Room

Room, Emma Donoghue

I started this one, put it down, came back to it. The concept is fascinating and I really wanted to love it. But I had to get through the first section before I could.

In an interview at the back of the book, Donoghue says that people will love the first part or the last part. Boy, she wasn't kidding! I liked the story of the first part- while Jack and Ma are still in captivity- but the storytelling made me want to do violent things to my copy (which, I promise I would never do).

The whole book is told by Jack, a five-year-old boy born and raised in a single room. His mother was kidnapped at 19. All he knows is Room. He gives titles to the objects in his room, much like the language of A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh series. And I love that! I have written a few essays about "proper verbs" and how this incorrect grammar actually represents ideas about language that children have but don't have words for. So that part was good and gave me hope for the rest of it. But it soon became difficult to believe Jack.

Given the headlines about children born in captivity- Jaycee Dugard (who was found after Room was written) or Elisabeth Fritzl- Jack's perspective is sadly believable. But what he knows and doesn't know is so unbelievable that I hated the first half of the book. He watches tv and listens to the radio, but doesn't know there is anything outside of Room. He watches cooking shows, but says Ma "hottens" food. At age five, he knows how to read and multiply but says if he touches the stove the red would spread to his clothes- even though he knows the word fire. It's this bizarre inconsistency that made the first half difficult to get into.

Then the break comes. Ma, who remembers Outside but has spent five years teaching Jack that there is only Room, wants out. She has to undo all the lies she has told and put her baby in the most extreme danger. Here's where it gets better.

After a milder escape and rescue than one might imagine, Ma and Jack move out of Room and into a psychiatric clinic. Ma is relieved to be out of captivity; Jack wants to return to the only world he's ever known. Together, they have to navigate a new life. The second half if painful and joyful, endearing and heart-wrenching. And makes the whole novel readable.

I don't know how they are making a movie with so much exposition from a five-year-old, but I hope the film version manages to be as realistic as the book and doesn't sensationalize an already outrageous story.

Room gets off to a rough start, but earns 3 Marias overall.

Reading Aloud

I recently attended a webinar by Andrew Pudewa, founder of the Institute for Excellence in Writing, also known as "the funny man with the wonderful words." Mr. Pudewa is indeed a funny man who presents an engaging approach to teaching language arts at home and in the classroom. We are about to start our second year of IEW, but I'm not here to talk about homeschooling exactly.

The webinar was about how to develop a broad vocabulary in children, and one of the best ways to do this is to read aloud. Now, as a busy mom, I had kind of gotten to the point where reading aloud was losing priority because our oldest can read- he finished the Harry Potter series in a matter of days. Surely that is improving his vocabulary, right? Well, it turns out, just reading is not as magical as I would have thought. So, after about an hour with Mr. Pudewa (or just Pudewa as he is known around our house), I realized I needed to be reading aloud to all my children. And not just Go, Dog, Go for the zillionth time.

Next I was faced with the task of picking the best titles to read to three children, ranging from 3 to 8 years old, with a variety of interests. The oldest loves magical adventure stories, while the middle is easily frightened. The younger two don't flinch at death, while the oldest is compassionate. I wanted to include strong female characters, too. So from the bookshelf, I selected our first (even though we've done this before) Read Aloud:

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis

Before I started reading, I explained to my daughter that this is one of my favorite childhood books. I told her that sometimes she reminds me of Lucy. I left out the part about pretending to be Lucy when I was a child, but it's true.

The story is not overly complicated. Four children stumble upon a magical kingdom where the White Witch has cast a spell that makes it always winter and never Christmas. The children meet talking animals and magical creatures on an adventure that lasts a lifetime or only a few seconds.

Girl-child is the only one who sat through the entire reading, but something I caught Oldest-boy standing in the hall listening in. Everyone followed the story well enough, even the 3-year-old. There were plenty of new words to absorb; I was occasionally stopped to define one. But overall, it was understood enough to make a story. There are, of course, subtleties in the writing (Spare Oom, for example) that the children will not appreciate until they read this one on their own. But we had fun reading it together- summarizing, making predictions, and imagining how we might find our way to Narnia.

As I mentioned before, this is one of my favorite childhood books, so it earns a permanent place on the bookshelf with (surprise) five Marias. But in addition to the rating, I want to encourage parents and teachers to read aloud, even to children who can read. It has made a subtle, positive impact on our days and is now one of the things I look forward to the most.

Chapter 40: A Play

A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare
No Fear Shakespeare Edition

I have never used Cliff Notes, Spark Notes, etc. Ever. Because when I was in school, they were seen as an excuse to know enough to pass a test without reading a book instead of as a study guide. But this was the only version of MSND that was available at my library, so I checked it out.

We've been doing this thing in our homeschool where we spend some time in the mornings doing something with the arts. We've memorized Jabberwocky and watched OK Go videos. Soon we will begin reading some Shakespeare. Before I try to teach my kids something, I probably should have a grasp for it. So this kills two birds with one stone.

I'm not going to go much into the actual play. It's Shakespeare. He's great. It's great. Blah, blah, blah. But I would like to talk about this side-by-side edition. I think it's a great way to make complicated language accessible to more people. I still read the original text, but it was easy to find a modern translation if I was unsure of my own. For the most part, I got it. But there were times that a minor change affected the story. Now, I'm not going to pretend that I caught all the subtleties of the Bard's writing- far from it. But having the translation *right there* gave me more confidence as I read the lines. It took a lot of the intimidation out- which is just awesome. If I worry and struggle- and we all know how much I love to read- then imagine someone who doesn't. Imagine a student whose family speaks another language at home. Imagine a person who thinks very logically and has difficulty understanding flowery or figurative language. This little book could make a world of difference for them. How cool is that?!?

When I was in high school, I had an English teacher who loved to teach Shakespeare. She was a very prim and proper woman, one might even accuse her of being dour. But she got a sparkle in her eye when talking about ol' Bill. She led a field trip to Canada every year so students could see multiple plays in a weekend. She had a gift for making Shakespeare relatable to many teenagers, including explaining the dirty jokes. This edition was like having Mrs. Burns reading beside me and telling me the secrets. I like to think she would approve of a study guide.

I'm not really sure how to rate this one. It's a different kind of review. I'll definitely use this series of guides to help my kids and myself with literature, but I wouldn't just recommend it to anyone looking for something to read. I'll leave Maria out of this one lest I sound like an advertisement.

Chapter 37: A Book Set in the Future

The Giver, Lois Lowry

Newberry winner, turned into a movie, people name their child after one of the characters- maybe my expectations were high for this one. After that insomnia-destroying violin book, I thought this might be a tense enough story to keep me awake. Mostly it did, but was it worth it?

First, let me state for the record that Child #3 did not get his middle name because of this story. I won't ever pretend at some point in the future that it had any influence on the choice. But when I read the author's introduction in which she claims many fans have sent her letters saying they have named their child for one in the novel, well, I expected something original, thought-provoking, and amazing. What I got was ... meh.

The premise of the story has potential- after generations, a community has achieved sameness. Sameness is probably not even the right word, though. People have different abilities and interests, but almost every person has the same life-trajectory. Born > placed with a family unit until adulthood > productive member of society > retirement to the home for old persons > release. Anything other than that is an anomaly and people avoid discussing it because being polite is really, really important. Sounds like things could get pretty interesting, right? You'd think.

Enter Jonas. At Level 12, he gets skipped over in the ceremony that announces what his future job will be. After his peer group gets their assignments, Jonas is called to the center of the room and told he has been chosen for a high honor. He will be Receiver of Memory. His training begins the next day and we are assured it will be painful. Ok, let's see where this is going.

Oh, nevermind. There's snow and a sled and the Civil War and then boom! it's been a year and Jonas is almost done with his training. One of the special things he can do, that no one else can do because it isn't polite, is ask prying questions. Jonas learns what release really involves (I won't spoil it, but it's no surprise. At all.) and decides to run away with the collective memories from generations past. And he takes a baby with him.

Ah! So the journey is going to be a big part of the plot! We're going to see Jonas and Gabriel bond and experience new things now? Nope. It's going to take a single chapter to get through what is a very long journey (I assume). And that's the end. No revolution. No conflict wherein the Elders try to change Jonas' mind. No word at all of what becomes of the Community members Jonas once cared for- his parents, sister, and friends. Just ... The End.

I just can't believe with this much material, this is all we get. And that people love it so much. It's not terrible. It's written well enough. It just lacks so much- character development, continuity, conflict. I guess I could be generous and call it a Revolution of One, but without more information I can't even do that. This story is like a Slim Fast shake instead of one of those insane buffets in Vegas. Overall, I'm underwhelmed. I won't read it again or expect my kids to (but they can if they want). The Giver gets a disappointing 2.5 Marias.

Chapter 28: A Book More Than 100 Years Old

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

Dear Reader, it took me a month to get through the nearly 500 pages of this one. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I went this long without reading a Bronte, but now I am free of that burden. I have so many thoughts about Jane, I'm not even sure where to begin. I'll give it a stab, though.

First, in today's world, this would not be a passionate love story. Mr. Rochester is kind of a jerk. Besides the fact that he comments frequently on his superiority, he threatens Jane with violence. Oh, and he locked his inconvenient wife in the attic, where she has to witness his wooing of two different women. No wonder she wants to burn him alive. In today's world, Jane would give him the heave-ho and find her own bliss- with or without a husband.

But the story doesn't take place today. It takes place in a time when women were expected to defer to the nearest available man, to not think, just do. And Jane is an unexpected woman. She has her own, steadfast moral compass. She is witty and challenges men who are unaccustomed to that. I daresay that her cousin, St. John, does love her in a way she does not see. Maybe not in a physical attraction, but she stirs something in him that is quite like love. He asks her multiple times to be his helpmeet, which, to me, says he sees her as a partner- a pretty important factor in love.

So, I couldn't get swept away in the romance like so many others. (I swear, my mother-in-law gets a little dizzy imagining Rochester and Jane.) But I can see how this work is so revolutionary. Not only were women not published back then, but female characters were not to have their own ideas about the world.

Other things I love about Jane- she doesn't go through the she-was-always-pretty-and-never-realized-it transformation. I love that she finds a way to flourish in any environment. I love that she is willing to do something very painful because it is right. I love that she is also willing to believe in the supernatural enough to make an ill-planned journey, to chase a dream. She's also book smart and caring and matter-of-fact. And her wit! The men in her life love the way she turns a phrase. She's the ultimate at playing hard to get.

I've read a few reviews of another book from the perspective of the first Mrs. Rochester. Probably won't pick it up any time soon, but she is the reason I started this one. The Wolf Man in Chapter 20's selection loves Jane Eyre because he sympathizes with the locked away Bertha. I'm not sure there is enough material in the original to make her sympathetic- she's basically an insane specter that sets things on fire. But you do have to at least acknowledge that she is aware of Mr. Rochester's affection for Jane and see how troubling that would be for a sane person, much less an already disturbed mind.

I would love for the red room story to be more developed, to know more about the haunting of the Reed's manor. It has the makings of a great tale. Maybe there is a short story exercise in that for me. Afterall, it is almost Halloween.

So, remembering to keep it all in context, Jane Eyre earns 3.5 Marias. I won't be buying a copy or reading it again, but I also don't feel like setting anything on fire.

Chapter 26: A Book From Your Childhood

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle

First, sorry for the crappy image, but this is the cover of my copy and nothing else will do.

I seriously cannot believe this novel only gets 4.04 stars on Goodreads. It is one of my all-time favoritest books of forever. I'm not even exaggerating. Let me tell you why.

Meg is, like, the best girl hero every imagined. (Yes, I went Valley Girl on that.) She is the quintessential awkward tween girl without the pack of friends to make those years bearable. And let's face it, those years suck, even when they don't. She doesn't go through some physical transformation that turns her ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. What she does is realize, on her own, that her character alone is what is going to get her family back together after an intergalactic error. And when I say that, I don't mean that Meg alone is what is going to do it, I mean a vital and unchangeable portion of the very essence of Meg is what does. (This would be a lot easier to talk about if I was ok giving spoilers, but I really want you to read this book. And if you already have, I want you to read it again.)

That's pretty much it. Meg rules. There are other good things about the story, including the moment when Meg declares, "Like and equal are not the same thing at all." But her grrrl power just overshadows everything else I could say. Every time I read this one, I pick up on something new or something I have forgotten. And I'm sad to say that I have not read the whole series. I promise myself I will rectify that error as soon as this challenge is over. I'm really looking forward to A Swiftly Tilting Planet because it is beloved by a friend whose judgement in these things I really value.

One interesting thing that I did not pick up on in the past, perhaps because I didn't think about the subject often, is that it's possible that L'Engle was writing about a family with Autism in the early 1960's. Let that sink in a minute. Now consider- both parents are brilliant, as is Charles Wallace. But they aren't just smart. They think in such unusual ways that they are able to understand the inexplicable. I could be way off on this one. Maybe she was elevating them to more enlightened creatures and I misinterpreted. It could happen. But maybe these two things are not mutually exclusive and she tapped into something that didn't enter common conversation for four more decades. I can't wait to see what else she has in store for me.

Wrinkle joins Mockingbird on my forever bookshelf to which I will return again and again. Meg alone earns 4.75 of its 5 Marias. Seriously, I love this girl.

Chapter 25: A Pulitzer Prize Winner

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Are you shocked? Floored? Flummoxed? Bamboozled? I didn't think so. There's no way I could read Watchman and not re-re-re-re-read Mockingbird. And, as I also re-watch Pretty Little Liars now that the show has revealed who A is, I realize the Liars are reading Mockingbird for English class. So Liars gets a little more credit from me (the mental hospital is named Radley, too, but I had not forgotten that fact).

So, Mockingbird is required reading in high schools across the country, with good reason. It opens the door for Humanities teachers to discuss racial history in the U.S., introduces students to an influential female writer, and gives an accessible account of southern life during the Depression. All of that is great, but it's not why I love this story. When it comes down to it, I love Scout. She's precocious, obnoxious, naive, and wise. She's brash, unruly, unladylike, and charming. She is, in short, a little girl.

Now that Mockingbird is fresh in my memory, the conflict of Watchman is actually pretty predictable and is totally fitting with the characters. We love the Atticus of Mockingbird for many of the same reasons we (the readers and Jean Louise) feel betrayed by him three decades later. It's funny how much the era of the story affects how we feel about the exact same behaviors. In the 30's, he was a leader, a champion, worthy of our adoration. In the 60's the same kind of ideas land him firmly in inexcusable territory. This, of course, is indicative of how fast things changed in this country during those decades, but also how we are willing to overlook things we don't like (paternalism, pity) if our hero does something great (defending a black man against accusations made by whites). This idea still holds true today. How much bad are we willing to ignore if the overall result is good? What is the tipping point at which we change our opinion of a person or organization?

While I think this is all important stuff to think about and discuss and question, it's not the root of why I love this book so much. In fact, it's peripheral to the heart of the novel, in part because a nine-year-old doesn't really grasp the implications of the case her father is working. Scout just takes the world at face value. She believes what her important adults (Atticus, Calpurnia, and Miss Maudie) tell her and suspects everyone else of falsehood. She is quick to defend those whom she loves and has a strong sense of fair, even if it is flawed. Her father has taught her important truths she won't learn anywhere else, namely that all people, even those we deem beneath us, have dignity and deserve if not our respect, then their privacy. It seems to me that this is a dangerous lesson, minding your own business to the detriment of your fellow humans. He starts out with a grand idea but let's it fizzle out in the details.

Scout, however, just applies her lessons to everything. She doesn't see the subtleties of the class divisions in her community because she believes that people are people. She knows they exist, that certain families just have their ways, but she is pragmatic and doesn't judge those other ways. This lovable little tomboy teaches (and learns) more about community than many give her credit for. Often readers feel like they are with her in Atticus' lap, that they learn alongside her. But in my estimation, Scout Finch is the true hero of the tale.

Even though it is set in the 1930's, Mockingbird still is relevant today. One paragraph stood out to me, speaking volumes about how quickly and easily we dehumanize each other. After confronting a group of men who set out to harm the black man accused of raping a white woman, Atticus tells his son, "A mob's always made up of people, no matter what ... a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children ..." Our failure to see others as humans is easy and enormous. Instead of images of five Marias, I'll leave you with these three images of humanity during conflict. (And, I'd like to just say that it is crazy to me that Sen. Pugh was criticized for hugging a rioter. What she did was not condoning actions but saying, "I see you, I hear you, I acknowledge that you are a person.")

Chapter 12: A Book That Became A Movie

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

I want to like this book. Really. It's got drama and books, the pages are filled with the complexities of human existence. But ... meh.

*** A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ***

I'm about to tell you something very important. And I will use a wort, or word.

This gimmick is old. Boring. Redundant. Annoying. It makes me want to punch Death in the grapes.

I have to give Zusak credit for taking on a much-visited topic, Germany during World War II, from a less-used position, that of Death. And the core story arc would be compelling if it were readable. But instead we have a stuttering telling of a young girl in a poor home in Germany. She meets people. She cares for people. She helps hide a Jew in the basement. Everyone calls each other asshole. Everyone has nightmares. Everyone dies.

I'm going to attempt to discuss a few key points in an orderly manner, but having had my brain scrambled by this book, I beg your pardon if it comes out jumbled.

First, Death as narrator. This isn't a completely novel approach to storytelling (see what I did there?). At first I actually enjoyed reading the buildup of Nazi Germany from a non-human point of view. But, ugh, the gimmick. The flow is disrupted by those stupid boldface interjections of no value. And for a mostly indifferent persona, death sure uses a lot of indicators of extreme emotion. But to what end? To tell us what he's about to tell us.

Second, the book thief. Ok, let's start with the fact that she only technically steals one book in the whole story. One she picks up after someone drops it. Another she rescues from a pile of smoldering ashes. And, after she steals the one book, the owner starts leaving more for her to "steal." So, she doesn't seem very worthy of this title. And as the story progresses, you learn that Death, too, has picked up a book someone left behind. So he's a book thief too! Oh how clever! Not.

Then, the characters are not well developed. Hans has silver eyes. Rosa is a wardrobe of a woman with a cardboard face (whatever the heck that means). Liesel loves papa. Rudy loves Liesel. Max is a Jew. They are flat and they do incredibly foolish things. I think some of these instances, like giving bread to Jews as they are marched to Dachau, are supposed to illustrate the humanity of the main characters, that they really do love and care and pity the victims of the Holocaust. Except that giving them bread is sure to bring more suffering to the people- beatings or worse. So it seems, to me, that these are essentially selfish acts to alleviate some guilt of not acting sooner. It's certainly no black-and-white dilemma, but Death sure thinks it is. Over and over, acts of love bring more misery and death to the objects of that love. Death is kind of an asshole.

The tempo and chronology was the most troublesome for me. There isn't so much a foreshadowing of events as there is a sentence or two telling you something is going to happen. Then Death backs up (sometimes months) and finally brings you back to the original sentence. Again, it's gimmicky and tiresome. After everyone died, I kept reading and they were alive again. It took a big mental shift to figure out where in time I was. And then I leapt forward again. And literally the entire book is like this because the first sentence is that everyone dies. But the story doesn't end there. Oh no! We have to revisit the deaths a few times before Death finally wraps the whole thing up.

My big question about this novel is- what makes it Young Adult? Yes, Liesel is eight years old when it begins, but that doesn't seem quite enough. Teens these days are unlikely to even know a person who remembers WWII, so the specific story doesn't seem all that relatable. The major tensions of the book are not ones that exist in everyday life, at least not in the same way that other YA books I've read do. Maybe it's just another way to keep the realities of WWII Germany in current conversations. If so, it seems to be doing that. My teenage niece loves this book. I doubt she saw Schindler's List or Life Is Beautiful.

Overall, I'm pretty ambivalent about this novel. It didn't give me a case of the Feels. It wasn't new territory or groundbreaking insight. Nor was it really entertaining. But the context for the target audience and for effort alone, I give The Book Thief 2 Marias.