Maus I and II

I'd decided that this was going to be the year of banned books for the book gifts that I normally give to our granddaughters for their birthdays. The 15-year old got Fahrenheit 451 for her birthday. I mean, what better than a banned book about book bans! I was really undecided about what to purchase for the 13-year old. Talking with a friend and her adult daughter last week, they mentioned Maus by Art Spiegelman and what an important book they both thought it was. I recalled that I'd looked into getting it from the library when Maus was big in the news a year or two ago, when it was first widely banned, and the waitlist was months long. Not only that, the book had been sold out from several sources online. I decided I'd buy the book and would read it for myself and then decide if it was appropriate for this instance.

When I went to order, I saw that there was Maus I and Maus II. I opted to purchase both. As of today, June 8, 2023, I have only read the first book but will definitely finish reading the second book prior to the birthday which isn't until the 16th.

First impression was why is this book being banned? It's such an important story to be shared. Having a book like this in graphic format makes the story accessible to a wide swath of readers who wouldn't read it any other way. (I'm not much of a fan of graphic novels and it took me several tries, starting over from the beginning each time, to get into the format and style of the writing, to be able to follow the story.) Why is it being banned? Because people in power don't want our youth to be informed. They don't want them to learn from history so they can learn from our (collective) past mistakes. THAT is the real tragedy today.

Was it banned because it used the word "shit" a few times? Really? I still struggle to figure out why it's banned, even when reading articles about why it is banned. The modified swastika on the cover? The story is about the rise of the Nazis and Nazism. It's not like a swastika is being proudly displayed. Is that a reason to ban a book?

In Maus I, Spiegelman relays his father's story of what it was like to live in Poland in the 1930s as the Nazis are invading the country.  Spiegelman's mother father and mother have just met and married. Life for them changes drastically. The book includes Spiegelman asking his father about his experiences during that time, starting with questions about his mother who had killed herself several years before. It includes interactions Spiegelman has with his father's new wife which would be funny if they weren't so sad.

June 9, 2023 update

I finished  Maus II yesterday. Spiegelman's descriptions of life with in the concentration camps and in the days as the war ended and just after it was over gave small details that I've never read about in any other Holocaust book. I really appreciated that Spiegelman repeatedly had his character, Artie, struggle with understanding the realities of the Holocaust. He'd heard about it all his life, but acknowledged that unless you were there, you cannot ever put yourself in the place of someone who experienced it.

Another thing that I really valued in this second was volume was Artie's story, the personal story of the relationship with his father and what it was like for him to be a child of survivors. If you read my review of A Life Inherited that I read a few weeks ago, you know I was looking to better understand the psyche of a child of survivors. Spiegelman gave me more of what I was looking for in that regard than Rena Lipiner Katz did in her memoir. Much of what Artie expressed reminded me of words I'd heard my ex-husband, child of survivors, utter or behaviors I saw him exhibit. I never met my former husband's parents but I imagine that the relationship he had with his parents was so similar to the one in Maus II. In my former husband's case, his father passed away several years before his mother which made my former husband's story different. But had his mother gone first, the struggles between the father and son would have been almost identical. I wonder what Spiegelman's life is like now. Is he happily married? Are his kids well-adjusted?

I'm still confounded as to why anyone would think it was a good idea to ban these books. If you've got young people in your life who enjoy graphic novels, I suggest making sure they have these books to read.
 

The Secret History of Home Economics

 

The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Dreilinger is the March pick for my New Jersey book club. (It's the week of my daughter's visit so I'm not even sure I'll be able to join in the meeting. Boo!)

Quite fascinating to read this book while I finished listening to Miss Eliza's English Kitchen. It was interesting to compare and contrast what I was hearing about cooking, kitchens, employment opportunities and the like while having both books in my brain. It made me think a lot about the opportunities for women and how limited they were back in Miss Eliza's time and even after.

Even after reading this, I'm still not 100% certain about how they coined the phrase "home economics." Skills were being taught to women that they would be able to use to run an efficient, happy home. But it seems the area of study was mostly a way for girls to study something more rigorous than "girls' topics" and to prepare for pretty substantial careers, some of which had not yet even been created.

It was a bit eye-opening to read about what home economics was like before my time - and after. I was a student at the time when home economics was in its most tumultuous period. Cooking and sewing classes - for girls only - were on their way out. But not quite.

I enjoyed reading the book and hope that I'll get to discuss it. But... and there's a big but. Towards the end of the book, Dreilinger inserted herself into the narrative. That would have been fine... had she done that all along. It was confusing as to why she inserted herself into the present day narrative. It's not like she's a home economist. Or is she? And it made me wonder what was the purpose of her book? Did the purpose of her book change over the time she was writing it? By the time I finished my reading, I felt that I needed the answers to those questions. Her observations about home economics during a pandemic were spot-on, but it made me feel as though some earlier parts of the book should have been re-written.

I also felt that the book jumped around. It wasn't chronological. It didn't focus on one home economist at a time. It didn't focus on one theme at a time. That made some of the narrative confusing to me, trying to place why a home economist was important and during which time period.

All in all, the book gave me a lot to think about. And I love a book that really makes me think.

Upstairs at the White House

I almost titled this blog post "Almost as good as being there" since I'm really hoping that zooming in with my old book club this Thursday is going to be a wonderful thing. My very first book club.

I started teaching when I was in grad school earning my teaching certification. I spent another 3 years in school continuing on for a masters degree. I was a single mom with three fairly young kids living at home, and did not have a whole lot of time for pleasure reading. I sat at the lunch table, envious of talk about the district book club. What they were reading, what their discussions were like. I'd never been in a book club  but I really wanted to join one. I wanted to join their book club.

Immediately after graduating, I let the folks at the book club know that I was ready to join them. I was so excited. My first book club! Then I learned that our district education foundation was the sponsor of the book club - and purchased the books for us! Free books and I'd get to discuss them. What could be better.

For the next 7 years, the book club was an important part of my life. When my kids were still little, it was my me time. (And since I was teaching fifth grade, it was my only time with adult conversation outside of faculty meetings and the lunch table at work.) I loved being in a book club and I loved this particular book club. I was sad to say goodbye to them when I moved from New Jersey to Florida with my new husband.

That first year away, I tried to read what they were reading. And faithfully each month I'd send my thoughts about each book to the woman responsible for emailing the group. She'd share my reflections with the group and then would try to relay what the discussion had been like. I'd found a local book club that I belonged to and got busy with my retirement life so eventually keeping up with the New Jersey book club fell off. Over the ten years that I've been down south, I have found myself up north twice on the afternoons when the book club was meeting and got to join them. The summer of 2014, I got together with some of the teachers when they met to select what books they'd read in the coming school year.

In December, I sent a Christmas card to one of my closest friends from my teaching days and was delighted when she wrote me a long letter back. And said, "Hey, the book club is meeting by zoom these days. Why don't you join us?" 

That brings me to Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies by J.B. West with Mary Lynn Kotz. That's the book that the New Jersey book club and I will be discussing two days from now. It's not a book that I ever would have picked up on my own, and I'm not sure that I'm dying to discuss it, but it was a pleasurable read.

West was an assistant usher and eventually the head usher at the White House, a job that is primarily responsible for the running of the Executive Residence part of the White House. West started working during the FDR administration and retired 30 years later, at the beginning of the Nixon administration. It wasn't exactly about the First Ladies, but more about the impact each of the First Ladies had upon the White House. He gives some gossipy anecdotes about each of the families he served as well some dry facts about the running of the White House. I'm not sure how much there will be to discuss in this book (other to perhaps contrast it to what I'd expect life was like for the First Families of recent years. Some stories stuck out in my mind, but others might have found other different bits more interesting.

Many times, I've written here that timing really matters in whether you like a book or you don't like a book. I think that's the case here, too. This book is so different from what I've been reading the past few months and it contrasts so starkly with all the turmoil in Washington at the current moment. It was a good escape for me, one that I'm not sure I would have enjoyed as much at another time.

Best of all, I'll get to reconnect with some of my friends from another part of my life!

The fifth grade teacher in me...

You can take the teacher out of the classroom but you can't take the mindset of being in the classroom out of the teacher. It was only when I was searching for books to read on vacation that I came across Chelsea Clinton's children's picture book, She Persisted: 13 American Women who Changed the World. (There's another follow-up book called She Persisted Around the World: 13 Women Who Changed History.


The material covered material I taught my fifth grade classroom. I was visiting with my granddaughter who will be starting fifth grade in the fall. I thought I'd read the book and see if I felt it was something worthwhile for her to read.

I'm wondering what age child this book was really written for. It's way too sketchy to be of much value to a fifth grader. It's most appropriate as a book that a parent might read aloud to a younger child at home. Women have been changing the world for centuries.

The book is not at all political. It's nicely done. But as I said, it didn't have enough meat in it for it to be a book that I would have bought to have in my classroom library.

Outlander #7

What to say about An Echo in the Bone, Diana Gabaldon's seventh installment in the Outlander series? Similar to the first book, it leaves so many unanswered questions making me want to rush to read the eighth book. The eighth book is currently the last book in the series, although Gabaldon is making progress on the 9th book. Will the 9th book be the final book?

Anyway, back to An Echo in the Bone. I don't even know where to begin. The book begins with Brianna and Roger adapting to their new lives in the "present" time. Brianna finds a box full of letters written by Claire and Jamie in the 1700s. I can't recall where Brianna found the box of letters, but they are very special to her. She and Roger do a good job of taking their time to read the letters. This keeps the connection between the centuries strong. Claire is truly writing to Brianna in the future, letting her know what is/was going on after Brianna returned to her own time.

Other than that... this book seemed to cover the most and had the most parallel stories compared to any of the other books. There were the Claire and Jamie stories. Claire does so many surgeries and procedures on the fly. Amazing! Gave me a lot to think about. There were Brianna and Roger stories, adapting to live in Scotland of the present in addition to connecting to their life in the 18th century. A character from the 18th century who has haunted Roger somehow shows up in the 20th century. Roger and Brianna are part of both work stories and personal stories. The kids, Mandy and Jem, have their own stories as well. (The Mandy and Jem stories are those that have me the most curious as I take a break between novels.) We've got Lord John's stories (several of them) which are completely distinct from much of the William stories. William as a soldier. William as a cousin. William as a son. We've also got Ian's story... which is a big, big story in this novel. Actually, Ian has stories. He falls in love... and he reconciles with his parents in Scotland. So many of these subplots intersect, with the long list of characters becoming more intertwined than they have been in the past. There's a Fergus story or two. There's an interesting Laoghaire story. Yes, this book is very involved.

With all that was going on, I was surprised that it wasn't terribly difficult to pick up the book and put it back down again. But as I've mentioned earlier, I would be hard pressed to tell you what was covered in this book. Was there anything I didn't like? No. I liked it all. I have no complaints. Yet I'm still struggling to figure out what to write about.

I've realized that I know a whole lot less about the American Revolution than I probably should. I was so focused on getting through the book, though, that I didn't drift off to do research about the Battle of Saratoga when I was in Saratoga last week. Surprising since that's something I'd normally do. As always, it is so cool to read a book while you're in the exact location where the book is set. So cool And yes, I'm a history geek.

When I went to Philadelphia later in the week and saw that a museum of the American Revolution was opening at the end of the month, I was disappointed, wanting it to be opened the day I was there. Wanting to be inside that building so badly. Wanting to learn more about the Revolution the way only a visit can help you do.

My other disappointment while in Philadelphia was the weather. Had the weather been better, I would have explored a few more of the places mentioned in the book by foot. With the horrendous rain we experienced, I was lucky that I go to see the outside of the new museum, take a stroll past Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. I wondered where Lord John's house was in Philadelphia. Had I wandered past it without even knowing? Is there a Philadelphia companion book to the Outlander series? Diana Gabaldon, are you reading this? Is this something you'd be interested in doing? I'd love to work on a project like that with you.

Having nothing to do with the book
(For the first time ever, I saw the Rocky statue. Totally getting off track here but this is a very big deal. I was attending school and living in Philadelphia when the Rocky movies first hit the screen. I've been to Philadelphia numerous times over the years. And this was the first visit to the Art Museum since the late 1970s and my very first time to see the statue. Just my luck, the steps to the museum were "closed" to prepare for the NFL draft which will take place there at the end of the month.)

Was this the longest book in the series in terms of word count? I don't think so. I'm not 100% sure, but it sure felt like this book took me the longest time of any of the books to read. Since book 9 most likely won't be published until 2018 at the earliest, I think I'm going to take my break from the series now, knowing that I can pick up book 8 whenever I want. If I read book 8 soon, I know there will be a big wait for book 9. One of the advantages of being late to the game of reading a massive series is being able to read on my own schedule rather than waiting (with longing) for the next installment to be published. Only those of you who read these types of series will understand that!

Good job, Diana Gabaldon for keeping me (and millions of other readers) engaged for so long!

I'll end with some questions I have at the end of An Echo in the Bone which I don't believe are spoilers.

• Where is Roger?
• Where will Jamie and Claire settle next?
• Will they ever return to Fraser's Ridge in North Carolina?
• What will William do next?
• Will Ian ever find happiness?
• What does Jenny think about America?
• Any more time travel for anyone?
• Who wins the war? Okay... only kidding.

The AUTOBIOGRAPHY of Thomas Jefferson

au·to·bi·og·ra·phy

ˌôdəbīˈäɡrəfē/

noun

an account of a person's life written by that person.

I can't believe I finished this book. I can't believe I finished this book after Books and Beer Club discussed this. (Then again, I had only 14 out of the 108 painful pages of this book on the Kindle app on my iPad.)

The way I view the genre of autobiography, this is not an autobiography. This was not an account of Thomas Jefferson's life at all. It's more a political rambling of the formation of our country. (And of the French Revolution - which Jeffersons thinks was modeled after our own Revolution.) Based on that expectation, reading this has been a major disappointment. I think in the entire book there were about 4 or 5 brief, personal revelations.

Another nitpick-y thing that bothered me was that "it's" was used as the possessive. I imagine that was how it was used back then, not yet meaning "it is."

This was probably one of the most difficult books I've ever read. It was rambling, wordy (including lots of words I needed to look up) and descriptive in a way that added nothing to "the story." Oh, wait. There was no story. At Books and Beer Club, we thought about the fact that perhaps this was really more of a diary - but written after the fact based on Jefferson's memory at the time he wrote it.

On Goodreads, I did give the book 2-stars rather than 1 simply because many of the facts in this missive were interesting and informing.

• During Jefferson's time as part of the legislature from 1769 until 1776, he made one effort towards the emancipation of slaves. Interesting, right, considering his relationship with Sally Hemmings.
• "That the people of the middle colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennslva (sic), the Jerseys & N. York were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to the British connection." Hmm, was there more than one Jersey? Plus, I always thought people from New York and New Jersey were so progressive. Apparently that's a recent thing.
• "That it was one of the utmost consequence to bring the parties together, as should we sever from each other, either no foreign power will ally with us at all, or the different states will form different alliances, and thus increase the horrors of those scenes of civil war and bloodshed which in such a state of separation & independence would render us a miserable people." I think Thomas Jefferson would be appalled if he saw what a divided country we are today.
• "I shall recur again to this subject towards the close of my story, if I should have life and resolution enough to reach that term, for I am already tired of talking about myself." I guess Tom found this a difficult read as well.
• Thomas Jefferson was in favor of one 7-year term for presidents. Others wished for an 8-year term, with the option to kick the fellow out of office at the mid-term. Even back then, term limits was an issue to contend with. They were revolting against a monarchy and didn't want to end up with a lifelong ruler.
• "Were not this great country already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority.... It is this partition of cares, descending fin gradation from general to particular, that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the good and prosperity of all." States rights versus the rights of the Federal government.

I was able to come up with a few other interesting facts during our book club discussion that I can't remember now. Our discussion lasted longer than our leader thought it would after she heard that no one really liked the book. Just one person didn't read the book and of the others that attended, only one gave it a sideways thumb. Otherwise, it was two thumbs down.

Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The pressure was on. I have plans to visit the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park this coming Thursday. I had laid aside her memoir, Cross Creek, when I realized I wasn't going to be attending the April book club meeting where it was going to be discussed. I wanted the book finished by the time I went exploring at the park.

I really wanted to love this book. I love reading historical books about places nearby to where I live. Even after living in Florida for nearly six years, I'm still awed by the fact that "modern Florida" hasn't existed for all that long. I'm sure lots of what Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote about Cross Creek was also true about the part of central Florida that I now call home. That was a part of the book that I loved.

I loved her love of rural Florida. She wasn't going to let the primitive lifestyle beat her.

Cross Creek was the spot in Florida where MKR lived while writing what is most probably her most famous book, The Yearling, which I still haven't read.  I'm glad I read this book. And might pick up The Yearling. While working as a substitute teacher, I started to watch the movie of The Yearling with a class. We didn't get too far into it. I might try to watch the movie again, after I read the novel.

So what didn't I love?

• This was really more of a memoir about Cross Creek than about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I wish she'd included some background information on why she moved to Cross Creek, where she came from, why she was alone, etc.
• I would have preferred more of a narrative in chronological order rather than the little snippets that weren't really like short stories or anecdotes or even on the same subject.
• I found it difficult to keep track of the other residents of Cross Creek. I felt it almost didn't matter.
• While sometimes the language used in the book was lyrical, sometimes it was a bit too over the top for me. Often it made for very slow reading.

A final note

If you read the reviews on goodreads.com, lots of readers comment on how racist MKR was. Or how superior she felt to her neighbors. If the book was written today - about any time during the past 50 years, I would totally agree. Written in the 1940s, about the years leading up to that time, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was speaking in language and beliefs that were common place during that period. I don't believe she was any more racist than was normal for most at the time.

Read about my visit to Cross Creek, the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Park, here.