Oh My Stars! By Lorna Landvik

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Another Landvik gem. I love her quirky characters and her northern settings. The people ring true because they are like the people that we know...

Here is a story of a woman who has had all the hardship life has to offer before she is 16 - her mother ran off, her father abused her and neglected her, she was dreadfully poor and only had a tree to love. Then life started to improve - she got a factory job in a thread factory, made friends and began to see life differently -but on her 16th birthday her life changed...she lost an arm in a accident, her ears filled with the buzzing of bees and there didn't seem to be a reason to continue on...

So, Violet boards a bus to San Francisco to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then life starts to throw her a rope...there is a bus crash and she is rescued by two unusual musicians - Kjel (prounced Shell) the most amazing looking blond North Dakota has to offer and Austin the blackest of all black men with the largest vocabulary of smooth and high talk. That crash and rescue change the course of Violet's life.

Austin and Kjel are musicians and they invite Violet to join them on a whim. They begin an amazing band called the "Pearltones." They start a tour with Austin's brother Dallas through the small towns changing their lives and the lives of those who hear them play through a very memorable summer.

In typical Landvik fashion nothing seems to go like they planned. But, life continues. Also in Landvik fashion, this book covers Violet's life from childhood through her old age with many stops and starts and curves and twists in between. It is filled with music and beauty and characters that I wish I could meet!

The title is from Kjel - each morning he greets the world with "oh my stars!" a prayer and a song to the beauty of the heavens and world that was created around him!

I loved this!

Singing Hands by Delia Ray

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My good friend, Phyllis, recommended this book to me. She knows my connections to sign language. It's one of the new books in our school library this year.

Here is a great moment in time captured by the granddaughter of two deaf grandparents. So, it's based on many real family stories of Delia. The story centers around Gussie who hates that her deaf parents aren't like everyone else in Birmingham. It all comes to a head one hot summer. It begins with her humming loudly during the worship service at the deaf church where her father is the minister - she and her two hearing sisters are the only ones that can hear her.

Her nasty and obstinate side continues through clandestine searches through the boarders rooms upstairs and continues to her skipping Sunday school at the hearing church downtown. All this naughtiness comes to a screeching halt when she is discovered. Her punishment is a very eye-opening experience which changes the way she sees her family and her life.

I worked with hearing impaired students for 2 years in Ohio and lived with a hearing impaired adult. Nancy taught me sign language and a whole lot more. I think she would really like this book.

Nancy grew up in the mid 70s when signing was still not really very accepted. She went through hearing schools and was proud of her lip reading abilities. That is until she went to Galludet College in Washington DC. It was there that she understood and embraced what it meant to be deaf. She completely changed her life. She became a teacher of deaf children - starting a preschool for deaf kids in Wooster, OH. That's where I came to know her. Today, Nancy is teaching deaf children in Belize.

This book made me think about what life was like for Nancy - growing up different. When I lived in Ohio, Nancy and I went out to eat one time and sat at the table signing back and forth to each other. I didn't really think about it until the waitress came to our table and didn't know what to do. She stood and stared and then bent over and very carefully and clearly asked us for our order. There was a moment when I had to decide what to do... I answered her, she blushed and moved away. In that moment - I understood what it really felt like to be different - to be deaf.

Mercy by Jodi Picoult

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WOW! This is one of those I couldn't put down - until I got mad! Then I stopped. I didn't want it to end. I wanted it to end. I wanted to go to sleep. I couldn't go to sleep. I was a mess! I don't know whether to thank Kim for recommending it or to be mad at her for messing with sleep again!

This is another amazing Picoult story. She has a way of drawing the reader in to a world that you didn't even know you wanted to experience. I am so impressed every time I read one of her books. Even the one I really didn't love (Tenth Circle) - still drew me in to the story!!

The story opens with a garage sale. A woman has taken every bit of her husband's paraphernalia out of the house and displayed it on the lawn to be sold... she is more interested in emptying the house than in making money. Because of that - everything but a few pairs of boxers is sold. When her husband comes home that night he sees the remains of the sale as his wife walks away across the lawn.

This is a story about that kind of all or nothing love. There seems to be no gray. A commitment can not be partial. So - the solution is just as complete.

Anyway - this is the story of two marriages with many similarities and startling differences. Jamie and Maggie enter the story as Jamie climbs out of the cab of his pickup in front of the police station announcing that he killed his wife who was sitting in the cab beside him. Cameron, the police chief and his overly devoted wife Allie react very differently to this moment. Cameron with the weight of his position as the chief of his clan and Allie as a woman who understands giving yourself for another person.

Then Mia, enters the story and Cam is tempted in a way he never expects.

You can probably guess what will happen and you will only be partially right.

Read it!!

This was chosen for our October Book club book - Booker Babes!

March by Geraldine Brook

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This is our August Book Club book.

It has been a long time since I read Little Women...a really long time. I remember the movie much more than the book.

Because of that, I came to this book as much more of a stand alone. I didn't know what to expect and I think that helped. I can't say that I enjoyed the book - it took me quite a while to get into it. But I was intrigued. March actually tried to live what his ideals called him to do. I got tired of his pie in the sky attitude and his inability to really engage in the world around him. It especially irritated me when he was in the hospital at the end.

But, it is in the midst of that scene that I found my very favorite part. Marmee was really giving it to March for wanting to go back to the war and single handedly right all his imagined wrongs. Her comment, "You are not God. You do not determine the outcome," resonated with me.

I think this is one of those little blips in my soul that I keep forgetting. Every time I think it is my responsibility to remake the life of a child, to be the one to break through a difficult shell or to make the leap that brings the understanding of reading to a 4th grader, I have forgotten this fact. I am but one. It's not all up to me...instead it's up to all of us to do our part.

I couldn't help but ponder the Iraqi war we are embroiled in. What do my ideals call me to do? March joined the cause with one set of ideals - faced something completely different as he tried to work within the army and then came against a new set of realities working on the plantation with Ethan. So much that he thought he knew and understood was false. Is that the way war still is? I can imagine the soldiers coming home from Iraq are faced with the same turmoil that March was as he tried to connect with the far away world of his family.So, although this is a story about blacks and whites - I think many parallels can be drawn between Muslims and Christians.

Would I say this was one of my favorite books? No - but I'm glad I read it.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

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I haven't read a Michael Crichton book for a long time. This was just the book I needed to escape. My grandfather died this week and I wanted something to make me forget all the things I needed to do and relax. State of Fear is one of those books that you need to be fairly focused on - there are lots of things going on - because it makes you question what you thought you knew.

The basic premise is an environmental agency that is a money sucking hole and to convince people of the need to donate money to the global warming crisis - they create climate events to scare peoples' checkbooks open.

Peter Evans, a mild mannered lawyer, gets sucked into crisis by representing George Morton, an odd duck of an environmentalist and a very rich man. George begins to become disillusioned with NERF, the environmental group he is funding, and starts to ask many quesitons. Drake, the leader of the group, becomes suspecious and begins pressuring George to change his mind by threatening to kill him. After a drunken acceptance speech - George is killed in a fiery car crash.

Peter thinks things are over, but then he meets Kenner, George's accomplice and a naysayer for all things environmental. Actually, he isn't a naysayer - but a questioner. He pushes Peter to question all he knows about global warming by presenting studies and facts that contradict the general understanding. As Peter becomes more and more embroiled in whatever is happening with NERF, his life is threatened in the Anarctic, in the desert of the Southwest and finally on a little island in the Pacific - that one is the most gruesome - he learns there are still cannibals...

I really enjoyed this book. Although it helped me to escape - it also forced me to think about what I understand and what I believe. It made me believe that the only way to escape this state of fear is to trust in things that are not of this world! :)

Enjoy this!

ps - I read this outloud to Rod right after I finished! So - this should actually count as two books. I think I liked it even better the second time around!

An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg

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This is a great read! Another story of a single mother and a remarkable daughter. What is it about single mothers and their daughters?? This is the story of Jean and Griff, her daughter. Jean has bounced from one awful man to another. Roy, the last boyfriend, beats her and Griff finally convinces mom to leave him - to leave Iowa. They take off for the ocean - but their car spontaneously combusts near Estherville. They have enough money to catch the bus to the little hole in the wall town in Wyoming where Jean grew up and to the grandfather that Griff never knew she had.

There is bad - awful bad-  blood between Jean and Einar, the grandfather. But, Griff is just what the relationship needed. Griff is the unpretentious little girl that sees all and quietly helps the situation.

Jean is only agreeing to stay for a month. Mitch, the black cowboy that Einar has cared for since a bear mauling, becomes Griff's friend and slowly things begin to work out. Until the night the Einar sees Jean in his dead wife's dress. Words are said, Jean runs again but this time Griff puts down her foot and runs back to the ranch.

Life gets interesting as a bear freeing escapade goes wrong, Roy shows up again ready for blood and Jean finds out that life in a small town can be utterly amazing- everyone is watching out for you!

Anyway - i really liked it. It was a bit predictable, but the language is beautiful and you really like Griff - like her a lot. And the secrets that all the main characters keep are dooled out slowly - you get to savor the knowledge, just like Griff does.

Quick and fun read.

The Friday Night Knitting Club

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It's been a while since I've been into a book. This was a great book to lose myself in! When I started reading this I thought I had it all figured out. Self-suffecient Georgia - single mom, business owner, beautiful and focused. She doesn't really need anyone. But, there is a big hole in her heart created by James the absent father of her wonderful daughter Dakota. Georgia plays it safe and carefully creates a place where she is in control of everything...

Georgia has an amazing mentor named Anita. She met her on a park bench in Central Park when she was pregnant and sad and scared and knitting. With Anita's encouragement she began knitting for hire, opened a successful knitting store in New York City instead of running home to her parents in Pennsylvania. She surrounded herself with interesting friends - but she was always the one in control, always the one they went to.

So, I expected James to come back break her heart and leave her to depend on the other women of the knitting group...

But, things didn't go that way. Kathy - the best friend turned back-stabbing, college spot stealing Cat - shows up and wants to make up with Georgia.

Slowly that happens. Very slowly

Then something awful happens that made me sob and sob!! And I'm not telling you anything!
Just read the book!!