First Numbers

by Paradise Press

There are so many first-number books out there for babies, I couldn't even find ours online so had to scan my own for the picture. As you can see, it's well-worn from already surviving one daughter's infancy!  First the book goes through numbers one to ten, each page showing the numeral, with its number spelled out and naming the objects in the picture: 3 three blocks, 5 five cuddly teddy bears, etc. When it gets to 7 seven soft kittens, the pictures cover the entire two-page spread. After the number ten, we get twenty shiny beetles, fifty friendly dogs, and one hundred pretty butterflies. I've counted the beetles and the dogs, but never all the butterflies. I'm sure there's a hundred on that page! My older daughter and I used to pause on the beetle and butterfly pages to pick out our favorites- there really are so many pretty ones. The last few pages invite young readers to count different sets of objects mixed together, and the last page shows groups of objects from one to ten on a single spread. It's a nice solid little book with lots of counting opportunities. The pictures are all bold, bright and adorable (although the teddy bears look kind of anemic to me). My baby doesn't count yet but she likes to look at the images and I'm sure she's absorbing something about the numbers as well. The only oddity is that on the back cover a clown is pictured, and there are no clowns inside the book. Maybe it's supposed to match the jack-in-the-box on the first page, but their faces are so different.

rating: 4/5 ........ 28 pages, 2004

Curious George's ABCs

by H.A. Rey

Another one of the ABC books in our house. This one is actually based on a previous book called Curious George Learns the Alphabet, which I'm pretty certain was read to me as a child, as it sounds very familiar. In this short version, each page introduces a letter with a little phrase that uses several words beginning with the same letter. The alliteration makes reading it fun, and the pictures are quite charming- each letter is transformed into the animal, person or object that it stands for. The A forms the open mouth of the alligator (as seen on the cover), C is the curved shell of the crab, D is the belly of the dinosaur, and so on. This is one of the first books my baby actually seemed to enjoy; when she was very small she would squirm if I tried to sit and read her any baby book, but with this one she would sit quietly and pat the pages. When she's older I'll probably look for the original book to read to her, but for now this one is just right.

rating: 3/5 ......... 24 pages, 1998

Happy Baby Colors

by Roger Priddy, et al

I've returned all the baby books to the library, to help enforce my participation in the TBR challenge by avoiding that building! So we're stuck with our own board books now, most of which used to belong to my older daughter. Right now this fat one is the babe's favorite. Each spread of  Happy Baby Colors features a color, showing four objects with that color and on the facing page a baby dressed in the color holding an object of the same color (green: peas, frog, leaf, pear, baby in a green sweater holding a green block). The photos are all very clear and bright, the babies are all cute, and my little one loves looking at them. It's nice to see a variety of familiar objects in slightly different shades of each color, too. After going through the rainbow white, black and grey are featured, then some rainbow-colored things (beach ball, macaw) and black and white (zebra, dalmation, penguin). The final page has four squares of color opposite four objects and invites baby to match the colors to objects. For a book of its type that is just about teaching little ones some basic vocabulary and recognition, it's really an attractive book. A little heavy and definitely too large for baby to handle on her own, but she loves it so much.

rating: 4/5 ....... 28 pages, 2001

Those of the Forest

by Wallace Byron Grange

I got this book thru Paperback Swap because it won the Burroughs medal for nature writing in 1955. It tells of the life in a northern forest, describing all the activities and habits of the creatures that live there. Opens with a snowshoe rabbit taking shelter during a snowstorm, and follows the rabbit throughout a year. Other animals are observed as the rabbit sees them or crosses their paths. Had a lot of potential, but sad to say, the book was boring. The lengthy descriptions of plant life were unsuccessful at painting a picture in my mind, the passages telling what animals did were just that- telling, without any extra flair or feeling. And then there were statements of things like how the air that touched a rabbit's eye had traveled so many billions of miles from the sun, or how far the wind had gone, or how everything is connected via the molecules that move from one living thing to the next when they're consumed by each other... all very well to point out but I've heard it before and it got tedious again and again. Plus the rhetorical questions sprinkled throughout the text started to annoy me as well. I just wasn't enjoying it, so put the book down at about page 50. Had barely begun to hit spring. Disappointed.

Abandoned ....... 314 pages, 1953

Driftwood Valley

by Theodora Stanwell-Fletcher

 Based on journal entries, this is the story of a husband and wife who lived in a cabin (built themselves) in a remote mountain valley in Northern Canada. So far north that winter lasts six or seven months out of the year, twenty-foot snowfalls are common, nobody lives for miles and miles around except the Indians and of course the wildlife. They traveled there to study the plants and animals, to take samples for a museum. A few times the author mentions the work of skinning and stuffing birds, pressing plants, or how they came to be fond of the creatures around them and regretting shooting one or two of every species they came across in order to send back pelts and skulls to the museum. But mostly, that work is hardly mentioned. The book is full of details about how they lived, surviving the elements, hunting their own food (gardening was impossible), trying to get along with their Indian neighbors, reveling in the beauty of the wilderness and the northern lights. They had no radio, no running water, chopped wood for their heat, etc. It was a life of hard work, but they loved it. They even came to resent visitors who dropped in without notice because they felt their lifestyle became cramped! Personally, I can't imagine living in such conditions. Not the remoteness, but the cold and the weather (down to sixty or seventy below). The misery of mosquitoes in summer, being trapped by floods of mud in spring, the awful bitter cold of winter. Driftwood Valley is a book with a big heart, full of love for the wilderness. There's lots of adventures as every time they traveled to meet a plane or explore a new area they had to pack all their gear and food on their backs, and walk all the way on snowshoes. Eventually they acquired a few dogs and two horses, which made their lives incredibly easier- the animals could help carry packs so they could travel further, the dogs snuggled against them at night kept them warm, and their presence at the cabin protected the couple's privacy (as the Indians were afraid of them).

There were a lot of interesting things happening besides wilderness adventures. The book was written by the wife, and she talked quite a bit about how most people thought women were too weak to live in such a remote area. Once she camped out at night all by herself just to prove she could do it- the main goal being to survive! She examines the Indian's culture and in particular is upset by how poorly they treat their pack dogs- the Indians in return are astonished at how well she treats her own. I would dearly love to read her husband's take on the whole adventure; she mentioned once that reading his journal showed the opposite side of everything- he wrote in detail about things that didn't interest her at all, and vice versa. But I don't think he published anything about this trip (it lasted about a year and a half).

I also would have liked to read more details about the wildlife- a lot of animals are mentioned in passing, and that is all. Many of the creatures they only ever saw footprints- especially of marten, wolverine, etc. It was not until the very end of their trip that they ever saw a wolf- and that encounter sounds breathtaking.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 384 pages, 1946

more opinions at:
My Reading Diary
anyone else?

more and more

books that have caught my eye, from the blogs noted:

The Sun's Heartbeat by Bob Berman - At Home with Books
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin- A Striped Armchair
Delusions of Gender by Cordeila Fine- Nymeth
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson -  At Home with Books
Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs- Edge of the Page
Quiet by Susan Cain - Caroline Bookbinder
The Town that Food Saved by Ben Hewitt - Ardent Reader
Kraken- China Mieville- Nymeth
Wonderstruck! by Brian Selznick- You've GOTTA Read This!
Emory's Gift by Bruce Cameron- Bookfool
Enchanted Hunters by Maria Tatar- A Striped Armchair
Intern by Sandeep Jauhar- Caroline Bookbinder
Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi - At Home with Books
The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard- A Striped Armchair
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi- A Striped Armchair
Temeraire series by Namoi Novik- Nymeth
Yotsuba! series by Kiyohiko Azuma from Puss Reboots

Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan M Bergman- Book Lady's Blog
Curiosity by Joan Thomas- Books Under Skin
My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerly- Ready When You Are, CB
Love Times Three by the Dargers- books i done read 
Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson- Nymeth

True to my goal, I've looked these all up to see what's available at the library. The first block of the list I can get my hands on to read, the second shorter part I can't. So that's cheering. I was thrilled to find almost the entire collection of Yotsuba! at my library, after reading about it on Puss Reboots. But for some reason volume 2 isn't there, which is the very one that caught my eye first. Annoying already, even though I've been assured they're not really chronological so it doesn't matter.

Touch and Feel Kitten

by DK Publishing

I like this series of touch-and-feel board books. We have a few at home, but not the kitten one so we keep borrowing it from the library. Each spread shows a few large, clear photos of kitties with various textures installed on the page, and invites the child to explore with her fingers. I like that book uses a variety of words to invite interaction: stroke, touch, feel, etc. There is a patch of soft kitten fur, hard plastic food dish, shiny smooth reflective tags. My favorite is the sandpaper-rough pink kitty tongue (although that texture patch is rather small). My daughter's favorite is the last one, with a kitten in a woven basket. The basket texture is relatively large- almost half the page, and certainly very interesting with its ins and outs and alternating colors. A cute little book that does well at engaging little hands.

rating: 3/5 ...... 12 pages, 1999

a look back

I've been thinking more about the reading experience that was 2011. It was hard for me to pick a "best book" and so I finally gave up trying. There just weren't a lot I read that really wowed me this year. I think that's because I read so much non-fiction. A lot of those books were great. They were interestting, satisfied my curiosity, even entertained me sometimes- but I didn't fall in love with many of them, or feel very passionate about recommending them to people.

In one regard it was a good reading year- I did read over a hundred books- but it many other ways it wasn't. I was dealing with pregnancy and then a new baby, lots of sleep loss. So even though I read alot while nursing the baby, much of the time my brain was too tired or mind wandering, to focus on the book in hand. And then I found when I sat down to write blog posts nothing seemed to come out right. I either couldn't think of much to say and wrote really brief posts, or just started rambling about the book and had a hard time organizing my thoughts. I feel in part that my visitors dropped off because my writing was suffering, but I know it's also because I failed to visit and comment on other blogs as much as I used to. I also didn't write a single past-reads post, something I've been meaning to get back into lately. So overall I feel like my blogging efforts were really lame this year. Not enough visiting around, not enough focus, poor writing on my part. I'm really hoping to do better again, now that the baby sleeps most of the night and I get a few hours to myself during her daytime naps....

Excuses, excuses. Mostly just writing this to remind myself there were good reasons I failed to blog well as last year, and that I want to and can get back into the swing of things again.

Five Little Ducks

by Justine Smith

This is a board book version of the five-little-ducks rhyme. I've become familiar with it through a few different versions I read with my older child when she was small. Momma duck has five babies who go off swimming, and each time she quacks to call them back, one is missing. At the end she quacks again and they all come back. There are a few things about this book that try to be cute and clever, but they just didn't work well for us. The number of diminishing ducklings is achieved by using cutouts on the pages. The duckies have little gold foil patches on their wings but they're so small and dull that they hardly get noticed, and certainly don't have any texture. Overall I was kinda disappointed with the illustrations- they're nice but rather bland. Not overly cute, or bright, or accurate, so I was left just thinking meh. The one thing that made me pick up this book is that when you turn the last page it makes a quacking sound. My baby was thrilled with this at first, she even laughed and wanted it to happen again. But the rest of the book never holds her attention long enough to get to the quacking. I end up having to truncate the rhymes so we get through the pages fast enough to get to the only part she really likes- the noise.

rating: 2/5 ..... 12 pages, 2007

Toot!

by Leo Timmers

Most of the books I pick up for the baby either feature animals or basic shapes, colors, etc. I wanted something a bit different for once, and this Toot! was just right. The pages show various types of vehicles- fire truck, police car, ice cream truck, cold-storage, semi and trolley or cable car- along with the different sounds they make, from a ting-a-ling-ting to a wailing siren or deep honk. I make up my own little jingle for the ice-cream truck page because it's more cool that way. The pictures are bright and very engaging, the different animals in the trucks look so funny. I always get to the end wanting to add one more page that will say beep! but see that there's another book of his called Vroom! that has taxis and cars, so I guess that one's got the beep in it.

rating: 3/5 ........ 14 pages, 2009

Head Cases

Stories of Brain Injury and its Aftermath
by Michael Paul Mason

I chose this book off a library shelf because it jolted my mind: I knew I had another book on the TBR about brain injuries. This wasn't the one on my list, but it turned out to be a very gripping read. It's very sad, and frustrating, and astonishing. It's written by a man who works as a case manager for people with traumatic brain injuries. He travels the United States to visit people who have suffered brain injuries and try to help them get the medical care they need - most often woefully inadequate or non-existent.

Head Cases is a collection of stories about these people: what they have suffered, how it has changed their lives, and those of their families as well. He describes athletic accidents, car wreck, diseases and violence, all wreaking a moment's devastating havoc on the all-so-important yet so very fragile brain. Some of these stories literally terrified me, as you read them and see how easily it could happen to yourself, or someone you love. A few of them have positive outcomes, with a person recovering and regaining a sense of self (though different from what they were before) and a meaningful life. All too often though, the patient ends up shuffled around between facilities that don't quite know what to do with them, much less how to help them. It's very sad to read of brain injury patients who could improve with the proper medical care and therapy, being drugged into a stupor in a nursing home or mental health facility where they don't really belong. Also very sad to read of families torn apart- people who no longer recognize their loved ones, or whose personalities are so altered they can't stand each other anymore. What gave the book relief was how very well it is written. There are many passages beautifully describing the experiences these people had, the things they loved to do- it takes you into another person's life so acutely. They are written with compassion, you can tell the author really cared about these people. He often participated in experiences that were a part of the patient's spiritual life- sitting in a sweat lodge or joining a meditation session. Even in the last, most painful chapter where he tells the story of a suicide survivor he brings a personal connection to the narrative, as one of his close friends had just died of suicide.

Wait, that wasn't the most painful chapter. Just as disturbing was the one where he visited a hospital overseas that treats soldiers and civilians who have been injured in Iraq. Horrifying as the head injuries are, many patients survive them. Only to get released, come home, and find their lives frustrating, painful and misunderstood. It's very dismal that medical technology can now save people who suffer the most atrocious brain injuries, but then the system fails to continue offering them proper care. So many of them find their lives a dead-end.

I could not help comparing this book to those I've read by Oliver Sacks. Mason writes in a much friendlier manner, his book is not nearly as technical as Sacks'. I found it a lot easier to read, but also a lot more emotional. Because I didn't have to sit and struggle to understand, the narrative communicating itself to me easily, it was also easier to connect to it and feel like this was something that could happen to anyone I knew. Makes you scared to get in a car or ride a bike...

rating: 4/5 ........ 310 pages, 2008

more opinions:
curled up
Open Mind, Insert Book
Krista Stevens

2011 Stats

I was trying to finish my last library book before the year closed, even stayed up a bit late last night and welcomed the new year with a book in my lap and eggnog in hand, ha. But I didn't make it through that one, so Head Cases will bridge the gap and be the last borrowed book I read before diving into the TBR challenge.

Here's the numbers from 2011. No, they don't quite add up. I always make an error somewhere in counting, plus some books go into more than one category, and others might not have got counted- for example, I think I counted some picture books into the total tally but then didn't list them as either fiction or non-, so that's the first glaring error. Anyways, the count is roughly thus:

Total books read- 119

Fiction- 16
Non-fiction- 91

further breakdown:

Memoirs- 20
Gardening/ Food- 25
Nature- 8
Art- 2
Pregnancy books- 12
Animals nonfic- 30
Other nonfic- 9

Fantasy- 1
YA- 1
Historical fiction- 5
Animals in fiction- 4
J Fiction- 2
Picture books- 15

Short story collections- 2
Comics/ graphic novels- 5

Male authors- 50
Female authors- 52
co-authored- 12

owned books- 52
library books- 60
borrowed from a friend- 2
review copies- 5
books from bloggers- 3

Abandoned books- 5
Re-reads- 3

Places I visited during the year's reading: Ireland, England, Egypt, Africa, France, Russia, Holland and Ecuador. Not nearly so many as last year.

The numbers are quite a bit different from last year. (Except for the number of books read- that was exactly the same.) I continued on my trend of reading more and more non-fiction. In fact, I don't think there's ever been a year where I read so much non-fiction. I miss the novels. Mean to get more into them this coming year. I was surprised to find that I read no poetry, only one YA book and one fantasy. Fantasy used to be a huge genre for me. My ratio of men-to-women authors was about equal, as was the number of books I read off my own shelves compared to borrowed.

I did something a little different this year, which was to keep a running tally of books read, and which categories they fit into. This was to avoid having to count everything up at the end of the year (usually a big headache).

It worked pretty well. I counted up a few categories just to see how accurate my tally was to my blogging. There were probably a few books I just forgot to jot down, but for the categories I checked it more or less added up the same. I did read far more picture books than noted here; I just didn't start counting them until near the end of the year, nor did I review many of them. I plan to use this system again next year, it worked well for me. This time around I'm also going to keep track of which books I read off my TBR (whether physical or listed) and which I find browsing. I'm curious about that, too.

I usually do more here with listing notable books of the year such as my favorites, the ones I found most inspiring, amusing, and so forth but I'm just too tired right now. Might make another post out of it.

If you're at all interested, here's the last few years' numbers: 2010 and 2009 (before then I didn't do end-of-year stats)

So, Happy New Year everybody! May it be a great year of reading ahead, for all of us!

digital!

I was completely floored this christmas when my husband bought us a Kindle Fire! I never expected to have an e-reader, at least not anytime soon. I always thought I wouldn't like them, wouldn't like the reading experience. Of course I miss the feel of pages and the scent of paper, but I'm surrounded by about six hundred paper books on shelves, so that's not really a gap in my life here. It was a different experience, reading on the kindle, but not as awkward as I'd expected.

I've never used another e-reader, so I'm just comparing this experience to reading regular paper-bound books. The Kindle is small, easy to hold in the hand, but a bit heavier than I expected when I first saw it. In some ways it makes reading easier- I can prop it up and read hands-free, and it's easier to hold in one hand and use a thumb or finger to turn the pages, when I'm nursing the baby and have my other hand supporting her. That's a struggle sometimes with a real book. I found turning the pages very easy and intuitive- you can do it either by sliding, or with a finger tap. I usually tapped. One of the features I really like is that you can tap on any word and pull up a definition, since the Kindle has a dictionary loaded onto it. I love that. You don't know how many times I've wondered about a word but not wanted to stop reading, jotted down a list and by the time I got around to looking them up it wasn't contextual any more. It took me a bit of time to get used to navigating the book on the screen, you can't just flip through pages to see what's ahead for example. And I really didn't like the way photos were handled. This book had an insert of photos in the middle. I really enjoy photos in books. But here, though each photo and caption was given its own screen on the Kindle they were incredibly small. If you tap on the picture you could enlarge it to fill the screen, but then it was blurry. I was really disappointed in that. I think with all the tecnology we have out there, it should be simple for them to put good photos up when they're included in a text. I can put my own photos on my Kindle, and they look fantastic! Here's my older daughter:

The Kindle Fire also has email, games, and all kinds of other stuff on it. Which means everyone else in my house wants to play on it and I have to juggle with them for reading time! I imagine in the future I would love to take the Kindle on trips, because I can load numerous books on it and not worry about the luggage space. But it would also be a great thing to entertain restless kids on airplanes or long car rides, so maybe I wouldn't get to read on it anyways!

I was a bit worried about eyestrain, since my eyes get fatigued reading stuff on a screen too long. Discovered that if I adjust the screen brightness according to the light in the room, it's easier on my eyes. Contrary to what I originally thought, lowering the brightness so the screen is dimmer in dimmer light made it easier. I'd never read on it in the dark, though, which I once thought might be cool. Nope. Have to have light.

I also found it felt like I was reading faster on here, than with a real book. Probably because the amount of text on each screen is less than on any regular book page (or so it felt to me) so I'm turning pages more frequently. You can look at what percentage of the book you've completed, but for me it didn't have the same sense of progress as looking at where my bookmark is in a block of pages.

So... overall I'm pleased with the experience. I don't think the e-reader will ever replace real books for me; if I read a book I like on the Kindle I'll probably go buy myself a hardcopy rather than just own a file. It still feels more real to me. But I was pleasantly surprised at enjoying the experience and I will definitely use this thing, especially on trips. Yay!

Alex and Me

by Irene Pepperberg

Even though he's so famous that the author had to devote the entire opening chapter (which I might skip next time, by the way) to how many people recognized and mourned his death, I never heard of this parrot until I saw other book reviews about it.  Alex and Me is about the author's work with him, training him to label objects with words and answer questions so she could delve into how complex his thinking process might be. I was pretty impressed with his accomplishments: correctly naming colors, shapes, textures, quantities. Learning to compare and categorize. Learning phrases from what students around him said and applying them to correct contexts. Showing understanding of the concept of zero. And more. A lot of the descriptions of how she taught him and how obstinately he often refused to do repetitive drills, reminded me of reading books on language experiments with apes. Much of this book is about Pepperberg's struggles in academia: trying to secure jobs, find funding, secure recognition from the scientific community, dealing with frequent moves and marital stress. It was interesting to me how particular she was with words in describing her project when seeking grants or giving lectures. For example, she wanted to be dissociated from the furor that was arising challenging the claims of those who taught apes sign language so she never said Alex learned words or names for things, instead she called them "labels". Also curious was how little passion comes through these pages; she didn't seem to have a very close relationship with Alex, or at least didn't express it. In fact, she mentioned a few times how she tried to keep her distance from him so their relationship would remain a clinical one appropriate for the study. Understandable, but it made reading the book a little cold. Overall, I was very intrigued with the work she did with Alex and wanted to learn more. I'm definitely going to try and find her other book The Alex Studies to read, it seems like that one goes into more depth and this book felt a bit lacking to me. I kept wanting more detail, more explanations, even more anecdotes than she provided.

After finishing the book I went on youtube to find videos of Alex talking, I wanted to hear his voice. I should have done it before I started the book so I could have had his voice in my head when I was reading!

Incidentally, this was the first book I ever read on an e-reader. I'm going to discuss that experience in my next post.

rating: 3/5 ........ 240 pages, 2008

more opinions:
Book Coasters

more findings

One of the results of organizing my TBR was that I found more books I want to read- from poking around in the library's online catalog. Here they are, added to the list:

Horses Never Lie About Love by Jana Harris
Be Different by John Robison
Lonesome George by Henry Nicholls
Grow the Good Life by Michele Owens
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
Man O'War by Dorothy Ours
Seashells: Jewels of the Ocean by Budd Titlow
The Way of the Tiger by K. Ullas Karanth
Oudrey's Painted Menagerie by Colin Bailey

Lost Mountain

a Year in the Vanishing Wilderness

by Erik Reece

This book has filled me with outrage, sorrow and disbelief. I knew a little bit about the atrocities of strip mining from watching a brief news report on it once, but I had no idea of the extent of the environmental damage and threat to human life, until I read this book. It wasn't one I was intending to read over the holidays, in fact I had to take a break for a few days there because it was making me so incensed. It was the subtitle that caught my eye off the library shelf, and then a bit of perusal inside the cover flap made me realize what the book was about, I felt I ought to read it.

Lost Mountain chronicles the disappearance of one particular mountain in the Appalacian range in Kentucky. The author visited the mountain once a month for a year, hiking up to the summit and wandering around the ridges to see how the mining was changing its landscape. Changing? Removing. Destroying. Annihilating. Strip mining, or mountaintop removal, is when instead of tunneling through the ground, mining companies use large machinery and explosives to blow the mountaintop away, in order to reach coal. Not only does it destroy the habitat, but tons of debris is illegally dumped into streams and valleys and chemicals leach into the groundwater. I didn't know this before, but the Appalachain mountains have one of the most diverse forests in North America in terms of both wildlife and plant life, and are considered our only rainforests. Many of those species are in decline. I kept shaking my head in dismay at the continual blatant disregard for safety or concern for others that these mining companies practice. Blasting too close to human habitation. People's homes getting ruined: foundations cracking, flying rock breaking things, piles of rubble and naked slopes causing floods and mudslides. Children getting sick from respiratory illnesses. People dying of cancer left and right. Overloaded coal trucks driving dangerously fast on narrow roads, killing people. Miners getting paid pittance, families starving, union organizers facing death threats. People who sue for damage to their homes and loss of lives, just getting ignored or threatened or sidestepped because the companies just claim bankruptcy and then open up again under a new name. I could go on and on. It's just disgusting. It had me incensed. I can't believe that in our country a few powerful companies can just go on destroying the landscape and people's lives because they have the muscle of money and power.

Augh! Well, the book itself was a pretty engaging read. It's set up in alternating chapters, between descriptions of Reece's hikes around the mountain and the progressive destruction he observed and chapters about events, health issues, lawsuits, how people in the region live, etc. The chapters are so brief they almost feel like essays, but they are also so intense I don't think I could read it in longer stretches. I appreciated that the author presented both sides- he met and spoke with mining workers and owners alike, and sat in on some town hall meetings where mining employees argued to keep the industry rolling because what would they do without the jobs? It is truly a sad situation. In the end, after the mountain top is gone and Reece can no longer climb to the summit, he files complaints with federal Office of Surface Mining, and visits the mine with inspectors to see if the groundwater is getting contaminated, and sees firsthand how they argue out of every environmental ill.

There were parts I liked. I liked the chapter about the flying squirrels, such marvelous creatures. It was really interesting to read about a re-enactment of Robert Kennedy visiting the community. I liked the inclusion of poetry by Wendell Berry, which I'd never read before. And despite all I thought to the contrary, it even ended on a positive note: restoration of the land. The mining companies are supposed to restore the habitat, but the most they usually do is level the ground when they're done and seed it with grass, creating unnatural pastures up on the flattened mountain plateau. Reece reports that it would actually be easy to plant young trees, which can later be harvested for their wood and would hold back erosion better. It's even cheaper. It just doesn't look good as quick- little trees dotting the broken landscape are less impressive than a wave of green grass I suppose. So it was hard for the mining companies to be convinced that planting tree seedlings was better.

It was hard for me to assess from looking stuff up online if strip mines are actually following the procedures for reforestation. Looking online I found lots of sites that present a positive image of strip mining, with plenty of photos showing lush green forest growing where strip mines had been. But they predated this book so I wonder if some of these atrocities are still continuing.

I had a few small quibbles with the book itself, particularly a handful of typos I came across- break printed for brake, with for will, etc. They jumped right out at me. It's not a big deal, but it always bothers me a little bit to find that.

rating: 4/5 ........ 250 pages, 2006

more opinions:
Tree Hugger
Lake Loop

Seven Cats and the Art of Living

by Jo Coudert

This is a very pleasant and thoughtful little book. It reminded me a lot of Conversations with Amber, which is a favorite of mine. The author looks back on her years with seven different cats (she's owned quite a few more) and in describing their different personalities and behavior, draws parallels to how we human beings deal with life. It feels more like a book about living well and fully, than a book about somebody's cats. She talks about character, about patience, about building relationships. She discusses the effects of early childhood- whether secure and loving or stressful and abusive- in influencing one's outlook on life. She talks about having self-confidence, about the value of hard work, about breaking ruts of behavior, making positive changes in our lives, putting on appearances, being needy or self-sufficient, jealousy, meditation, etc. A wealth of insights and observations. It only helps that I happen to agree with or admire many of her sentiments.

I find it a bit amusing that she and I have completely different taste in cats, though. Meaning, how they look. I once fell into error by choosing a handsome cat from a shelter based solely on his looks- he turned out to be not right for our family (see below). Coudret, too, is pleased to have cats that are beautiful or striking in appearance, but our opinion on that differs. She likes stocky longhaired cats with luxuriant fur. I like lean, athletic cats with long, graceful tails. I've always thought white cats with tabby patches were pretty. A cat comes into her house with all those qualities- lean, muscled, white with tabby patches, a long tail- and she is always mentioning how much a ruffian he looks, how scrawny and unkempt. I'm thinking, I'd like to see his photo! I bet I would find him a handsome cat.

Some readers might be a bit put off by her solutions to problems with a few of the cats- one that turned assertive and began spraying all over the house was relocated to a farm where he disappeared and no one knew his fate. I can sympathize, though- I had a cat once that was very aggressive to children and after trying for months to remedy the situation I gave him to a family without children, who lived on a large property where he could roam (he was a passionate hunter). The same day we took him to his new home, he bolted out their door and was never seen again. I still feel bad about it to this day, but also don't know what I would have done differently... Anyway, that's a tangent here. I liked Seven Cats and the Art of Living, so much that I want to find a copy for my own shelves.

rating: 4/5 ........ 192 pages, 1996

more opinions:
From the Recamier
anyone else?

influence

Ever since I read Merry Hall, I've found some of Nichols' sentiments on plants creeping into my own opinion. Especially in regards to the speckled or spotted laurels. He speaks of them repeatedly with contempt, saying they look sickly, works very hard to rid his property of them. Finally I went online and looked them up. And instantly recognized the plant.

photo credit

Soon after moving here to Virginia, I had noticed a shrub that grows in many people's yards. It has large, pointed bright green leaves with paler green or yellow speckles on it. They look rather tropical (to me) but keep their leaves right through the winter. I always wondered what they were. Now I know: spottedd laurels! I was familiar with solid-colored laurels from back home, my mom's yard has a nice hedge of them- but these were something new. I always looked at them with curiosity before.

But sadly, since Nichols influenced me, I can't help but look at them with distaste. Every time I see one, I think it looks ill, diseased. Just because of the spots. Just because of how Nichols went on and on about them.

 Am I alone or have you ever had an author's (or character's) opinion affect your own in real life?

Barnheart

by Jenna Woginrich

This book continues where her previous one left off. Woginrich continues to strive to live her dream of homesteading. She moves into a new place, a rented cabin in a small community in Vermont. Continues gardening, raising chickens and rabbits. Adds sheep, ducks, geese, a turkey, a goat and a sheepdog to her little farm. Most of the book is not really details about the animals, or even about her efforts to raise her own food. For all she loves sheep, I learned more about what it's actually like to keep them from this other book. There's not much mention of her practices of animal husbandry, for example, until she has to defend someone's accusations on how she keeps them. There's hardly any mention of the garden, except for that she has one. It came across to me that the focus was her emotional journey. She talks a lot about her longings, dreams and plans, and then describes how she goes about acquiring them. There are welcoming neighbors who help her along the way, and suspicious ones who report her (unfounded) for animal cruelty. In the end, she discovers she can't stay forever at the cabin and undergoes a frantic search for a piece of land to own.

Barnheart was a quick, focused read. I really admired the tenacity which she had, to stick to her goals. She didn't mind if she looked odd to her neighbors (or even her own family) but just went ahead and found classes in the things she wanted to learn, found someone to trade sheep with her, found friends who liked fiddling, neighbors who helped her build a sheep shed, a whole community of people living the same kind of lifestyle (with a surprising variety of backgrounds). Her enthusiasm is catching, her honesty refreshing, her love for this way of life very obvious. I enjoyed reading her little book and have recently subscribed to her blog so I can follow along with her doings. I don't know if I'll ever have a homestead (or even if I want to) but I do love gardening, and want to have a few chickens someday (maybe rabbits too) so it's nice to see someone living that dream and far beyond it.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 184 pages, 2011

organizing

I've spent the last week or so organizing my TBR list. The main focus of my task was to separate the list into the books I can find at my local library, and those that are unavailable. I don't know how many times I've gone to the library with a list of titles I was currently interested in, only to find most of them weren't in the system. Frustrating. So I've looked them all up and now know that even if I have to wait for something to travel from another branch, at least all the books on this list are there. It's satisfying to know that.

The list of books not at the library, dubbed TBR etc, is full of titles I'll just ignore for now. Someday I might search for them on swap sites, or purchase those I really really think I'll like, but I have no idea when. I've had a policy for a long time of borrowing books to read before I decide buy them, to keep the number of purchases down. It would be hard to start breaking that habit, especially where there's still so much on the regular TBR that I can still read at no cost.

I've also sorted the list a little more, especially with the nonfiction books, to make finding things easier. I'm not quite sure how to sort the fiction, which is the next-longest segment of the list.... It was interesting to see how the list broke apart when I started searching the library's catalog. About half the classics and nonfiction I want to read are available. Most of the YA books, two-thirds of the fiction and fantasy are available too. But less than a third of the animal books I'm interested in are. It was also eye-opening to go through the entire list in detail. I'm eager again to read many books I had completely forgotten were on my list. I found quite a few books that I'd read and not removed. And a number that were in the wrong place- fiction titles listed as memoirs, for example. Now it all feels tidy, and much more accessible. The list is not nearly so intimidating anymore. It feels manageable. I rather believe I might actually read all these books someday.

It will add an extra step whenever I add a bunch of titles to my TBR, because now I'll go look them up in the library catalog first. But I'm hoping it will save me some time and frustration down the road.

Animal Babies on the Farm

by Kingfisher

Yet another cute board book we found at the library. This one shows a close-up of a baby farm animal- the chick's feet, pig's curly tail, a lamb's bright eye- gives a clue about the animal's identity and hints that the child guess "who is my mommy?" The following spread shows each baby animal with its mother and identifies their different names- chicken and chick, sheep and lamb, horse and foal etc. It's utterly charming, a great introduction to familiar animals, their mothers and some typical characteristics each have, from the goat's silky beard to the lamb's wooly coat. Six animals are shown, with nice clear photographs. Animal Babies on the Farm is a hit with my child.

rating: 4/5 ....... 28 pages, 2005

Baby! Baby!

by Vicky Creelen

This is the first book that ever got my baby's attention. Baby! Baby! has no words, just pictures. Each spread shows a baby and on the other page an animal. There's always a similarity between the two- posture, expression or activity. It's fairly large for a board book, so the baby faces are nice and big and catch your little one's attention. My kid loved looked at the faces, and it was easy to make up some words telling her what was going on: "oh, look at this baby with his legs all bent like a froggy" or "this baby is sitting up like a big ole gorilla!" My daughter's favorite page is the one where a kid sticks out his tongue next to a yawning lion also showing its tongue. I like the one near the end where a baby holds his head high (seen against the blue sky) aside a giraffe also holding its head high. Or the one where a baby sleeps with his hands tucked under him, and a kitty sleeps with its paws tucked just so- they both have just a bit of tongue peeking out, too. The only picture we don't really appreciate is the caterpillar, juxtaposed with a baby lying on the floor on his tummy, arching his back. Both babe and caterpillar look really small on the page, and it's not nearly as engaging for the child. Overall this is a wonderful collection of pictures, arranged so nicely. You'd be surprised how much a kid can look like a turtle's face!

On Flickr you can see some of Creelen's paired photographs. (They aren't all in the book- that only has eleven pairs). And I noticed that some other reviews say it's baby faces next to baby animals, but the animals are definitely not all babies- about half are grown.

rating: 4/5 ....... 24 pages, 2008

more opinions:
Young Readers
Maya Reads
Readia: Children's Book Reviews

Wilderness and Razor Wire

by Ken Lamberton

This is one of the books I found on the John Burroughs Medal list, and was lucky enough to get through Paperback Swap. It was written by a former teacher who received a twelve-year sentence for having an affair with an underage student. During his time in prison, he kept his spirits up by observing what he could of the natural world around him- desert wildlife, birds and plants- and began writing essays on the subject. Ended up publishing numerous articles and essays about wildlife and nature in journals; I'd actually like to read a collection of those. This book is a kind of mesh describing his thoughts and emotional states while imprisoned, some of the details of prison life, how the system worked, the sadism of the guards, his observations of other inmates, etc. Mostly it is about what bits of nature he could connect to: naming birds that visit the prison yard, watching sparrows that build nests. The ants, cicadas, other insects that busily carry out their lives. The growth and spread of various plants, especially weeds and wildflowers. Patterns of weather and changing seasons. His grief and fury when trees are cut down and flowerbeds paved over because they pose a "security risk". I found most touching to read about the interactions of others with the wildlife: lots of inmates were curious to watch tarantulas hunt other bugs. Some kept birds or ground squirrels as illicit pets. When the author's family visits he engages his daughters in hunts for flowers, insects and toads.

Most of Wilderness and Razor Wire was an interesting read. But it was hard to ignore the unpleasant facts. One is the nature of his crime. He never goes into unnecessary details, but describes his guilt and remorse at betraying his family. The weird thing was that the man who wrote the forward tried to excuse his crime, calling it merely a crime of passion and of love. He said it wasn't comparable to crimes of violence, that if it had been a different era, would be considered no crime at all. It was strange going into the book having had that thrown at me. I would rather I had not read the intro. I would rather have not known what he'd done at all. It was hard sometimes to look past it and enjoy the nature bits.

The other part that bothered me was to read about his background as a naturalist. He was the kind of kid who liked to shoot animals (or run them down on the road) just to collect a specimen. Even protected species. Had a kind of cruel streak and enjoyed killing animals, taking them apart, engaging in taxidermy with the remains. You get the impression that only part of it was a fascination with learning. I thought this aspect of his character might fade a bit after so many years in prison, especially when I saw how sympathetic he was to his fellow inmates with their pets, to the living things around him, down to the very weeds in the concrete. But then I'd read about things like how he'd glue down the feet of insects to hold them still so he could draw them (and his drawings are quite nice, by the way.) No mention of whether they were set free again.

It's a kind of harshness, a raw edge butted up against sensitive feeling and passion for nature that kept me intent on the pages as an uneasy and enthralled reader. I'm a bit curious to read more of his books if I can find them, but wary of liking them.

rating: 3/5 ......... 218 pages, 2000

more opinions:
Southern Rockies Nature Blog

The Very Best Daddy of All

by Marion Dane Bauer

This little board book shares a theme with the Ashley Wolff ones about animal daddies and mamas. The Very Best Daddy of All shows how different animal fathers care for their offspring, and then at the end highlights a human father's love for his child. Birds bring dinner, a fish builds a house, a penguin snuggles his chick, prairie dog plays with his pup, fox brings food home so the vixen can care for the cubs, etc. The one that surprised me was a frog leaping at a snake with the caption Some daddies face every danger, so you will be all right. I had no idea frogs would attack a snake to defend their tadpoles! The pastel illustrations are soft and vivid, the words have a gentle rhyming flow that doesn't feel forced. It's easy to fall into a little singsong while reading it aloud. I enjoyed turning these pages with my baby daughter.

rating: 3/5 ....... 34 pages, 2004

The Alphabet

with Wild Animals

by Melanie Watt

You read through lots of alphabet books when you have little kids. And you start to notice the similarities and differences between them. For example, most of them seem to begin with A is for Alligator and end with Z is for Zebra. Lots of other animals are fairly common for certain letters of the alphabet: E- elephant, K- kangaroo, Y- yak, etc. What's really interesting is to see what animals the authors can come up for the hard letters like Q or X.

This version is completely charming. The illustrations in The Alphabet: Learning with Animals are simple yet descriptive, and the backgrounds show each wild animal's appropriate habitat with very few elements. It's just right for little kids. I also really like that the opening spread shows all the featured animals grouped together. Something different, and nice. Some of the more unusual (for an ABC book) and interesting animals here are the quetzal (a fantastic Central American bird), narwhal, monarch butterfly, salamander, tuna fish, orangutan, xerus (a ground squirrel) and unau (the two-toed sloth). I did have a few small quibbles with the book, though. One is the W animal: wapiti. I thought elk was a more common name for this animal, I don't know why you would introduce children to the less-used term (I would also have used the sloth for S not U, but I know it's hard to think of a U animal! the last book I saw had unicorn). The elephant's trunk on the E page looks awkward: too big, like a chopped hose. And the rhinocerous looks like he has cloven hooves, not three-toed feet. Small things, but I started to notice them after so many readings.

rating: 3/5 ........ 30 pages, 2003

Why Don't Pengins' Feet Freeze?

and 114 Other Questions
by New Scientist

Another book I found just browsing library shelves. Of course, it's not about penguins. It's a kind of trivia book, full of questions asked by readers of New Scientist magazine. All kinds of quirky and curious things you might wonder yourself, like: what makes your hair turn grey? do fish die when lightning strikes a body of water? how do gnats avoid raindrops? how do you make ice cubes without bubbles (as seen in commercials)? how does temperature affect the taste of food and drink? etc etc. A lot of the answers got quite technical in the details of physics or chemistry that causes certain effects, and sometimes I have to admit I got a little lost, even though I could tell the answers were written for laypeople. And here's the one little problem with this book. The answers in Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? are not uniform in quality. They're not written by the same author, or even by a team at the magazine. They're sent in by other readers, and vary quite a bit. (Some of them have impressive little list of credentials after their names, others just list their name and you wonder who they are or what they know). Quite often completely contradictory answers are printed next to each other and there are even some that are obviously making a joke of the whole thing. They did make me chuckle, and it was interesting to see different ways of explaining the same phenomenon, but a few times I was still left wondering which response was the most accurate. It didn't bother me too much, but other readers might find this uneven quality dissatisfying.

I want to see them answer the question about the hummingbird my sisters and I used to pose to each other as kids when we drove around in our large volkswagon van: if a hummingbird is hovering in the car and it takes off suddenly, will the bird keep moving along with the car or get smashed against the rear window? (I think this was mostly answered by the question in the book about how a floating balloon behaves in a moving car, but somehow I think a living creature powering itself, like a hummingbird, might act differently?)

rating: 3/5 ........212 pages, 2006

Architecture Shapes

by Michael Crosbie and Steven Rosenthal

Another little board book that's been visiting our house from the library this week. Architecture Shapes introduces children to shapes by juxtaposing a line drawing (circle, square, diamond, oval, etc) next to a photo where that shape is prominent on a building (mostly windows). The final picture shows several buildings together and suggests finding different shapes on the page. I keep looking for a star there, but can only find the other shapes mentioned in the previous pages. This is because my daughter's favorite page is the star, she keeps patting it with her hands (I think because it looks very three-dimensional).

It's a nice little book, but not one of my baby's favorites. She usually looses interest halfway through. I think she's just a little young to be learning shapes yet (her interests right now are animals, bright colors and people's faces). This is a book we'll probably look for again later on, when she's a tad bit older.

rating: 3/5 ........ 16 pages, 1993

Flower Confidential

by Amy Stewart

I wanted to read this author's book about earthworms, or the one about her first gardening efforts, From the Ground Up. But the only other Amy Stewart title my library had was Flower Confidential so I brought that home instead. And it's been quite an interesting, educational read.

This book is all about the cut flower industry. Amy Stewart traveled from California to Ecuador to Holland to see exactly where our flowers come from- the ones you see in the grocery store, in the corner florists' shop, or order online for Mother's Day. The first part is about flower breeding, from the old-fashioned (eccentric guy who hand-pollinated all his lilies but his place was always in disarray. They speculate that his lilies were so hardy because they had to be in order to survive the unsanitary conditions!) to the modern: gene-splicing in attempts to get new flower varieties, even the quest for a blue rose. Then she visits several growing operations, from local and almost-organic in southern California to low-wage pesticide-ridden in Latin America. It's funny, I never thought about flowers being a similar product to food but there are many parallels. Just like produce, the flowers that have been bred to withstand travel and handling have also lost their scent. Flowers are produced cheaper in other countries, so they get shipped from far away. Organic flowers, grown without pesticides and harsh chemicals, are just coming into vogue. Next the reader gets to visit the huge flower auction in Holland, which was fascinating. And then revisits florist shops on home soil, peeking into their doings. Last of all is a look at the mad rush that is Valentine's Day, and how florists cope with the demand. All of it was interesting, and eye-opening for me. I learned a lot about how flowers are propagated and cared for in mass numbers, how they travel around the world, how the demand for them rises and falls (most curious were some of the historical bits about what flowers were popular among Victorians, for example). And I kept jotting down notes of flower names, so I could look them up on my computer and see what they were. I'm familiar with peonies, snapdragons, chrysanthemums, etc but these had me seeking a visual: dianthus, clarkias, mignonette, lisianthus, tuberose, alstroemeria... Some I had seen before, just didn't know their names. Beautiful!

I enjoyed this book a lot more than reading Wicked Plants. This book had a nice, conversational narrative that took the reader along on a journey of discovery. Wicked Plants felt more like a detailed list. Interesting still, but the format is not as fun to read.

rating: 4/5 ........ 306 pages, 2007

more opinions:
Books and Other Stuff
Maggie Reads

Eva and Her Animal Friends

by Ulla Kampmann

This is a book that got weeded out of my daughter's library. She recently got a new bookshelf and it's crammed full (smaller than the old one) so a few had to go. (Most of the board books went to a different shelf just for the baby). Eva and Her Animal Friends is one I've had a long time and can't remember where I got it.

I actually really like the story: a little girl named Eva is getting ready to visit the zoo and talking to some animals in her backyard. The fox is very vain and thinks he's the most beautiful, clever creature around. The sparrow is practical, busy and forever worrying about her children. The bunny is just a little innocent fellow. They all want to know about the zoo, which the sparrow tells them about- having visited herself once (she has a cousin who lives in an elephant's cage). They learn that lions have long tails, brown fur and loving eyes. Elephants have wrinkled skin, big ears and are very smart. Eva goes off to the zoo with the idea that she can bring a lion home for a pet- or maybe an elephant (the sparrow's recommendation). When she gets there, she realizes at once that neither animal is suitable for a pet, and settles for an ice-cream cone instead. The next day, the animals in the yard wake up early and find a strange creature among them. At once they assume this is the new pet Eva brought back from the zoo- but is it a lion, or an elephant? It has brown fur, a long tail, loving eyes and wrinkles and large ears. What can it be? They are all puzzled until Eva arrives to tell them about it.

It's a charming little tale. My only problem is the pictures. They're awkward, look like a child drew them and scribbled in with markers. I really don't care for them at all (and neither does my kid). So even though the story is enjoyable, she doesn't want to look at the book. I really wish this book were reissued with new illustrations. As it is, my copy is probably going to get recycled- it's missing all the front pages (including the first illustration) and has quite a few tears with old, yellowed tape and a very worn cover. It's sad, but one that must go.

rating: 2/5 ........ 30 pages, 1967

Nam, Nam! Yum, Yum

by Catherine Hnatov

This cute little board book is quite simple. Bold, three-color illustrations show animals eating their favorite foods while the facing page describes what they're doing, in both english and spanish. The color mentioned on each page is the only one featured against black-and-white, so it makes a good contrast to help infants become familiar with colors. I like the simplicity of it. My favorite page is the donkey (eating red apples), he's just so charming! Yum! Yum! is very short, only twelve pages, but sometimes that's just right for little attention spans.

rating: 3/5 ........ 12 pages, 2011

I Love My Daddy Because

by Laurel Porter-Gylord

Another beautiful board book illustrated by Ashley Wolff, I Love My Daddy Because is a companion to I Love My Mommy Because.  It shows how animal fathers help care for their young, in many of the same ways human fathers do. Kids can see puffins bringing food to their chicks, beavers and muskrats building a home, a fox teaching caution. My favorite pages are of the eagle sitting with his baby, the lion snoozing with his cub, the chimp laughing with his offspring. The only spread I don't care for so much is the one where the animals play hide-and-seek. Spider monkeys, anoles, jaguars, parrots, toucans and sloths all hide behind busy patterns of leaves. Search as I might, I still haven't been able to find the second sloth. But it's a small matter. The gentle words reminding us of bonds between parent and child (whether human or animal), and the lovely pictures make this a great book to snuggle with your little one.

rating: 4/5 ........ 24 pages, 1991

Move!

by Robin Page and Steve Jenkins

This is one of the picture-book duds I brought home. The cover of  Move!is really attractive- it has one of those pictures that shift when you tilt it (is there a term for that? can someone tell me?) Inside, each spread describes how a pair of animal moves (walking, swimming, floating, diving, running, etc) and then one of the animals continues to the next pair on the following spread. For example, on one page a snake climbs a tree, alongside a praying mantis climbing a grass stem. On the next spread, the mantis is flying, next to a roadrunner also flying. It's a wonderful example of how different animals use the same methods of getting around. The illustrations by Steve Jenkins, done with cut paper are full of different textures, and just beautiful.

So why doesn't she like it? My seven-month-old only wants to look at the cover, once I start reading she squirms and complains and turns away. I've tried the book on her three times now, and she just doesn't want to sit through it. (It's not just the moment, either; I've picked up another book right after and she sat quiet for that one, happily patting the pages). I think part of the problem is that the concept is a bit advanced for her. I'm thinking she'd be more interested when she's two or three, able to jump and run with her own body, interested in imitating the animals. Just not there yet. And I think by the time she is at that point, she won't be interested in board books anymore. It would be nice if there was a regular, paper version of this one to share with an older child.

rating: 2/5 ........ 32 pages, 2009

a note: I've been listing the picture books in my index here by the illustrator's name, not the author's. Because to me, the illustrations are almost more important in a children's picture book. It's certainly what I look for when I'm trying to find new books to share with my kids.

this never ends

the TBR pile! thanks to...

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flynn- books i done read
Love at First Bark by Julie Klam- Caribousmom
Birdology by Sy Montgomery- The Stay at Home Bookworm
I'm the King of the Castle by Susan Hill- Kyusi Reader 
The Heroine's Bookshelf by Erin Blakemore- The Lost Entwife
As For Me and My House by Sinclair Ross- My Porch

State of Wonder by Anne Prachett- Sophisticated Dorkiness
In a Single Bound by Sarah Reinersten- Caroline Bookbinder
Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel - Farm Lane Books Blog
Bird by Zetta Elliott- Puss Reboots
Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg- Books Under Skin
the Girl's Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp from Shannon's book Bag

You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik- Farm Lane Books Blog
Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard - Opinions of a Wolf
Gluten -Free Girl by Shauna James Ahern- Sophisticated Dorkiness
At Home by Bill Bryson- So Many Books
Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan- You've GOTTA Read This!
Wild Life by Molly Gloss- A Work in Progress and So Many Books

You Had Me at Woof

by Julie Klam

Searching for love in her life, Julie Klam has a dream where a small black-and-white dog leaps across a field of flowers towards her. And pretty much, that's when she fell in love with the Boston terrier breed. First came Otto, a dog she simply loved to pieces. Then she (with the reluctant approval of her husband) became involved in a Boston terrier rescue group, and started fostering homeless dogs. All different sorts of little dog characters came through her home, some incorrigible, some adorable. There was the dog who pooped all over the house, another that bit people, a third that did nothing at all, just lay there. The story that endeared me most was of Dahlia, a very aged dog no one liked much until she brought a wonderful surprise into their home.

You Had Me at Woof is an amusing, lighthearted and sometimes surprising read. The author admits openly that she does almost nothing to train her dogs, they're completely spoiled. It made me wonder a little how the rescue group gave her dogs to foster, as their behavior problems didn't get much help from her. But then, at least they had a safe roof over their heads while looking for their forever homes. It was really interesting to read about the operations of the rescue group- I didn't really know how they functioned before, and it seems like (at least this one) they are basically just a collection of big-hearted people doing what they can to help dogs in need, without asking anything in return.

Sometimes the writing in the book bothered me a bit. There were certain gaps in the story, regards to the author. For example, she never explained why she can't drive- even though it comes up as an issue a few times. Reasons for events or changes in her life also get glossed over. I didn't mind that so much- I liked that the book was more focused on the dogs, and perhaps she just didn't want to share details about her life. But it was just confusing as a reader to suddenly have an aspect of her situation different, with no explanation at all.

One thing I particularly liked was that the "life lessons" weren't overly obvious, not shoved in your face. Each chapter had a title like "How to Uncover Truths" or "How to Mourn the Loss of a Friend" (yes, some dogs die in the book. It didn't make me overly sad, though- probably because I just didn't get attached to them as characters). Sometimes I would get to the end of a chapter and then look back at its title and think about the contents before I realized that it all summed up that title "lesson". The one I didn't get was called "How to Feel Good About Your Neck." What does that mean? is it some cultural reference I don't get? can someone explain?

Rating: 3/5                       226 pages, 2010