our genesis may turn out to be the only real story there is for us. The land still provides our genesis, however we might like to forget that our food comes from dank, muddy earth, that the oxygen in our lungs was recently inside a leaf, and that every newspaper or book we may pick up...is made from the hearts of trees that died for the sake of our imagined lives."

Page 248-9: "Most of the time I go right on growing tomatoes and basil and broccoli simply because they are good, we like them...I do it because the world has announced to me, loudly, that it's time to make a choice between infinite material entitlement or a more modest, self-reliant security, and this is a step I can take in the right direction."

Page 262: "Every time I read an argument justifying further oil drilling in sensitive places, I notice that it begins with the caveat, 'Unless Americans are wiling to accept a drastic lifestyle change.' As if that were the one thing that could never happen. As if many new kinds of shortage weren't already on the docket, scheduled for arrival, period, before my kids get to be my age. Scientists have been trying gently to remind us that the 'fossil' in fossil fuel is not a metaphor or a simile. That oil is going to dry up eventually, and no political voodoo can indocue dinosaurs or prehistoric fern forests to lie down and press themselves into more ooze for us on the timetable we require."

Having Faith

This is another of my all-time favorites. I think this is a must-read for absolutely everyone who cares at all about our world and its future, and also for those who don't! I reviewed it last year, so please go read that for my complete explanation and opinion.

Meanwhile, here are some of my favorite passages. Perhaps they can show you how beautiful the writing is, how it captures some of the most special and sacred moments of pregnancy and parenthood, and how well the author touches on the interconnectedness of everything, and how we can't escape from our pollution, how instead we have to stop and solve it.

Page 66: "Before it is drinking water, amniotic fluid is the creeks and rivers that fill reservoirs. It is the underground water that fills wells. And before it is creeks and rivers and groundwater, amniotic fluid is rain. When I hold in my hands a tube of my own amniotic fluid, I am holding a tube full of raindrops. Amniotic fluid is also the juice of oranges that I had for breakfast, and the milk that I poured over my cereal, and the honey I stirred into my tea. It is inside the green cells of spinach leaves and the damp flesh of apples. It is the yolk of an egg. When I look at amniotic fluid, I am looking at rain falling on orange groves. I am looking at melon fields, potatoes in wet earth, frost on pasture grasses. The blood of cows and chickens is in this tube. Whatever is inside hummingbird eggs is also inside my womb. Whatever is in the world's water is here in my hands."

Page 128: "Obviously, a public health policy that asks expectant mothers to give up certain foods while allowing industries to continue contaminating them is absurd."

Page 130: "If our daughter asks, 'What's a trout stream?' what will I say? Will I explain that freshwater trout are now among the most contaminated fish in America, far too poisonous for her to eat? Will I tell her that our government is willing to warn her against eating trout but reluctant to stop the trout from being poisoned in the first place?"

Page 266: "But then, everything that toddlers do seems alarming and grotesque to first-time parents of infants. Compared to one's own sweet babe, who coos and waves her hands so delicately in the air, toddlers are a tribe of dangerous giants. As though your child would never ever become one of them. The feelings that the parents of toddlers have for tiny babies aren't exactly reciprocal--although I confess feeling vague pity for the proud parents of one newborn in the pediatrician's office recently. She just looked so puny and uninteresting."

Page 274: "I also believe these kinds of risk/benefit analyses are an unhelpful approach to the problem of chemical contaminants in breast milk. They offer no solutions. The usual recommendation that follows from them--'Just keep nursing because the benefits outweigh the risks'--means that we nursing mothers should take no action until our milk becomes so contaminated as to pose as many risks as formula. In other words, until breast milk, like formula, kills 4,000 U.S. infants a year. (This figure is the experts' best estimate of the annual number of infant deaths--from infectious diseases and other causes--attributable to lack of breastfeeding.) Risk/benefit analyses imply that as long as one danger (breastfeeding) is less than another (failure to breastfeed), we should accept the lesser danger--even though it still necessitates endangering our children. The narrow duality of the equatio leaves no room for the proposition that feeding our infants industrial poisons is unacceptable. Period."

Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline

I love this book, by Becky Bailey. It just might be my #1 parenting book ever.

That being said, I also hate the title. It makes it sound like A) it will teach you how to be a "discipliner," and B) parenting is tough and no fun. Neither of these are a true reflection of the book's contents, and this frustrates me endlessly! I get upset when books are not accurately titled.

Another criticism of this book is that its layout may be a little daunting--"7 powers for self-control" leading to "7 basic discipline skills" leading to "7 values for living." Seems somewhat regimented if that's all you look at--but it's easy to look beyond the structure and read the very helpful and fascinating content.

Anyway. This book is all about how you can't teach your children values and behaviors that you cannot do yourself--so before you begin to discipline your children, you must learn to discipline yourself. However, what the author means by discipline is really how to learn from your mistakes instead of beating yourself up about them. The book also addresses the fact that you cannot MAKE your children do anything. Think about that for a minute. You can't actually MAKE your children eat vegetables beyond force-feeding them in a specific instance (which could be considered child abuse at a certain point). You can't MAKE them "be nice." All you can do is help them learn how to achieve these things through trial and error, which is what being a kid is all about.

ALSO...this means that other people can't make YOU do anything. If you're mad at traffic, you're choosing to be mad at traffic. If you're having trouble sticking to your new diet, it's because you're choosing to eat a food that's not on your diet plan. Thus, you are free to decide NOT to eat that food or NOT to be irritated by bad drivers. To me this has serious potential to change not only the way we treat our children but the way we treat ourselves and the amount of independence and choice we have in our daily lives.

LOVE IT!

Stuart Little

I re-read this classic kids' book, by E.B. White, in about 15 minutes the other night. It was quite fun, but I was surprised by my lack of memory about it. In other words...I totally forgot that it's about the journey, not the destination. I was surprised when it ended long before Stuart ever got to where he was headed.

Other than that, smashing good fun, and probably something James will be ready to hear next year. Yay!

Ishmael

This book, by Daniel Quinn, is one of those that I think everyone should be required to read. It's about a man who meets a gorilla, and the gorilla becomes the teacher, along the way showing the man all the ways that humankind have gotten it wrong, and how simple it can really be. It's just a fantastic example of that kind of writing which is educational or informative without ever losing sight of the fact that it's a work of fiction and has a story to tell.

That being said, of course there are several points that I have BIG problems with. But the main thrust of the story, that practically all humankind today is entirely too self-centered and wasteful and will ultimately end itself if it doesn't change? That's something I think we need to hear. I think this book is a wonderful thought-provoker. READ IT! And then let's talk.

Oh, and by the way? If you read this right before Christmas, it's even more disturbing. Talk about consumerism. Holy cow.

Holes

Louis Sachar. One of my favorite kids' books EVER. Perfect in plot and details. Fun, funny, sweet, mysterious. Love it!

(I would say it is at around a 9- or 10-year-old reading level. Don't really know, but it's very easy reading.)

Julia's Chocolates

This is my new favorite book. It's by Cathy Lamb, and it is just about perfect. It's sweet and hopeful, hilarious and real. It's about a group of women you will love, laugh and cry with, and not want to leave at the end of the book--or at least, that's how I feel about them.

It's interesting that this author took so many serious subjects--abuse, unhappy marriages, bad health, emotional difficulties, feminism and finding your true self--and turned it into such a beautiful and lovely book. I can't wait to read her next!

My only criticism might be that at the beginning I was a little distracted by the flow of the language. It was sort of...messy, although not technically wrong or anything. But as I got caught up in the story and with the characters, I liked it more and more, so keep that in mind if you have any trouble at the beginning. Now go read it!