The classics - Children's

How is it possible that until now I had never read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett? After all, it's a children's classic, up there with Little Women, Make Way for Ducklings and The Pokey Little Puppy.

More importantly, The Secret Garden was my mom's favorite book as a child and one that she mentioned frequently as an adult. "Oh, I loved The Secret Garden so much. What, you haven't read it?" I wish I'd read it when she was around to talk about it. I wish I knew when she read it or what she loved so much about it. But alas, the time to ask these questions is long past. Sadly, I was never really interested in picking up my mom's favorite book to read - until I saw the musical show in Philadelphia last week. I thought I knew the story but I really only knew minimal parts. I was sobbing at the end.

I'm not sure that the list I found on goodreads (click here to review the list) is even close to being definitive. My reading in children's classics would be severely lacking had I a) not become a mother, b) not taken a reading class in graduate shool and c) not been an elementary school teacher! I was such a bookworm as a kid, reading whenever I could. Was I just reading the popular children's books of the times? Think: Bobbsey Twins, All of A Kind Family, and Nancy Drew.

Just looking at the top six on this list, I read James and the Giant Peach after I'd seen the movie with my kids. Same with Matilda. Each year, as a fifth grade teacher, I'd read a book along with each one of my students. (Obviously they weren't too big on the classics either!) But if it hadn't been for that project, I probably never would have read Charlotte's Web! A Wrinkle in Time (#1 only) I read for an assignment in my graduate reading class. Should I be embarrassed to say that I still haven't read The Witches?

Thankfully, members of my Books & Beer Club are into the classics. I've read many adult classics I never thought to touch before... and the children's classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Seriously! I hadn't even read that!

Going further down the list, I'm actually not sure if I read Stuart Little as a child or if I read it after I'd seen the movie with my kids. As a teacher, I started The Boxcar Children which I somehow missed as a young mom, even though I know it was a favorite amongst my mommy friends. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein wasn't around when I was a kid so I've got a good reason for not coming across that one until I was a teacher. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the first chapter book that my nearly 30-year old son and I read together.

I know that lots of readers avoid the classics because there's too much good current fiction out there. But in my 50s, it's nice to take a step back and embrace these books that I missed the first time around.

Now to dive back into The Secret Garden.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

I apologize if it seems like a long time between book reviews or posts of any sort. I suppose I could have written a post about how family sadness, family involvement and travel interfere with reading. I'll address part of that now. In case you are wondering, that's mostly why it took me about a month to finish Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Eric Larson.

We experienced a family tragedy a little over a month ago. I was incredibly sad and spent much time trying to draw comfort from others who were feeling the loss. When I sat down to read, I didn't want to read about further sadness which is why I picked up The Rosie Effect in the midst of reading Dead Wake. I needed something not so closely linked to death. And it was a good call.

Further, I thought that, based on past history, I'd easily be able to finish Dead Wake on two plane rides that were scheduled. Dead Wake seemed the perfect book to read when I had long stretches of time to devote to reading. My first flight was not quite 2 weeks ago, on JetBlue, the airline that has a TV monitor at every seat. I'm not much of a TV person, but I am a TV news junkie and whatever was in the news the day I flew (I'm thinking the mass shooting at Pulse in Orlando - which followed the shooting of the American Idol star a few days earlier - in Orlando - and was followed by the attack of a little boy by an alligator, once again in Orlando) held my attention longer than Dead Wake. 

I was kept busy while away with not that much reading getting done in the evenings before turning out the lights. I now depended upon my flight home on Delta to make a big dent in my reading. I attempted to fly home for the first time last Friday. My flight was delayed over 7 small increments. In anticipation of the flight taking off "soon," I had trouble focusing on anything other than what was going on around me. The net result was that my flight was delayed just under 11 hours. After about 10 hours of being at the airport, I was given the opportunity to cancel my flight with a full refund... which I did. While in the line to cancel, I booked a flight for the next day on JetBlue. I returned to where I'd been staying for one more night. Another night with no reading. Would the TV monitor distract me on the return flight the way it did on the outbound flight? I mean, seriously, the news of Brexit was (and still is) pretty darn compelling.

The reading gods were on my side. My TV monitor didn't work. I didn't even consider complaining. I really wanted to read Dead Wake. And so I did.

I'm always glad to read a book that gives me knowledge of historical situations I previously knew very little about. I really knew very little about the sinking of the Lusitania before reading Dead Wake:The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (which is the June book for Books & Beer Club). I realized that most of my knowledge about World War I was based on novels I'd read about Canadians fighting in the war. I don't think I knew anything about the United State's role in the war. I also assumed, the same way that Eric Larson did before he started doing so much research, was that Germany sunk the Lusitania and for whatever reason that so enraged the United States which then declared war against Germany.

By reading this book, I realize how little I knew. And even the little bit that I knew was pretty much wrong. It took over two years for the United States to enter the war. Two years after so many of its citizens were lost and killed by a German u-boat attack against a British merchant liner. (Another area where my knowledge was pretty weak - I always thought that merchant liners were boats that carried shipping containers. I didn't realize the term applied to what I'd consider a luxury cruise liner, transporting passengers across the Atlantic.) I also never gave a thought to the fact that the Lusitania went down so soon after the Titanic sunk. That has some relevance because of some of the safeguards that had been put into place after the sinking of the Titanic.

Eric Larson uses archived material to create a living, breathing story of the last crossing of the Lusitania. We get to the know the captain of the ship. We get to know many of the passengers on board. We even get to know the captain of the submarine, U-20, that thrilled when the Lusitania went down. The sinking of the Lusitania was no longer a maritime tragedy. It was a tragedy involving people that we felt something about. I know what I think about the German u-boat captain but I'm still not sure how I felt about Turner, the captain of the Lusitania, or about any of the higher ups at Cunard, the line that owned the ship as things were playing out. I have a better sense of how I felt at the end of the narrative but I won't divulge that because it's a spoiler.

I want to say I'm amazed that much was NOT done by the British government that allowed a tragedy such as the Lusitania to happen. With my disillusionment with government at the moment, I just can't allow myself to say I am amazed. Governments do what they want to do. The have their motives which guide their actions. The best interests of the people are not always first and foremost. The fact that Woodrow Wilson waited so long to declare war against Germany (and the added fact that this action was applauded by so many Americans) is in sharp contrast to some of the war mongering I see going on currently.

I know feel like I can have an intelligent conversation about the sinking of the Lusitania and to some extent about why the United States took so long to take action. I can't wait for Wednesday evening's book club meeting.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys narrative historical non-fiction. 

Something that still has me thinking, though, unrelated to this specific story, is the reliance on the written archives to create a narrative such as this. With so much communication and documentation being created online (think emails, online forms used for logging information), will future non-fiction writers have the same resources available to them to create narratives like Dead Wake? I wonder...

The Rosie Effect (Don Tillman #2) by Graeme Simsion

For some reason, I'm having a really difficult time deciding what rating to give The Rosie Effect on goodreads.com. Five stars would mean I loved it. Okay, I know that's not true. Going back to how I manage my ratings on goodreads (which was in this post), I'm still not sure if I'm going to give this book 3 stars or 4 stars. There was something that nagged at me, which I'll get into in a bit, but I would recommend it to anyone, even if my recommendation is qualified. How would I qualify my recommendation? This sequel to The Rosie Project isn't quite as good as the first book. Like I said, I'm really not sure. Here's where I wish I could give a 3 1/2 rating. Recommended for all ... but with qualifications.

I'm going to give you one spoiler, although this comes out pretty early in the book. The Rosie Project was really The Wife Project. The Rosie Effect could be renamed The Baby (or Pregnancy) Project. I don't want to give any other spoilers which is why some of what I loved about the book might not make perfect sense.

What did I love about The Rosie Effect?

• I love Don Tillman. He's a compilation of so many people that I know in real life... and a little bit of some of my former students... and a little bit of Sheldon Cooper (from Big Bang Theory) all rolled up into one. He's smart, he's honest, he's kind. The growth of his character in this book was over the top amazing, yet still quite believable. And it's okay that he makes me laugh. Because he knows how socially awkward he is, I never fell like I'm laughing AT him. I feel like I'm laughing, if not exactly with him, well... Don's okay with me laughing at him.
• I love "the boys." Now living in New York City, Don is the glue that holds together a group of four men that help them through so much adversity in their own lives. They all help each other so much. Rarely is this type of men's friendship developed so genuinely and believably in books that I've read. Don isn't the only one with problems. Don is the glue. Then there's Dave, a fellow that Don met on his first trip to New York City (in The Rosie Project). He introduces Don to George, a former rocker who has seen better days. The last member in the group is Gene. He's Don's friend and former colleague from Australia who follows Don to New York City when his life in Australia takes a turn for the worse.
• I love Don's involvement in the Lesbian Mothers Project.
• I love how intellectually invested Don is in preparing for fatherhood. Week by week, Don draws an illustration of what BUD (baby under development) should look like at that time in the pregnancy. I would love to see the little bathroom/study wall where Don keeps his illustrations.
• I love how Don bumbles in his attempt at becoming emotionally invested in preparing for fatherhood. He doesn't realize the importance of showing up for the first sonogram. He doesn't know the right questions to ask that shows he cares. Again, this was totally realistic in my mind.
• I love the incidents that Don gets involved in ... and how he refers back to them throughout the book.
• I love the gesture that Don makes at the end of the book towards Rosie.
• I love the "intervention" that "the boys" stage for Don at the end of the book.
• I love books that are set in locations that I'm familiar with. I could picture the locale and I always get a kick out of that.

So what didn't I love?

• I didn't love Rosie. In the first book, Rosie was instrumental in helping Don grow. And Don was able to help Rosie grow. The changes in Rosie that took place in this book were mostly negative. I so wanted to be rooting for Rosie as well as Don and I felt that I really couldn't do that. 
• And did Rosie really have an effect on Don in this book? Only indirectly. I feel like Rosie let Don down big time! I've read some reviews of this book that expressed that Rosie was just acting like a normal pregnant woman. Maybe some pregnant women act like Rosie. I think she had all the worst traits of all pregnant women rolled in to one character. The Rosie from book one wouldn't be as difficult as the Rosie in this book. Yes, I understand that her childhood has an impact on her future. But I still had troubles connecting the dots from Rosie in The Project to Rosie in The Effect. And I think that's my biggest disappointment.

 In the notes at the end of the book, Simsion leaves us hanging about whether there will be a Don Tillman Book #3 or not. He tells us that if there's a third book, it will be once BUD - who becomes HUD (Human Under Development) who becomes the offspring of Don and Rosie and whose name is quite creatively selected - is about seven years old. That way we can get to see who the child of Don and Rosie is more like at that age. I see great prospects for that book and I hope Simsion writes it.

Off to goodreads.com. I think I'm ready to give The Rosie Effect 4 stars. Clearly what I loved about the book outweighs what I didn't love. And I am looking forward with hope to another book in the series.