History via Sweet Valley High

I was reading something about Prohibition and my first thought was Sweet Valley High.  Random, I know! But there is a train of thought there, I swear! 

It’s  funny how the most random things can get you interested in something totally unexpected.  When I was young, I bought one of those Sweet Valley High special books. It was a “saga” book about the Wakefields throughout history.  Basically, it starts with their mother’s ancestor coming over to the US from Sweden and follows their history until the twins’ mother.  In each case, their ancestor has a near miss of falling in love with a Wakefield ancestor.  Finally their mom meets their dad and that’s how the Wakefield sisters came to be.

But that wasn’t the great part of the book.  The great part was being introduced to the historical time periods that all these women grew up in.  Up until then, history had been boring – dry facts, memorizing years that wars had taken place in. I guess it just never connected with me that there were real people with real stories that lived this. 

It probably wasn’t the most historically accurate novel but it made me interested in learning more about history.  The first ancestor immigrated to the US .  One of her daughters wears bloomers at a time when women didn’t wear pants and runs off to join the circus.  Then she is in San Francisco for the big earthquake.  And then her daughters are young during the Roaring Twenties. I learned about bootlegging and speakeasies and Prohibition. Then her daughter is part of the French Resistance which I had never heard about before reading the book.  It made me realize that there are stories behind all these historic facts.  There are real people behind those facts.

So I started to read more about history and started to realize there’s more to it than memorizing what year a war ended.  I started to care about visiting historic sites on vacation.  Nowadays, I’ll even watch shows on the History channel.  Even though every once in a while, it brings back a memory of a Sweet Valley High book. 

I really wish I had that book still. I’m sure I would find it incredibly cheesy but I would like to reread it!

Ramona and other great characters

Is anyone else really excited about the Ramona movie?  I’m beyond jealous of all my friends who are posting on Facebook that they plan to see the movies with their daughter.  I would love to have a daughter and take her to see it and share Ramona with her.  I remember when I discovered the books in the school library and I loved them so much.  I remember (so clearly!) thinking that it was so brilliant when took one bite out of every apple because the first bite of the apple was the best.

It makes me think about how badly I want a daughter so that I can share all the great books I loved with her. Gosh, I hope when (and if) I have a daughter that she’s a reader. She’d love Ramona.  And Anne of Green Gables.  Do you remember in You’ve Got Mail when the bookshop is closing and the woman is talking to Meg Ryan.  And she tells her that her mom told her to read Anne of Green Gables with a box of tissues and I always end up crying too thinking that you absolutely need a box of tissues for Anne of Green Gables.  Because that part when Anne is complaining that what Matthew really needed was a boy to help on the farm and he tells her that boy didn’t win the scholarship, a girl did and it was her.  God, it makes me bawl every time.  Even more than when Matthew dies.

And The Westing Game and Turtle!  What a fun and awesome book and so great to reread afterwards to see if you can figure it all out!  And The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  I so wanted to run away to a museum and every time I look at furniture displays in museums, I think about that book.

I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s a girl or a boy – I just hope they like to read and will love the books that I loved too.

The Postmistress: Book Review

Have I mentioned that I have a Kindle?  My husband bought me one last March as a surprise and I love it.  Best purchase he/I ever made.  I thought I would miss the feeling of reading real books but I don’t!  How cool is it to download a sample of a book to see if you’ll like it and then be able to download the rest when you decide that you do!  Instantaneous book shopping from the comfort of your bed.  But sometimes this sample thing backfires.

It kind of did when I bought The Postmistress by Sarah Blake.  Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t hate the book. But I was disappointed with it. I downloaded the sample and the first chapter starts out with a woman starting to tell a story.  And she asks the people around her what they would think about a postmistress during World War II who decided not to deliver a letter.  The people were all in shock.  During those times, letters were how you communicated and information was passed.

At this point, I was hooked. I didn’t bother reading the rest of the sample, I immediately bought the book on my Kindle and dove in.  And then I waited and waited and waited for this pivotal point where the postmistress decides not to deliver a letter.  And then when it came, it was so anti-climactic.  I was imaging her stopping letters from spies or something war-related and it was so not about that at all.  Now, this isn’t to say that the book wasn’t good! Because I thought it was!

Set during World War II times, it tells the story of Frankie Bard, a female journalist in London covering the war.  She works with Edward Murrow and reports back to America about the Blitz and what is going on in London.  And because of a friend, she starts to get interested in what is happening to the Jews in Europe. 

The other part of the story takes place in a town in Cape Cod where the postmistress is very particular about how her job gets done and following the rules of the US Postal Service.  In a way, she knows a lot about the people’s lives because she sees their mail every day.  She is particularly involved in Emma Fitch’s life.  Emma is the young doctor’s wife and after the doctor loses a patient, he goes to London to help in the hospitals during the Blitz.  Emma goes to the post office every day to pick up a letter from him and fears that one day there will be no letter.

There are other interesting characters and while I enjoyed being a part of their lives for a bit, I felt disappointed in the end.  It didn’t all come together as I had hoped and I left myself wondering what happened to the people.  Perhaps this was the author’s intent though.   A recurring theme in the book is that Frankie and her audience don’t know what happen to people after she reports on them.  For example, while she is in Europe, she goes to Germany and France with a portable recorder and starts recording the Jews who are travelling on the trains but never knows what happens to them when they leave the train.  So maybe the author meant to leave us wondering about these people in this town because once they are out of our sight, we don’t know what happens to them.

I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more if not for the preface that made me expect a completely different kind of book.  But then maybe I wouldn’t have been so sucked into the story had that preface not been included.

RIP JD Salinger

I know this might be controversial. People have very definite opinions on how they feel about JD Salinger and I was one of the ones who loved his writing.  Catcher in the Rye was one of the first books I ever read for school that I loved.  We were supposed to be reading so many pages a week and I devoured the entire thing in a weekend. I couldn’t believe they were “forcing us to read” such an amazing book.  I never realized that classics could actually be entertaining and it opened up my eyes and made me look at all those books they were forcing me to read with a more open mind. I stopped reading so much trash and started reading the classics.  If it wasn’t for Catcher in the Rye, I would have never taken The Great Gatsby seriously. I would have skimmed it to pass the test and been done with it.

After Catcher in the Rye, I bought every other book that he published.  All of them white paperbacks with just those little stripes on the corner and the title printed in black letters on the front.  Those little white paperbacks are much dirtier now.  From being shoved into bags, from being reread, from being underlined.  Franny and Zooey was my favorite.  On our third date, my husband bought me a hardcover edition of it because he knew how much I liked it.  Even though it was a sweet thought, when I want to read it again, I go back to my paperback.  It’s well loved and practically falls open to my favorite parts and makes me feel like I’m in my parent’s house or a college dorm room, lying on a twin bed, listening to the radio (with commercials! Oh the horror!) and lost in the strange Glass family, half wishing I was one of them. 

I know this is going to sound totally unoriginal.  I’m sure a million people have said it before.  And I’m sure people are saying it again today.  But sometimes feelings aren’t original.  There’s a part in Catcher in the Rye where Holden is talking about some book he read.  And he’s talking about how sometimes after he reads a book, he wishes he was friends with the author and he could call them up and talk to them about it.  I felt that way about JD Salinger.  And I know he was a recluse and I know that he would not at all appreciate it if I had ever tried. But I don’t care.  When I heard he died, I was sad.  Because I wish I had known him so I could tell him how great it was to have his words on the nights when I was lonely or sad and felt like I didn’t have anything else.

When We Were Romans: Book Review

Just a note upfront (even thought it seems little silly since I get about six hits a day and no one is going to send me free books to review) but I bought this book all on my lonesome and am in no way being compensated for this review:

I picked up When We Were Romans: A Novel by Matt Kneale because I read a review somewhere (can’t remember where) that compared it favorably to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.  Curious Incident (as I refer to it because I can never quite remember the full title) was a book I really enjoyed reading because I love the switch up of having the narrative be told from the first person point of view of an autistic person. 

When We Were Romans, on the other hand, is told from the point of view of a nine year old boy named Lawrence.  One morning, Lawrence’s mother packs up their car and takes him and his younger sister on a road trip to Rome because she is afraid her ex-husband (their father) is stalking them.   She had lived in Rome before getting married and having children and still had friends there that they would visit and stay with. She remembers many happy times in Rome and is thrilled to be returning.

I thought it was amazing the way that Kneale captured the voice of a nine year old boy.  He is protective of his mother and worries about people upsetting her or hurting her.  He gets angry at her and his sister but can be placated with treats or toys.  He retells stories that he’s read about emperors and Popes in his own words, complete with misspellings and other errors. In other words, he’s nine.  And somehow it’s believable that this story is being told by a nine year old who doesn’t have a big picture of the world or enough experience to understand everything.   He’s just trying to protect his mom and not scare his sister all while on the run from his father.  And all while experiencing Rome and his mother’s old friends. 

I don’t want to say too much more so I don’t ruin the book for anyone because it’s interesting to read it and watch the story unfold through Lawrence’s eyes.  I think it’s enough to say that I highly recommend this book, especially to those who have read Curious Incident and enjoyed it.