The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I had a really hard time with this book. It is a fast read with short paragraphs and sparse description. That wasn't the problem. Instead the very idea of a nameless father and son traveling on a deteriating road through a bleak nuclear winter to a completely unknown future was difficult.

The characters show us the best and the worst of humanity. The father has to juggle impossible options - 1 bullet left in the gun and two starving travelers. Do you shoot your son to put him out of misery? Can you/could you do that? And what about saving this "good guy" from the cannibles day after day after day.

The boy is the voice of hope and kindness. It is he who reminds his father to help the old man, to give the thief back his clothes and to try to help the trapped innocents.

But, my goodness. What a world. What a future. What an ending. I read and read with my Afterschool special hopes - wanting some redemption for this struggling pair. They were constantly on the lookout for the good guys - but would they have recoginzed them if they found them. It appears they didn't. At least maybe...

I have to believe that is some sort of hope. The road doesn't end - it is all in your attitude on the journey. Each time it looked impossible - something happened to keep them going. That is what I hold on to. No matter how bleak our own future - I believe there is someone watching over the entire plan. Whether I make it to the end of the road or not - I know God is watching and I will be with him. That is what gives me the faith and the hope to begin each day again. I think the boy understood that.

So, dear reader - what do you think? Do you have the stuff to carry the flame? I have to believe that I would try.

06/07

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

What an amazing book. This story takes you back to carnival life in the 30s. A time when the trains pulled the circuses across the country. A time when people really did run away with the circus. And that is exactly the story this book tells - a young man, Jacob Jancowicz, who runs away from the life he's known. He is in the last two weeks of college when tragedy strikes - his parents are killed in an car accident and the bank actually owns everything. Instead of taking the final exams he simply walks out of the testing room and doesn't stop until he climbs aboard a train.

And his new life begins with the circus. He doesn't quite fit - he is educated and from a happy family. He immediately finds friends and enemies. Something he has never experienced before. He also is able to follow his love of animals as he cares for the varied animals in the menagerie. And he discovers a deep and forbidden love for another of the performers.

This was an amazing story - it chugged down the track quickly and with the same sense of anticipation and excitement that a real trip to the circus would have! The end is just as unexpected and as the final show under the big top!! I loved this!!!

06/07

The Collectors By: David Baldacci

This was another very quick read. I have read other Baldacci’s, but this pulled me in more than others.

The story is about a peculiar group of people who are collectors of one sort or another. The story begins by following two completely separate stories -one about a con and the other a killer in Washington D.C.

I don’t want to say much - because I don’t want to give anything away. But, this is the second in the series of the Camel Club and it won’t be the last!!

06/07

The Color of Water by James McBride

This was a great book to read after To Kill A Mockingbird. These books walked a lot of the same path, but with very different outcomes.

James is the child of a Jewish mother who married a black man and was permenantly torn from her birth family because of that. This is the story of deep love for a family and for God, and the way that love can overcome.

James tells an amazing story. Weaving his mother’s past and his own past together.

Another one to recommend!!

06/07

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I read this years and years ago and can’t believe how much I forgot! It was a great June read!

The last time I read it, I wasn’t a parent. It makes things happen completely differently as I read it through a parents’ eyes. Atticus was an amazing man. My favorite line is ...”Atticus is the same on the street as he is in the courtroom.” I’ve thought about that so often. Could my children describe me the same way? Am I the same in the classroom as at home?

I had forgotten a lot of the parts that tie the story together - only remembering sketchily how the story connects.

I would strongly recommend this one for a great read again - or a wonderful introduction to life in the south a long time ago!!

May book club

06/07

Fortune’s Rocks By Anita Shreve

It’s hard for me to say if I liked this one or not. I like the way Shreve makes me think. Her books are not entirely comfortable to read - there is a nagging that can’t be ignored. So it was with Fortune’s Rocks.

The story takes place in early 1900 at a time when girls were to be seen and not heard. The scene is New Hampshire - along the coast at the edge of a Textile mill town. But, Olympia at the edge of 16, has been raised in the light of her father's eye far from the work and the hardships of mill work. Then Olympia meets John Haskell, a 40 something doctor and father of several. There is instant attraction between the two. Against both of their better judgements - they becoming romantically entwined. As the summer passes, they know their 'love' must end. But, their are discovered at Olympia's 16th party by John's wife and a nasty poet.

Olympia's family returns at once to Boston and complete disgrace. John is sent from his home and his Dr. license taken from him. Olympia discovers herself pregnant and the baby is taken from her as well.

But, that is not wher Shreve ends the book. Instead, Olympia fights back from her father's disgrace. She attends college for a few years and then 'runs' away back to Fortune's Rocks where she was happy. She begins to live on her own in the house by the sea.

I don't want to tell you the rest of the story - but it continues on.


My problem was the very idea of a 15 and 40 year old having this deep and profound love. And the destruction that they created. Shreve doesn't defend or condone - rather she simply reports. I don't know if I like that.... It made me cringe more than once. Again, I have to read this with the eye of the mom of a teen-ager!!

Anyway - this is a haunting tale, like all of Shreves. There are no easy and pat answers. Instead, life is messy and goes on long after you think there is absolutely no way for it to contine!!

05/07

The Kommandant’s Girl by Pam Jenoff

The time is WWII Prague. Emma is a shy, poor Jewish girl who meets an amazing and passionate young man, Jacob. Jacob sees her hidden away in the books of the library and they fall passionately in love. Then the war interfers with their new life.

Jacob joins the resistance and sends Emma to his Catholic aunt on the edges of Prague. Emma changes her name to Anna and begins working in Nazi headquarters for the Kommandant. 

So begins the next phase of Emma/Anna’s life. She is scared beyond all she knows that she will be discovered and killed. Here is a Jewish girl in the heart of Prague’s Nazi center.

But, Emma finds strength in a way she did not expect. She finds love in the Krysia’s house (the older aunt) caring for an orphaned child. She is able to slowly do more and more for the resistance as she discovers the Kommandan’ts secrets. But Anna has her secrets as well. As the Kommandant notices her again and again she must make very difficult choices that affect her life and the life of Jacob. Her choices will come to change her and the lives of many around her.

This is a great read - not easy, but thought provoking. It makes you wonder what choices you would make for the greater good...Sitting in the middle of Iowa the path looks clear - would it if the war swirled through our own world???

Excellent!!

05/07