Book Review: Firewood and Christmas Potatoes (OT)(from Oklahoma to Callifornia in the 30s)

Firewood and Christmas Potatoes, by Robin Carole (Mindstir Media, 2023, 56 pp, $19.65 PB, ages 5-12) Review by Skye Anderson

Living History and Learning Compassion

Delia (the author's mother) and her family left Oklahoma for California in the 30s to find work and with it, better weather. Times were hard and food was not plentiful. Living in a camp for farm workers, the five girls all had to pitch in when their mother was working the cotton fields. 

"The Hardest Times Can Teach the Greatest lessons."

Delia thinks ahead and keeps a secret for all the nearby families she knows: she prepares Christmas gifts from the heart, but they take a long time and meanwhile, more affluent girls at school make fun of Delia. The suspense mounts, however, as nobody knows Delia's plan but, one day in Deember, it starts - and ends with the preacher using Delia's gifts as the basis for his sermon. And you just know the bullies stopped calling Delia a 'dumb Okie.'

Families

This large-sized paperback version has a lovely cover* with firewood and potatoes on either side of an old wood-burning stove, radiating warmth, all framed by lovely pine boughs and pine cones on a backdrop of foggy stars, inviting you inside for a little history and also some family history.

Author Robin Carole has included photographs of her family and, in the back, a few pages to teach the younger set about Okies and the Dust Bowl and Great Depression and even includes a recipe for potato soup (what else!).

*Found out the cover artist lives in the town I grew up in, clear across the country!

Book Review: My First Day of Kindergarten (a dog story, and 11 others)

My First Day of Kindergarten: A Beechview Elementary School Series book, by Andy Gutman* (Independently published, 2023, 28pp, $9.50)

Authors and Characters

The Most Unique, Helpful Book!

Guess who the author is of My First Day of Kindergarten? The twelve fifth-graders on the cover! (With the help of real-life author (of several books) and adult Andy Gutman.)

Each  young author also chose a teacher from the elementary school to serve as a writing mentor, so thanks also must go out to the school's teachers and their principal. And each chapter features a character from one of Gutman's books**!

Do You Remember Your First Day of Kindergarten?

Were you just a little bit nervous (yet excited) because you didn't know anyone and your mother left you? Was your best friend  in the other classroom and you couldn't see each other until after school and couldn't even eat lunch together? 

Or did you have an older brother or sister who told you what to expect (since parents are too old to remember?) 

What if you had had a book written by kids, telling about their first day of school? Now you do!

Some kids cry because they don't know anyone and they are afraid they won't have fun or make any friends but everyone does, thanks to their caring teachers. They do make friends quickly and have fun, learning new rules - they can't wait to return the next day. And your child will have his favorite chapter or two.

BD's First Day: Nerves and Tears Turn into Best Friends

Juliet writes about BD, the dog on the cover, and his first day at kindergarten in Miss Kitty's class, which is typical yet different from all the others! Your child will learn that whatever his experiences are, other kids share them, and best friends are there to be made before the day is over.

My First Day is the first in the Beechview Elementary School Series, so expect more books to help kids in the near future.

*and 12 fifth-graders!

**It was a requirement to use at least one character from an Andy Gutman book, so the reader will learn more about dogs and bugs and even kids. Some authors used the same characters but gave them different names, something else fun about this book. We especially love how the people and dogs are illustrated.

Book Review: Accidents Happen (OT) (a children's book to keep)

Accidents Happen, by Jennifer Stupey (JETLAUNCH, 2024, 46pp, $14.99, ages: baby - 18 years) Review by Skye Anderson

Accidents happen! 

And this is a wonderful book for all ages to cherish - forgiving and inspirational. With illustrations by Loren Billington, this little book is one that will help you and your children through hard times. We also love the greenish-white pages and simple yet meaningful drawings. As a bonus, most of the people depicted have red hair!

Accidents happen! 

But it is what happens after the accident that is important. What you do and how you recover.

Author Jennifer Stupey has written an almost-autobiography on two levels: one for the younger set learning that apologies go a long way to heal both people concerned, and one for older kids who may have had a recent death in the family (in the author's case, her husband in a car accident). 

We drop ice-cream cones, we spill milk, we play too rough with our siblings, we break things of value, we say hurtful things, we trip and fall: but we can wipe up spills, mend broken things, apologize for hurting a friend's feelings, kiss an "ow-ie" and bandage it.

Accidents can make us sad or mad, we can learn that it's OK to not be OK and we can learn to understand and to accept what we cannot comprehend, we can become strong and brave, we can gain knowledge and perspective, persistence and patience. We can live with grief and learn to move forward into the future together.

Accidents Happen!

And then there are big accidents, like car accidents that we can't reverse but "with a little help from our friends" (and family) and the words and pictures in Accidents Happen, we can move forward through it and come out the other side, stronger and with memories to last a lifetime.

This is such a charming heart-felt book that we are sure it will be on our Top Ten list for 2024!

Book Review: Persepolis (OT)(contemporary girlhood in Iran, graphic novel)

Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, Volumes 1 and 2 together (Pantheon, 352pp, 2007, $25.95, highschool and above) Review by Skye Anderson. Also a movie, a major motion picture that won the 2007 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize.

Persepolis, A Former Capital of Persia (Iran)

Persepolis, A book

Persepolis, An Archeological Site

Persepolis, A movie with Sean Penn, Catherine Deneuve, Gena Rowlands, Iggy Pop which was banned in Iran (remember that Anna and the King of Siam was banned in Thailand?)

I never thought I would read an adult comic book. I guess they are called graphic novels and this one is 341 pages long and quite famous, thanks to it also being a movie.

Young Marjane Satrapi is an only child growing up in Tehran during some wars in the late 20th century. She traces the history of her country starting in the 1950s and especially during the removal of the Shah and the new Islamic government that then took over. Members of Marjane's family were imprisoned and executed for speaking out for freedom. Her immediate family exists by revolting in private but that is a lesson this young girl simply cannot learn. Her parents (somehow well-off) send her to friends in Vienna where she does not have to wear the veil but meets a barrage of characters - she takes drugs, smokes, plays around, gets kicked out and returns to Iran where she also doesn't fit in. What happens to her creativity and personal life then is a merry-go-round that is sometimes hard to follow.

Suitable for highschool students and up, the author tells it like it is with all the swear words she needs and depicting the underlife of Vienna and the inside life of Tehran.

A table of contents would make reading Persepolis easier though chapter titles are descriptive. The print may be a bit small for some and the figures are rather primitive but the reader can always tell who is who.

All in all, this is a story of family, and growing up, and leaving family. It is also a story of love for parents and their unconditional love for their offspring. All in all, it is a hopeful book.

Book Review: The Man Who Died Twice (OT)(British, murder mystery, senior citizens)

The Man Who Died Twice, by Richard Osman (Penguin Books, 2022, 400pp, $13.13 PB) Review by Skye Anderson

"Highly Recommended"

The Man Who Died Twice came highly recommended to me by a couple of friends in their 70s, the ages of the quartet of British sleuths in this book, and is a multi-million copy bestseller (whatever 'bestseller' means), so why was it so hard for me to finish. over several weeks with a break in the middle?

NPR's Book of the Day for October 3, 2024, is the newest Richard Osman title and series (We Solve Murders)

while Man is a "Thursday Murder Club Mystery." The best thing about Man, to this reviewer, is the large print and 84 short chapters, some with titles, plus the two pages of discussion questions for readers and a cute fox on the cover.

If you like voluminous Russian novels with numerous characters and long Russian names (lots of consonants), you will love Man, set in England with just as many characters (but shorter names) of all generations and genders (so the names transcend the generations and genders, thereby making it even harder for me to remember who's who)

Man is the second in the series (and soon to be major motion picture) starting with The Thursday Murder Club (soon to be a major motion picture from Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment) and followed by The Bullet That Missed and The Last Devil to Die (in that order). I really should try reading another Osman book, but, in the meantime, here below is a sample of the humor.

Two women cross the Channel into Belgium for the day and buy souvenirs for their friends: "It was quite a long journey back, so somewhere in northern France I unwrapped Ibrahim's chocolates and we ate them, and then I unwrapped Ron's beers and we drank them."

Book Review: Have You Met Stephanie Plum? (single, female bounty hunter)

Have You Met Stephanie Plum? by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's Press, 52 pp, 2003, FREE Sampler) Review by Skye Anderson

If you like the Kinsey Milhone alphabet mysteries by Sue Grafton (set in California) and have read all 25 of them like I have, you will love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum!

And if you haven't read the Kinsey books, try them, along with Evanovich's 31, and you will be hooked!

Have You Met Stephanie Plum? is a sampler. In this very short book with episodes from the first nine of her 31 books, we can read samplers ranging from just a couple of pages to 14 pages as we are introduced to all the main characters from Grandma Mazur to police officer Joe Morelli and former Army ranger, Ranger, along with Golden Retriever, Bob, plus Lula, the former 'ho' turned assistant bounty hunter. Our heroine, Stephanie, attracts unsavory characters, many of whom she went to school with, along with Morelli. And speaking of Morelli - and Ranger - Stephanie can't decide which one she should end up with.

Set in Trenton, New Jersey, with all of its culture, this sampler book also has a short summary of each of the nine books so far. I'd recommend starting with the first book but if you can't get it, start anywhere and get ready to laugh at the antics and exploding cars!

Book Review: Poppies of Iraq (OT) (hardback comic book, a graphic novel)

Poppies of Iraq, by Brigitte Findakly (Drawn & Quarterly, 120pp, 2017, ages 14 and up, $21.95) Review by Skye Anderson

I never thought I would read a comic book that wasn't for kids (shades of Dennis the Menace) but this was a lovely experience with pages of photographs interspersed among pages and pages of story-text with each sentence illustrated by the author's husband and colored by the author.

A story about growing up in Iraq (before moving to France to live [and marry]), written in and translated from French, Poppies of Iraq is a quick read but one you can put down and pick up again, easily. 

Brigitte spends her childhood in Mosul, Iraq, and comes from a very large Christian family. Her story begins before she was born: her father went to France for his degree in dentistry and married his French wife there before returning to Iraq. The author takes us through the next few decades and episodes of being a minority, of visiting relatives in France for the summers, living in a 'war' torn country (civil wars) but as a child, so we learn how she sees and is shielded from politics and discrimination. 

One  Page

When Brigitte then spends the rest of her childhood in France, she is also a minority - someone who speaks French but doesn't read or write it and is therefore 'put back' in school. After a few trips back to Iraq over the years she finally comes to the realization that she may never fit in, in either country.

The story weaves back and forth and touches upon Saddam Hussein and some of his acts, as well as being a pretty good history text book of a few decades.

What is it really like to be a child in turbulent times? What is one aware of and what does one remember - perhaps the pet you had to leave behind, perhaps playing with the little girl next door after months of the families ignoring each other because they are 'different.'

And the drawings are fun!