I Wanna See You Be Brave

“Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.” —Emma Donoghue, Room

I’ve had bravery on the brain—thanks to our trusty intern.  He sent me a link about books featuring courageous kids on the same day that the Vietnamese girl who gives me French tips cupped my face over the nail counter and said, “you are the strongest person I know Tracy.” My eyes revealed disbelief, shock too. I’m a big believer that the most important thing a woman can have, next to talent and conviction, is her hairdresser and second to that, her manicurist because they make us feel pretty and they’re exquisite listeners. Still I couldn’t help but think that I’d failed my nail girl somehow—that I hadn’t given her enough books filled with fearless characters. The kind that inspire and embolden us, that strengthen us vicariously.    

So this post is for you Vicki.  Here are a few completely worthwhile reads featuring new compadres who are plucky, dauntless, and lionhearted. One of them is sure to uncover the real strongest person you know. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

You have to be plenty tough to live with a tyrannical aunt and appalling cousins. It’s never easy to live with daily ridicule. When resilient Jane is sent away to school, life is no less difficult.  But her most trying experience comes later as a governess at Thornfield Hall.  Keeping love at bay requires great restraint and composure.  Her fierceness in the face of pain is not only commendable, it’s remarkable.  I’m with China Mieville: “Charlotte Bronte’s heroine towers over those around her, morally, intellectually and aesthetically; she’s completely admirable and compelling.  Never camp, despite her Gothic surrounds, she takes a scalpel to the skin of every day.” Way to go Jane!

Wonder by R.J. Palaccio

I couldn’t agree more with the author of the article Be Brave. Be Just. Be Kind: 8 Inspiring Books featuring Courageous Kids. Auggie Pullman has the heart of a lion.  Any ten-year-old who has to deal with a jarring facial deformity must be strong to survive kids’ cruelty.  When he enters public school for the first time, he is forced to cope with a range of reactions, most of them humiliating, to his unsightly appearance. Auggie showed me that strength comes from within and can quickly grow to indomitable status if we work at it. 

I could go on…and on.  Janie Mae Crawford from Their Eyes Were Watching God comes to mind.  Anne of Green Gables, Karen Blixen of Out of Africa, and The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger. But I’ll finish with one I discovered from the article that I’d like to read next with my boys at bedtime. I’d like to meet Perry Cook.  Something tells me his bravery is big to live in a correctional facility with his inmate mother.  Even braver still to endure a new life with a new family on the outside.  I’m interested to see how he summons strength to perform maybe the toughest task of all: forgiveness.

Posted by Tracy

Reader-in-Chief

"At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better. It’s an enormous force for good.” —President Barack Obama

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Say what you will about his politics and policies (just please don't say it here...we're a partisan-free zone, hallelujah), but when President Obama credits books for helping him survive the White House, we take notice. In an interview that reads more like an ode to literature, Mr. Obama shares with Michiko Kakutoni how "these worlds that were portable" provided companionship in an often lonely childhood, helped him navigate his youth, and figure out who he was and what mattered to him. During difficult times in his presidency when the job felt particularly isolating, books were again his solace—allowing him to "hop across history" and find solidarity with those who had known that same isolation.

Nearly every night of his sojourn as leader of the free world, Mr. Obama found time to read for at least an hour. (May the words "I'm too busy to read" never again escape my lips.) Those late hours found him reading a range of genres: contemporary fiction, classics, historical writings, and groundbreaking nonfiction—even indulging in some good ol' escape reads now and again. Kakutoni writes:

“At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted,” he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally “slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes.” These two things, he added, “have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.”

*Read the full article here. For President Obama's 2016 and 2015 summer reading lists, click here.

Posted by Rachel

Strength is a Collective Effort

If Rachel’s heart is breaking, mine is too.  Oh that I had a magic wand.  Naturally, I’d wave it over the world and make everything softer and more beautiful right after I cured Rachel’s golden. Looks like Harry Potter shop.com will sell me a wand for $42.95, but something tells me that won’t do the trick.  I’ll have to settle for words in lieu of wishful wizardry.  Maybe a story is in order—they do have power to heal.  

I’m enchanted by King Arthur’s story.  A boy with hidden potential and a luminous future is trained in secret by a wise magician who believed life itself is the wisest teacher.  With the help of magic, Arthur transforms into various animals. As an ant, he learns that big things are accomplished little by little.  Arthur discovered that strength lies in having backbone when he was a fish. Of course, the illuminating list goes on. Imagine what the nightingale and the swan taught him. I can’t think of a finer education. When the future king finds himself in an abandoned square with a shiny sword embedded in stone that he is in need of, he has no idea this is opportunity up close. Initially, the sword is “stuck fast” when he pulls on it. Immovable. In one of the most important moments of Arthur’s life, it is no surprise that the spirits of all the creatures who tutored and supported and loved this boy gather round. Long gone from his life, they are with him still—to remind him that he is ready. After all, strength is a collective effort. Empowered by love and encouragement and lessons learned, the boy pulls once again and removes the sword effortlessly.  I love that. 

I love the idea that anyone (a friend, co-worker, doctor, child, acquaintance, and clearly a dog) who has believed in us and offered their love will be with us in defining moments, regardless of time passed or miles between us. Funny thing, perspective…I’m always in need of it and it always, without fail, makes me feel better.  I hope this makes you feel better too Rae.

Posted by Tracy

Good Dog. Stay.

“There came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.” 

Our sweet golden has cancer. It's taken me over a week to say those words out loud without crying. Truth is, I'm tearing up now. To know Scout, is to love him. He's won over even our most dog-adverse, fur-loathing friends with his lovable quirks and sweet disposition. There's not an ounce of guard dog in him. Rub his big belly and he'll give you the world...or at least all our household goods. He was the only pick left of the litter when Matt arrived at the breeder's—passed over by perfection-seeking buyers because of a single white paw marring his otherwise pure-golden coat. God bless that snowy paw.

Eleven years and a month. That's how long he's been ours. His vet choked up over the words "two to six months to live;" we openly wept. It's hard to remember life around here before Scout. Heartbreakingly harder to imagine it without him again one day all-too soon. Blood tests give us hope he'll be here closer to the six months than the two, and we've determined to make his last some of his best. Where walking him sometimes seemed a chore, now it feels like a privilege. Funny thing, perspective.

Over the years I've given Good Dog. Stay. to friends who've lost, or are near losing, their beloved pups. Giving books that lift always feels right. Now it's my turn. So I'm dusting off my copy that's been waiting on the shelf and once again losing myself in Anna Quindlen's beautiful tribute to her own Scout, named Beau. She's a kindred spirit, that Anna. Her healing words will begin mending this fellow dog-lover's broken heart. They'll give me strength so that when his medicine stops working and his tail stops wagging, I'll know too.

Posted by Rachel

The Top 3 Books on my TBR Pile

"I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours." —Dorothy Parker

Me too, Dorothy. Add one in my purse and two or three in my Audible queue, and I'm a happy girl indeed. This year, I've resolved to read more and watch the news less. Seems like a surefire ticket to sanity. My current stack has me thinking 2017 is gonna be all right. We're all due for a good one, aren't we?  

What better way to start the year off right than with good reads? Our book club selection, Far From the Madding Crowd, has me enchanted at 119 pages in. Next up: The Orphan Keeper. Finally. Which I'll try not to race through too fast just to get to the reads below cuz I'm itchin to crack 'em open. I may have to resort to reading two or three (or all) at once. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

 Here's to a happier new year filled with the hope of good books.

This was just one of the delightful surprises in my Christmas package from Tray. With her spotless track record for picking great reads, this is sure to be a winner. One reviewer wrote of Bone Gap: "It is a rare book that sits comfortably on the shelf with the works of Twain, McCullers, Conroy, Stephen King, and D'Aulaires' Greek Myths—rarer still that a novel combines elements of these authors together." Sold.

The Snow Child was one of my favorite reads of 2015 (also a gift from Tray—do you see a pattern developing?). So when I saw Eowyn Ivey has spun another tale, you bet I snatched it right up. From the sound of this review of To the Bright Edge of the World, I won't be disappointed: "Ivey not only makes [this novel] work, she makes it work magnificently...The Snow Child (a lovely retelling of an old Russian folk tale), was a runaway hit, an international best seller, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her second work is even better.”

Not much of a science gal...okay, not one at all. No matter, the reviews all tell me that I'll still love Lab Girl. It's on just about every list of best memoirs of 2016, but Ann Patchett is the one who convinced me to give it a whirl: “Some people are great writers, while other people live lives of adventure and importance. Almost no one does both. Hope Jahren does both. She makes me wish I’d been a scientist.” 

Posted by Rachel

This is Good News

"All those captured as children and returned were restless and hungry for some spiritual solace, abandoned by two cultures, dark shooting stars lost in the outer heavens."

Look out Ove, someone new is working his way into my little-old-man-lovin heart. He's 71-year-old Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a widow, who's a bit less (okay, maybe a lot less) curmudgeonly. He says things like "stop speaking in exclamation points" and "[they'd] of had a galvanized tin hissy, one apiece" and he's as adorable as he is set in his ways. Living in post-Civil War Texas, Captain Kidd travels alone to remote towns where he gives live newspaper readings to folks hungry for news of the world.

His solitary life is upended when he agrees to deliver a rescued orphan to her distant relatives near San Antonio (a 400-mile journey). Ten-year-old Johana, kidnapped at age six by a Kiowa Indian tribe when they killed her parents, doesn't feel rescued. Instead she feels as though she's been ripped from the only family she knows and thrust into a white man's world she wants no part of.  As she and the captain navigate their way across unsettled territories as well as language and cultural barriers, they leave us all a little better for having come along for the ride.

If you're an Ivan Doig or Norman Maclean fan, I think you'll really like News of the World. It's a lovely little book (just over 200 pages) of historical fiction. I found it a bit slow at first, but that could be because I read it during the height of Christmas madness—not many books can stand up to that level of exhaustion. Before long though, I started craving its pages more than sleep, especially during a shooting scene that had me on the edge of my seat both in fear and fits of laughter. Paulette Jiles has found a fan in me.

Posted by Rachel

Snowglobe World

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again." —Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels. Sadly, I’ve chosen to shovel.  How else are we gonna get out of the driveway? It’s been snowing unbidden for the past 48 hours. My neighbor thinks shoveling is cathartic.  Snow removal hardly feels like therapy to me. But the chill winter air is invigorating—and a fine blanket of white snowflakes, God’s most fragile creations, always inspires wonder. British sculptor/photographer Andy Goldsworth believes that “snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.” Maybe that’s what has me thinking about some of my favorite children’s snow stories?

If the powder continues to fall soundlessly through the night, I’ll plug in the Cocomotion Hot Chocolate maker when morning arrives.  Me and the kids will have a cup of the salted caramel kind and these are the books I’ll pull from the shelf to celebrate our world clad with radiance.  

The Snowy Day by Ezra Keats

Peter’s adventures will make you anxious to pull on the mittens, hat, and down coat to experience the sheer joy of playing in the snow. Guaranteed.

Toot & Puddle: Let It Snow by Holly Hobbie

Is there a more winning combination?  Holly Hobbie’s lovable characters Toot and Puddle never disappoint.  Throw in the white stuff and you’re bound to arrive at magical. This book will warm you and yours.

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

This is a family favorite.  The book without words has inordinate charm. We love the video version of Briggs’ boy who imagines flying with the snowman he builds.  In fact, my 21-year-old daughter watched The Snowman this Christmas holiday.  I found myself drawn in—equally mesmerized. 

Posted by Tracy

Hello 2017!

I divide all readers into two classes; those who read to remember and those who read to forget. —William Lyon Phelps

Was anyone else ready to put 2016 to bed?  While I’m normally a sunny girl, Prince and Bowie dying prematurely was pretty heavy.  (If I were a closet George Michael fan, and I’m not saying that I am, that just added insult to injury.) Ali, the greatest, is floatin’ like a butterfly; lawdy, I hope Arnie is nearby. The election was sobering. The aftermath was alarming. Not to mention my sweet mother is struggling with heart health issues. And Rachel’s seriously loveable dog probably has cancer.  That’s a lot for tip-of- the-iceberg stuff, isn’t it? 

Glad you’re here 2017.  I’ve made a few goals because my older self recognizes that I get too ambitious sometimes.  I have yet to set a reading goal for the new year new me.  A close friend of mine, who is as smart as she is kind, decided she was going to read/listen to 100 books this time last year.  As in one zero zero!  She hit the century mark before the ball dropped in Times Square.  But she said she’d probably never attempt it again—too much melted together.  My aging brain immediately understood.  

When asked which of the 100 she loved most, naturally, she had to think about it. With confidence, she eventually answered, "The Great Bridge.”  I had no idea master historian David McCullough spun a dramatic story about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.  How could I have missed it? Another keeper for my master list. While I haven’t landed on a numeric goal yet, I am going to carve out more time for stories this year. If I’m being honest, stories offset the tip-of-the-iceberg stuff—they may even make me feel a bit like the unsinkable Molly Brown. 

Posted by Tracy