The Loon Feather

by Iola Fuller

This is a novel depicting the life of a woman who bridged two worlds. Oneta was born into the Ojibway tribe in the early 1800's. When she was a young girl her mother became ill at the time her tribe traveled to another location to harvest wild rice, and they were left behind in a trading village on Mackinac Island. Growing up on the island, Oneta finds her life rich with both native heritage and exposure to French and American culture. She doesn't realize her family's poverty until she moves into the home of a well-to-do white family when her mother marries a local Frenchman who does accounts for the fur trade company. She gets sent away to boarding school in Ontario but doesn't speak much of her life there, instead focusing on changes that occur when she returns to the island twelve years later. Having been well-educated Oneta now sees life on the island in a different light, and finds that she doesn't quite fit in anywhere.

Through the personal story of her life and those close to her- her brother and adopted French family- are woven greater events. Things change as the fur trade begins to fall off when trappers deplete the natural resources. The native tribes find life more difficult as game becomes scarce and the intruding white men fell trees in greater numbers. As the fur trade diminishes focus shifts to fishing, it was quite interesting how that came about. Unrest grows when the government fails to hold up their side of treaties with the native tribes. Although Oneta is a father self-effacing character, standing quietly in the background to most events, it turns out she has a large part to play in the end.

This was a rich, satisfying read. There are a wide variety of complex, interesting characters and all their different interactions with Oneta in the village reflect not only how they perceive her as a native and a woman but also how they see themselves. I loved the rich descriptions and subtle symbolism- not only that of the loon, a wilderness bird, but other little things, like for example salt. In the beginning of the novel, Oneta finds food in her stepfamily's home unpalatable, because she's not used to eating salt. And at the end the government switches from paying the natives in gold for land they've appropriated, to giving them goods. The natives are insulted at being given large quantities of salt, a thing they never use, and pile it up scornfully in a heap on the beach to be wasted. Images like that which speak so strongly of people's attitudes and perceptions of each other...

This is the kind of book that leaves you reflecting long after you've turned the final page. I'm definitely keeping this one on my shelf to read again.
Rating: 4/5 ........ 456 pages, 1940 ........   

more opinions:
WhatMeRead
My Experience of Life

Where is Maisy?

by Lucy Cousins

Very similar to Where Does Maisy Live? this board book also has flaps under which different characters are hiding. In this case, it simply starts out showing a picture of Maisy the mouse and inviting the child to find her throughout the pages. Then on each page there is a different kind of flap to open- the shutters of a window, the sail on a boat, a bunch of leaves on a tree, door of a closet, etc. under which you find all the animals and friends, before at last discovering Maisy behind the door of her own house. It's simple, cute, and entertaining for little hands. The bright colors are really appealing, too.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 14 pages, 1999

more to read...

caught my eye on the following blogs:

Garden of Stones by Sophie Littlefield - The Lost Entwife
The Colour of Milk by Nell Leyshon- Caribousmom
My Antonia by Willa Cather from Books and Movies
Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler- You've GOTTA Read This!
Under A Wing by Reeve Lindbergh- Bookfoolery
A Wrinkle in Time the Graphic Novel by Hope Larsen- Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney- Reading Through Life
White Dog Fell From the Sky by Eleanor Morse- Caribousmom
Pride and Prejudice by Marvel Comics- Diary of An Eccentric
Memoirs of An Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks- You've GOTTA Read This!
Fifty Plants that Changed the Course of History by Bill Laws- Commonweeder
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinor Pruitt Stewart- A Work in Progress

The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry- Iris on Books
Birdsense by Tim Berkhead- Bookwyrme's Lair
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell- The Captive Reader

Mr. Cookie Baker

by Monica Wellington

In the same style as Apple Farmer Annie, this little book takes the reader through a baker's day of work. All the steps are laid out and charmingly illustrated. The baker collects his ingredients, measures and mixes, cuts out animal shapes, bakes them in the oven, decorates, shows them off to the children, sells them in his shop and on the very last page, gets to eat one himself. I don't know why this is another cute book unpopular with my child. Maybe what she really likes about the apples one is the little cat and dog on nearly every page! O well, back to the library it goes. Perhaps she'll like it better when she's a bit older.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 24 pages, 1992

The White Puma

by R.D. Lawrence

The story of an albino mountain lion. It starts with his mother's pregnancy, and then follows the life of the cougar as it grows up in mountain wilderness. I really enjoyed the parts that describe the day-to-day life of the big cat and how it perceived and experienced life. Eventually its presence and unusual coat color are discovered by men. Most of the story then focuses on how a pair of hunters try to track the cat down, and the puma eventually begins stalking them in turn. There's also a field biologist intent on studying the cat, and the struggle between the different factions of people with opposite intentions for the mountain lion's destiny becomes just as intense as the struggle between the cat itself and his pursuers. Written by a wildlife biologist, the novel is strong on themes dealing with poaching and the need for conservation, but what I liked best about it was the thrill of seeing who would win the deadly stalking game that went round and round through the mountain forests, as well as reading about the puma's natural behavior and predatory instincts.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 329 pages, 1990

Hiero's Journey

by Sterling Lanier

This is another book I read long ago, and wish I could find another copy now. I don't know what happened to the old mass-market paperback I used to have. It's a post-apocalyptic adventure story; in a future America where nearly everything has been destroyed, the population has dwindled, and there are mutated mostrous animals (and people) everywhere. (Something like Ariel, methinks). The hero is both a religious priest and a explorer. He has telepathic powers and uses them to communicate with the moose he rides on, and his black bear companion. I thought the idea of a moose for a mount fantastic! So they all go off on a quest into the wilderness to find some needed technology. I don't remember if they ever found it, just the plethora of wild adventures, imaginary creatures, battles (both physical and mental- with the telepathy) and if I remember rightly there was a girl in there somewhere, too. The characters of the animals stand out to me, I don't remember much about the aspect of him being a priest, though.

There's a sequel called The Unforsaken Hiero which looks so familiar I feel sure I used to have a copy of that, as well. But I don't think I ever read it. Now I wish I had. It looks good, too. Anyone read either of these?

Rating: 3/5 ......... ? pages, 1973

more opinions:
Reading Science Fiction
Olman's Fifty
Raven Crowking's Nest
Nathan Shumate
Grognardia

The Long Walk

by Slavomir Rawicz

I read this long ago off my father's bookshelf. It's one of the best adventure stories I've ever read, even if the accuracy of the events have since been questioned. (Which I just discovered). It's about a small group of Polish men who escape a Soviet labor camp and make a perilous 4,000-mile trek south across the Gobi Desert, Tibet and the Himalaya mountains in order to reach freedom and sanctuary in India (then occupied by the British). I remember vividly, even after so many years, the challenges to their survival, hardships with few supplies, the arguments which threatened the venture, the drive which pushed them to continue when all stamina was gone, and most particularly, that at one point they were driven by thirst to attempt recycling their own urine. Ugh.

I also remember the ending; how the men staggered into a restaurant and were refused service because of their dirty, ragged appearance. How they were hospitalized but so consumed with the ordeal they'd just been through that even though now safe, they kept stumbling out of their beds to continue walking. That image of the starved, ill, exhausted men still trying to keep on walking when they no longer had to, somehow stayed with me a long time.

This is definitely a book I want to read again, if I find a copy (my library doesn't have it, nor my personal collection). Even if it never really happened, it's still a great story.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 246 pages, 1956

a few more opinions:
Confessions of a Writer
Book Reviews from an Avid Reader
Smithereens

Love Song for a Baby

by Marion Dane Bauer
illustrated by Dan Andreasen

This is again, one of those books my toddler and I disagree on. I like the concept and the pictures are just beautiful. My little girl does like all the images of darling little babies, but she gets impatient with the text, turns the pages too fast and never lets me finish reading it. So after just two attempts, it's going back to the library.

It's a lovely little book of verse, a parent describing to their child how the baby arrived and how much they loved him right from the start. The words tell of little things babies do, attributes they have, tender care the parents give, all reiterating the unconditional love. Through the pictures you see the baby gradually getting older until in the last one he appears to be a year old, walking on his own, looking proud of himself and very charming. I just can't say enough how much I love the rich paintings, but as my kid simply won't sit through the book and we're returning it without once having made it all the way through, it ends up getting a low rating here.

Rating: 2/5 ........ 32 pages, 2002

A Clearing in the Wild

by Jane Kirkpatrick

Another book I picked up from the Book Thing; my copy jacketless so I didn't really know what it was about until I started reading. From a map in the endpapers and the opening chapters I gathered it had to do with people settling in my home state when it was still just a territory and hoped for something rather like The Egg and I in its descriptiveness. I was a bit disappointed in that the characters only reach the Puget Sound area at the very end, but still got some of the beautiful, rough landscape and early settlers' lives I was hoping for.

The main character here, Emma Giesy, is a member of a religious community formed of German immigrants. When the book opens Emma is a young woman chafing at the restraints of her culture. Women were pretty much expected to be subservient, seen and not heard, and instead she is outspoken, forward-thinking and rebellious. She falls in love with an older man and they get married against the wishes of the leader. Then she complains that her new husband gets sent off on recruiting missions without her, and manipulates her way into a scouting party bound west to find new land for their community to relocate. The bulk of the novel is about their travels and hardships. When then finally decide on a site on the banks of the Willapa River, things look pretty miserable. The land is harder to "tame" than they expected, it rains all winter, their crops don't grow well. But Emma finds herself falling in love with the beauty of the formidable land and begins to learn how to live there (small things that made all the difference, like natives showing her how to make wide hats of cedar bark that keep off the wet). When the main party finally arrives and their leader outright rejects the site- to the bitter disappointment of Emma's husband, she can't bring herself to give up on it yet.

There's so much going on here that throughout I was kept interested- Emma bears two children in the wilderness, and although she never looses her inquisitiveness her character does grow some. She learns some wisdom in when to keep her mouth shut, but also how to stand up to the men around her when it matters. I think my favorite part of the book was when she settled in a half-finished house all alone with her child for several weeks. Her husband also faces lots of challenges and although his character doesn't grow as much as Emma's, there is some development there. Most of the other characters were pretty flat for me, and near the end the story did start to drag. While it closed on a rather hopeful note, the ending felt a bit jumbled to me, a scramble to tie up all the loose ends and name where all the people went to as the community party dissolved. But overall I liked it. A good read.

It's based on real people and events.

Rating: 3/5 ......... 368 pages, 2006

more opinions:
Strawmom
Life Is But a Dream
WV Stitcher
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading!

Where Does Maisy Live?

by Lucy Cousins

Cute Maisy the mouse entertains kids in an interactive board book where they must discover where she lives by lifting flaps to see who is in different kinds of homes. I like that Maisy is pictured wearing muddy boots, and the pages all have farm animals. Along the way toddlers learn where the animals stay- horses in the stable, pigs in a sty, dog in a doghouse, chickens in the coop, etc.- and the noises they make. At the end there's a regular house with a door to open, where you at last find Maisy. My daughter likes to actually knock on this last door with her little fist and say "open!" before lifting the flap. Very fun and educational little book.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 12 pages, 2000

The Golden Eagle

by Robert Murphy

Tells the lifestory of a golden eagle. From its youth being taught by the parent birds how to handle itself in the air and hunt for food, to its solo wanderings, meetings with other birds, and encounters with man. I really enjoyed the descriptions of how the eagle perceived things, how it experienced flight and all the different circumstances that came upon it. The descriptions of various landscapes viewed from high above were thrilling at first, then began to pall on me, probably because I didn't recognize most of the place names and had trouble picturing it after a while. The fierce, wild eagle doesn't have many good experiences with mankind and the author seems to be making a frequent point about how people disturb or outright destroy wildlife; whenever other animals wander on the scene, the author goes into little asides explaining how poorly man has treated this one or the other. Through all her trials, the young eagle gets an injured wing, battles a weasel, runs afoul of a miner who wants to trap her in his cabin, gets shot at more than once, sees one of her parents die at the hand of man, and finally meets an unfortunate fate herself, in spite of the wariness she's built up. It's not a good ending, if you dislike seeing the animal die. I was left feeling a bit put out, I did so want to see the eagle fly farther and raise its own family...

Rating: 3/5 ........ 157 pages

winner

Eenie, meenie, miney moe....
No, actually I used Random.org
The winner of my latest set of bookmarks is Maryann D.!
Maryann, let me know where to send the bookmarks and they'll be on their way to you this week.

Happy reading, everyone!

Baby Sounds

by Joy Allen

As an adorable little baby goes through her daily routine, the typical sounds she encounters are named. Waking to bird song out the window, banging pots and pans on the floor while mom does dishes in the kitchen, playing with a toy phone, jangling keys, riding in the car (honk honk!), etc. My toddler's favorite page is the double-spread showing kids on the swings, their faces pictures of glee. The pictures are nice and soft, done with pastels I believe. The baby's teddy bear accompanies her in each activity, and my little one has just learned to start looking for these kind of consistencies on every page. It ends (appropriately) with the child splashing in the bath, and getting a bedtime kiss. Cute.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 14 pages, 2012

Opposites

with Polar Animals
by Melanie Watt

We seem to have quite a few baby books in the house right now that feature arctic animals, this is one of them. My toddler always asks to see the walrus! I like this little book. It illustrates the opposite concepts very well, and introduces the child to a certain set of animals pictured in their environment as well. My favorite pages are the ones showing open/closed- a puffin with its beak in the different positions, light/heavy- a walrus sitting on one end of a tipped ice floe, with a tern on the other end up in the air, inside/outside- two owlets hatching out of eggs, one peeking through a hole in the shell, and summer/winter- showing the dark and light pelage arctic foxes take on in the alternate seasons. The illustrations are clearly depicted and cute as well.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 22 pages, 2003

Amerika

by Franz Kafka

There was a period in high school when I was fascinated with Kafka. I discovered his works quite by accident. One of my teachers had a shelf of books students were encouraged to borrow from and a certain volume caught my eye just because it was smaller than all the rest- hardbound, but nearly the size of a mass market paperback. I started to read it just out of curiosity. It was The Trial. I found it at once both confusing and intriguing, and went on to read nearly all of Kafka's works. Even a few biographies, collections of letters and recorded conversations.

Amerika, his first (but unfinished) novel, remains one of my favorites. It's a bit more accessible than the rest, but still has that very prevalent dreamlike quality Kafka suffuses everything with. The narrative is about a young man named Karl who is shipped off to America after an indiscretion with a maid that he doesn't want to own up to. It tells an immigrant story- the journey on a ship, arrival in New York, search for lodgings and work, his temporary employment in a hotel, getting mixed up with dishonest characters who take advantage of him and cause him to loose his job, falling in with other shady people who practically keep him as a slave in their dirty crowded apartment, and finally getting hopeful about work with a large company so he goes off to apply and wades through endless useless-seeming interviews, paperwork and procedures. All with a totally surreal atmosphere, bizarre turns of events, people saying or doing inexplicable things, places and circumstances obviously construed by a lively imagination. For the author never actually visited America, and so this story is exactly like a dream someone would have of a place they had never been, but of which they had heard many stories and construed their own idea of what it was like, and then their subconscious mind went rampant with that and spewed out this wandering, yet vivid story that seems to reflect the emotional state of a confused young man trying to navigate a new world.

At least that was my impression, and this is just what I remember some twenty years after having read the book. (I did read it several times, though).

Rating: 4/5 ........ 336 pages, 1940

more opinions:
A Hot Cup of Pleasure
Nobody Likes My Taste in Anything
Don't Read Too Fast

Goodnight Baby

by Cheryl Willis Hudson

Sometimes my kid's favorite board books are the simplest ones. This one, just a few pages long, shows a toddler winding up his day. With brief rhyming text it describes how after playing with friends the child (appropriately pictured looking tired and rubbing his eyes) has a bath and snuggles with a bedtime story before sleeping in his crib. It's a nice little reiteration of bedtime routine, doesn't have much else going on. I guess it's just the familiarity of repeating what happens before bed that makes it appealing to my daughter. Plus she now likes to try and find the stuffed animal toy included in each picture. She seemed to think it odd or amusing at first, exclaiming "monkey!" emphatically, but then I explained that the monkey is Baby's friend like a teddy bear, and now she doesn't sound so surprised to see him there anymore. The pictures are simple and pleasant, and have just enough detail to entertain a child looking for more to think about- what are the children doing with the toys, for example, or what does Baby do with each of the objects in his bath- so it can be a little more engaging if you want, but is also nice and brief when you're looking for a quick bedtime story.

Rating: 2/5         10 pages, 1992

A Beast the Color of Winter

by Douglas H. Chadwick

I still remember this book vividly, even though it's been years and years since I read it. It's all about mountain goats, relating the experiences a wildlife biologist has on the high slopes of Montana while studying them. In the best style of nature writing, the narrative describes his experiences in finding the animals, learning to identify them, puzzling out their behavior, and speculating on many things. There are wonderful descriptions of both the landscape, the author's personal experiences and the animals' activities themselves. It's scientific and detailed but easily accessible to the curious reader and altogether intriguing. I never knew mountain goats could be so interesting. This is one of those books that I would immediately snatch up anywhere I found it, to add to my collection. Just thinking about it makes me want to go out and read more by the same author- I see he's also written about elephants, wolves and the elusive wolverine.

I love the title, too. Borrowed this one from the public library, once many years ago.

Rating: 5/5 ........ 224 pages, 1983

Bodach the Badger

by David Stephen

I grabbed this book with delight when I saw it on a free shelf, because I have loved for years another book by the same author, about a fox. This one was just as good, if not better. I was expecting it to be mostly about the badger and its habits, but was pleasantly surprised to find quite a lot of human interaction in it. I don't recall that much about people in the fox book- perhaps I just glossed over those passages before? Must read String Lug again to find out- when the Dare is over, of course!

Bodach is about a group of badgers that live on a mountainside in Scotland. I've only read a very few books about badgers before and those were either American badgers or didn't feature much of their natural behavior so I was happy to learn a lot about European badgers, which live very differently. For one thing, they live in family groups in large underground tunnels which they occupy for generations. I knew a bit about that from Badgers, but not the idea that they bury their dead, that they can purr, that they suck on their paws, that they eat -aside from small mammals and earthworms- slugs and acorns!

The storyline mostly follows the daily life of the badgers, but also includes quite a bit about the humans who live on farms around them. One set of farmers is fond of the badgers and keeps a close eye on them, another farmer across the way traps them and makes their pelts into sporrans. I wasn't sure from the context if this was illegal, but it was certainly frowned upon. Not only do the regular farmers make efforts to observe the badgers, they bring field trips of kids from a local school to see the badgers and learn about them, they treat injured badgers found in bad situations, and when a man several miles away wants to repopulate a sett on his land that has been empty for years, they carefully trap several badgers and transport them for him. So I was pleased to find quite a bit about wildlife conservation and education in this little novel!

There's a lot of foreign terms used in the narrative, I'm not sure if they are Gaelic or Scottish, as there was no glossary (a thing I sorely missed) but I liked the extra local flavor they added to the story, even if I often had to puzzle out the exact meaning. A lot of other animals are in the pages, too- weasels and foxes, deer, owls, eagles and wildcats. Also vivid personalities of the farm dogs, and one particular overeager terrier named Tarf. Through the course of the novel one of the main human characters tries to teach Tarf how to behave at a badger sett- differently from what he expects her to do at a fox burrow. His methods and reasons I found an interesting side-storyline. But the badgers are the main thing.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 191 pages, 1983

Kipper's Book of Weather

by Mick Inkpen

Another simple, yet effective board book. Kipper's Weather simply depicts and names different weather patterns and shows the cute puppy doing appropriate activities for each. Basking in sunshine, splashing in rain puddles, sliding on ice, rolling snowballs, etc. My favorite pictures are the ones where he's peering through obscuring fog, or holding a metal trash can lid over his head to ward off hailstones. And my daughter likes the pretty rainbow at the end, which spans two pages. I always make little sounds to illustrate each activity or bit of weather- splash for the rain, plink plink for the hailstones, brrrr in the snow and so on. Recently my little girl has begun pointing out and naming the weather in its true context as well, she says " 'nowing" for the snow and "rain" very distinctly. I think she would name a rainbow as well, she says the word for the page in the book but we haven't seen one in real life for a very long time!

Rating: 3/5 ........ 16 pages, 1994

Touch and Feel Ponies

by DK Publishing

My kid really likes ponies right now- she can even make the cutest whinny noise when you ask her "what does the horsie say?" So this board book was a hit right off. Like all the other Touch and Feel books, it has different textures for your child to explore- hairy pony manes and furry coats, smooth prize ribbons, a closely woven blanket, and so on. My toddler particularly likes noticing things the ponies have in common with herself- they eat apples (pictured on one page in a bushel basket on the ground), get covered with blankets and even wear socks. She pointed this out to me on the back cover, where a pony getting loaded into a trailer has protective coverings on its lower legs. "Pony sockies!" my little girl said excitedly. Yes, it really did look like the horse was wearing socks.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 10 pages, 1999

Architecture Animals

by Michael Crosbie and Steve Rosenthal

Of all the architecture board books by Crosbie and Rosenthal we've found, this one featuring animals is my favorite. The distinct photographs show three-dimensional animals featured on or near buildings: statues and relief carvings are the norm but there are also eagle gargoyles, a neon owl sign, a duck that is an entire building in and of itself, a grasshopper weathervane and a tortoise holding up a column. My daughter and I both really like the bronze frieze from the Chanin building in New York, which shows a myriad of sea life- the bit of it pictured in this book has three bass swimming among some plants. It's just beautiful. Another  page I really like shows walrus heads decorating the side of a building in Seattle. I just find it really intriguing- walrus! And my kid is really into walruses herself lately, probably because we have several board books that feature arctic animals. She always insists on turning first to the pages with penguins ("pen-wins") and walrus ("wall-wrie").

But back to the architecture book! Each page has a little caption that tells the name of the building and its location - they're from all over the world- and a fun little poem or verse describing something about the animals (Bubble, bubble / In bronze pieces / Swim some fish / Of assorted species). My toddler usually has no patience to hear the rhymes so I just read one or two lines that give the most basic description, or just name the featured animals for her. A very cool little book.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 24 pages, 1995

Esbae

A Winter's Tale
by Linda Haldeman

One of my favorite books is Linda Haldeman's fantasy The Lastborn of Elvinwood. I'll write about that someday- it sits on my shelf so is easily accessible- but this is another by the same author I once found. The story is set in a college town, among a few college students and a professor. There's a spirit from another world that's been exiled- I forget what the reason was- and forced to live on earth until it can be of assistance to someone and thus gain the right to return to its own realm. One of the students does a research paper on rituals used to summon demons, and another kid decides to go ahead and try the summoning. I seem to remember this was more out of boredom or curiosity than malice, although I was horrified that a puppy was going to be used as a sacrifice. The puppy escaped an awful fate, the ritual was botched but a demon shows up regardless and demands that one of the students be sacrificed to make things right. So then they have to figure out how to get out the ensuing mess while appeasing the demon, and in steps the helpful spirit. I remember finding the (sexless) character of the spirit intriguing, also the main character, a female student. But I was a bit disturbed by the romance that grew between the student and one of her professors, and I think that's why this book is no longer in my library.

I just discovered that this author has long since passed away, and only published three books. I've read them all and always was on the lookout for more, but sadly I don't think there are any more to be found. So if I do come across Esbae again I think I will put it back on my shelf. It deserves a re-read.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 224 pages, 1981

Wild Echoes

Encounters with the Most Endangered Animals in North America 
by Charles Bergman

I'm not quite sure how I first encountered this book, I recall seeing it on a shelf in my parents' house and wondering about its contents many times when I was a teen. I think it was picked up at a gift shop in a national park somewhere, but that memory could be erroneous.

The book is about the author's travels through North America to view the most endangered species, or at least to visit with people who have seen them. He describes his travels, meeting with people, conservation and politics that affect those efforts, how the different animals have fared through history and so on. The animals discussed include manatees, Florida panthers, whales (I forget which species exactly), condors, wolves and the dusky seaside sparrow (now extinct).

This is a book I didn't finish reading. I was interested in the animals, their descriptions and histories, but other aspects of the writing got in the way of enjoying that. The philosophical rants confused me, and the crude humor I found distasteful. I wonder now if it was because of my youth; I might be able to make better sense of it now (and ignore the phallic jokes). Some other reviewers have pointed out that a lot of the material in this book is now seriously outdated; I know for a fact that the numbers of condors and wolves have recovered dramatically. I think I might try this one again someday, if I just happen to come across it (not sure if a copy still exists at my parents' home, I know I don't have one in my own collection).

Abandoned ........ 360 pages, 1990

more opinions:
Ivory-Bills Live?

Opposites

by Keith Kimberlin

This board book uses puppies to demonstrate opposites. It does a good job with some of them- light and dark colors, groups of few and many, and the front and back on the covers are especially cute. A lot of the other pages kinda bug me, however, because they just don't seem to illustrated the concepts well. I will tell you of them.

The fast puppy is sitting on a scooter, looks like he's going for a ride- my toddler gets a kick out of this. But the slow puppy next to him isn't moving at all, just sitting there. Wouldn't it be better if he was at least walking?

The short and tall spread shows a little chihuahua next to a german shepherd- but the shepherd is pictured so large his lower legs and feet are off the page, and he's sitting. It looks almost exactly like the big and small spread, just with different dogs. I imagine it would have worked better to show a dog with short legs- like a dachshund or basset- next to a dog with very long legs, like a greyhound. And both standing up.

The in and out page shows a puppy in a box, then the same puppy just sitting on the bare ground. I think the concept would be stronger if the box was shown in the second picture. The awake and asleep spread show a fat little puppy sleeping in a chair on the beach, and then a different pup just looking at you. I think showing the same pup in the awake picture would make it stronger. Incidentally, the sleeping pup is a pinkish wrinkled shar pei, and my daughter seems to think he looks like a pig. She always says "oink" or "piggie"!

So that's me being very critical, just because I kept picturing how these pages could have been done better. But it doesn't really matter; my kid loves this book because it's full of cute puppies!

Rating: 2/5 ........ 22 pages, 2006

bookmarks giveaway

I'm giving away this set of three bookmarks with pretty patterns. They are handmade from magazine scrap and clear laminate.

If you'd like to win the set, just leave a comment and let me know! There must be an easy way for me to contact you via email. Available if you have a postal address in the US or Canada. The giveaway runs for two weeks, I'll draw a name at random on Feb 9.

Free!

Donkeys Galore

by Averil Swinfen

I think this is the first book I ever read that focused solely on donkeys. The author describes her work in establishing a donkey stud farm in Ireland.  A lot of it is narrative- about how they became interested in donkeys, the work in breeding and raising them, arrangements in selling them, seeking public attention to become part of the tourist trade, visits from celebrities, notable donkeys they've had (including a rare set of twins) and so forth. It has a very old-fashioned, formal writing style that even while being humorous manages to sound a little dry. So I admit I didn't enjoy the narrative parts as much as the factual ones, and in spite of the author continually remarking upon the charm of the animals, that never really came through for me. I did find it interesting to read about how difficult it is to keep donkeys in good health in cold, wet places because they normally come from arid, dry regions and easily catch chills or have problems with their feet in the damp. In a few instances it was pointed out how different donkeys actually are from their relatives, horses- they require a different diet, and their body conformation gives them their great strength (for their size). Thus, when the author helped establish a donkey society in Ireland and got a donkey class accepted into a prominent horse show, she was dismayed that donkeys were often judged on physical points more appropriate for horses, and worried that continued selection for those traits would actually harm the donkey stock and weaken them for the work they were intended! The end of the book wraps up with a plea to kindness for all animals, and for people to realize that donkeys don't deserve the reputation they've gathered for being dull and stubborn. There's lots of lively characters and entertaining events in this book, but not quite enough that I think I'll ever read it again.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 136 pages, 1976

Apple Farmer Annie

by Monica Wellington

We found this one at random browsing in the public library, and it's currently a favorite- both with my daughter and myself. The book seems quite simple, but has a lot going on. With simple text and bright-colored pictures, it shows how Annie tends to her orchard, picks and sorts the produce, turns the apples into salable goods, drives them to a farmer's market in the city, and sells them for her living. There are so many things I find attractive about this book. First of all, it has a female business-owner as the main character. It shows a sequence of events, where apples and their products come from, and how (via the illustrations) many of those are made. The text doesn't address this, but if you look carefully at the pictures you can see all the tools and deduce the basic process in making the cider, applesauce, baked goods, etc. My daughter is too young to appreciate this part, but with an older child I can imagine talking about the pictures in more detail to explain how those things are done. Each page also has a little dog and cat somewhere- this pleases my toddler, who loves to point out where "puppy!" and "cat!" are at each turn- except for the pages where Annie takes her apples into the city, when the cat sensibly stays at home!

Rating: 5/5 ........ 32 pages, 2004

Thistle & Co.

by Era Zistel

Another book I picked up at random from the Book Thing. As the cover suggests,  it's about a collection of animals that form (more or less) friendly relationships: cats, raccoons and skunks. There's not much introduction to the book, it doesn't explain the setting or circumstances but just launches right into stories about the animals. So it took a bit of reading before I figured out that this was just a kind-hearted soul taking injured and abandoned wildlife into her home when people brought them to her. It started with one raccoon, who when finally let outside made friends with wild raccoons in the neighborhood and brought them all home for handouts. They ended up living in the crawl space under the house, which caused quite a few problems later on.

The second half of the book tells about a baby skunk that was taken in and how the author gradually trusted the skunk enough to give it the run of the house, even though everyone was afraid it would become alarmed and spray. Quite to her surprise, the skunk had a calm personality and even learned to play with one of the cats. This animal never adapted to living on its own, was frightened of going outside alone, and when finally startled into flight by the raccoon mob, there were sad consequences.

Overall it was a nice light read, entertaining and educational- I learned quite a bit about raccoon and skunk behavior. It was a bit dismaying to read about things like the overcrowding of raccoons under the house causing disease outbreaks, but I kept reminding myself that this book is quite dated, and nowadays it would be illegal to keep wildlife in your home like the author did. They would have to go to a wildlife rehabilitation facility.

Regardless, the skunk turned out to be such a charming animal, I'm glad to have read it.

Rating: 3/5 ......... 101 pages, 1981

The Mimosa Tree

by Vera and Bill Cleaver

This novel is about a poor family who move from North Carolina to Chicago when they fall on hard times. Their fields are blighted, their pigs died and it seems like there's nothing left. So they pack up and move to the big city, hoping for work and better opportunities. Things don't go as planned. Jobs are hard to find, they are woefully ignorant of how things work in their new environment and soon after moving the two grown women in the family disappear. A bunch of little kids and one fourteen-year-old girl are left to fend for themselves with an incapacitated, blind father. At first they try to do things right, to find odd jobs, even apply for government aid- which never materializes. Finally they realize the hopelessness of their situation and follow the lead of a local kid they meet in the back alley, who guides the oldest boy and finally the teenage girl into thievery to survive. One bad thing follows another and finally the older girl realizes that the city is changing them, they are becoming hardened and loosing their morality to the harshness of their new life. She determines that something must change before it is too late.

The mimosa tree in the title never exists. Ashamed to admit to her blind father that the view from their small apartment window only has blank walls and a trash-filled alley, his daughter makes up a landscape with trees and birds. Funny, in the only other book I read that featured a mimosa, the tree was also symbolic. It was The Help. In that case the tree was real, but constantly reminded one of the characters of her failings and created such bitterness that she tried to chop it down (if I remember correctly).

This book is written by the same authors as Where the Lilies Bloom. I like The Mimosa Tree a bit better.

Rating: 3/5 ........  127 pages, 1970

befriending your ex after divorce

by Judith Rusky Rabinor

Another valuable book that nevertheless is a bit difficult to write about because of the personal nature in how I relate to it. I am not in the habit of accepting review copies from publishers anymore, but I took this one because it seemed very applicable to my situation.

Written by a clinical psychologist who herself has survived divorce and successfully co-parented her children, the book is a guideline to finding a way to build a new relationship with the person you were once married to. Not only for the sake of your children, but also because, the book purports, if you're going to have to deal with this person for the rest of your life- and you likely will- you might as well make it as pleasant as possible. (That's not an exact quote).

Rabinor makes it clear that this is not easy, nor is it always possible. In almost every stage and situation discussed, she points out when it is unreasonable to expect things to progress positively and sometimes you have to just let things be, knowing you've done your best. I appreciate that she always showed both sides of the situation- for example, in the segment on forgiveness she discusses forgiving your ex, and then also forgiving yourself. The gender pronouns are also frequently switched, so it feels evenly unbiased.

The book goes in detail through many emotional states and uncomfortable situations you will have to deal with when attempting to turn what was a bad relationship (after all, it fell apart) into a working friendship, no matter how limited that might be. Moving through grief, handling anger, letting go of past wrongs, becoming allies (mostly for your children), recognizing the difference between big obstacles and small minor irritants, and coming together for celebrations or family rituals are all discussed in detail. There's also an entire chapter devoted to the difficult prospect of meeting your ex's new partner and/or including that person in your wider family circle. Along the way Rabinor offers professional advice, points the reader to more detailed resources when needed and recommends how to find assistance if necessary. She also includes many examples from a wide variety of couples' situations- some showing how things can work out, others when it doesn't. The book is also replete with activities to help the reader work through issues or recognize things- like making lists, visualizing, journaling and so forth.

I admit I didn't do any of the exercises, although I certainly thought most of them through. One that seemed very vivid to me was the idea of writing down things that have upset, angered or hurt you, crumpling and tearing the paper, then burning it. Seems very cathartic. The book helped me with many things, like recognize what stage of grief I'm in, realizing what negative responses I habitually make to strong emotions, and remembering that it's often more productive to state a need rather than blame or accuse someone.... Regardless, I know I'm not ready yet to do most of the things this book offers help with, but it will be waiting on my shelf when I am.

I did have a few problems with the book. It has no index, so when I wanted to look for something specific sometimes it was tricky to remember which segment it was in. Also the headings are annoyingly large, especially considering how many of them there are. When a heading within a chapter is as large as the small paragraph it introduces, following immediately by another heading nearly as large, it just feels like too much. Sometimes I felt like the author was shouting the headings at me, or assumed I wouldn't noticed them unless they were really big. Maybe they had to fill up more page space to make the book longer, I don't know. It is rather slender but don't be fooled, there's a lot of valuable information in there.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 203 pages, 2012

more things I'd like to read someday...

Time again for one of these posts. Thanks to all the wonderful bloggers linked to below, for adding these books to my never-ending list!

Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter Brooks- Puss Reboots
Dwarf by Tiffanie DiDonato- At Home with Books
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog- Caroline Bookbinder
Vertical Vegetable Gardening by Chris McLaughlin- Vegetable Gardener
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro - Bermudaonion's Weblog
Replay by Ken Grimwood- At Home with Books
Catseye by Andre Norton- You Can Never Have Too Many Books
The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin - Books and Movies
Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore- A Library of My Own
Lamb by Bonnie Nadzan - Farm Lane Books Blog

The Camera My Mother Gave Me

by Susanna Kaysen

This book has sat on my shelf for ages. I picked it up because I did so like her earlier memoir Girl, Interrupted.

It's quite unlike anything I've ever read. It was a book I could not put down- I don't have a lot of spare time to read anymore but found myself making time, even if it was in fragments here and there, to read this. Kaysen has a voice I really love- frank, honest, directly to the point, often makes me laugh but sympathize and feel acute sorrow as well. Her story is one I don't think often gets told. She narrates the turmoil her life becomes when she is suddenly stricken with chronic pain, in the most private region of her body. Doctors can't explain it, myriad treatments fail to work. She consults her friends (a very informed group), reads medical journals, visits specialists and alternative clinics and has a terrible time with her boyfriend. The relationship goes sour very quickly when intimacy becomes painful for her. She even starts to question if it's all just psychological.

I was riveted to this story. It's refreshing to read something so honest dealing with an aspect of a woman's life that most people don't even talk about. The details were vivid, but not too much for me. She's very good at cutting to the quick of things. I have to say I am really glad I read this, because it made me recognize some things about my own life. Although I've not had the same medical condition, I'd read conversations in the book between her and her boyfriend and then sit there in shock, staring at the page. The words echoed exactly some things that my husb and I said to each other, many times. I recognized immediately the wrongness of it when in a story; why did it take me so long to recognize it in my own situation? It made me realize that for a long time things were not right between us and it is probably a good thing that we are apart now.

So now you know more about me than you probably did before, because of this book.

I must note a lot of other reviews I saw online complain about this book: it's all Kaysen whining about her pain, talking about her vagina. Well yeah, that's what the book is about. And I think if you had constant pain so bad it hurt to simply sit on the sofa, to drive a car, to put on a pair of jeans, you'd be preoccupied with it too...

It's really good. Go read it, if you're not too squeamish about women's health issues and some frank discussions of intimacy. Be ready for a few good laughs as well.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 158 pages, 2001

more opinions:
"down there"
Pathography
sdouglass2
Life Under a Rock

Architecture Counts

by Michael Crosbie and Steve Rosenthal

I really like this little board book series that has counting, shapes, colors, etc. all associated with architecture. It's unique from most of the other kid books I see that tend to have cute animals, babies, familiar household objects or food items. This one is about counting- each page has a picture of part of a building and a number to count a certain feature- three dormers, five arches, eight chimneys and so on. The last page shows a large building with lots of windows, columns, chimneys and things for a child to count on his own. But I happen to especially like how it starts out- a picture of an open landscape with the caption 0 buildings.

Rating: 4/5 ....... 26 pages, 1993

Island of the Loons

by Dayton O. Hyde

Another book I picked up on a whim at the Book Thing, this one also shelved among bird books but not quite as erroneously as the last. It does feature loons although they are not really central to the story- or at least, did not feel so to me. This story is about a boy who grows up in a town on Lake Superior. He doesn't know his parents and has pretty much been raised by the whole town, is something of a scamp but well-liked by everyone. He goes missing one day in a storm (has his own fishing boat at fourteen) and ends up on an uninhabited island in the lake, with an escaped convict as his companion. At first the kid tries repeatedly to get off the island and turn the man in, but when the convict gets injured the boy nurses him back to health. They are pretty much trapped there for the winter, and end up slowly developing a friendship as the man's growing interest in nature (especially birds) seems to soften his nature. There's a happy ending in more ways than one- not only does the convict find a way to redeem himself to society, as it were, but the boy also meets one of his long-lost family members, although that is only thrown in at the very end of the book and you don't get any reaction to it at all.

Well. It's a good story, but it didn't really captivate me. Probably because it's written for younger readers and so lacked the detail or complexity I wanted. There wasn't enough about nature to suit me, even the appearance of wolves later in the story was kind of disappointing. I was also surprised at how extremely adept these two were at surviving in the wilderness- a young teenager and a man who'd been locked up for years were able to easily enough find and gather food, fell trees, build a cabin, etc. Maybe if you grow up in those northern parts these skills are just something everyone knows but it seemed a little too convenient. Yes, they had mishaps and struggles but getting supplies and knowing how to fix or build things was never an obstacle. It seemed a bit unrealistic.

The island really does exist, and it is a location where wildlife was studied and battled over to save the land from commercial development; so the brief afterward informs me. I just have to say I probably would have loved this book had I read it ten or more years ago, but I can't help compare it to the other books by this author I've read, based on his own experiences, which I found much more enjoyable.

Rating: 2/5 ........ 155 pages, 1984

Dear Zoo

by Rod Campbell

A child writes to the zoo asking for a pet. Each page has the shipping container, which open in various ways-  and usually there is a bit of the animal peeking out. Lift the flaps and see what arrived- but most of them are of course unsuitable as pets- elephant, giraffe, lion, etc and get returned to the zoo. They keep diminishing in size down to a monkey, frog and finally a puppy which the child decides to keep. I think it's really cute and my toddler likes "opening" each package to find the animal inside. She loves puppies right now, so it has the perfect ending. My favorite page is the one featuring a lion- the flap of the crate actually has gaps cut so you see the lion's body through it- as pictured on the cover- and my kid always points out (delightedly) that his tongue is showing as the lion roars!

Rating: 4/5 ....... 18 pages, 1982

Bunny Rabbit in the Sunlight

by Kate Endle and Caspar Babypants

I think this little book is so wonderful, even though my toddler doesn't (once again!) share my opinion. It has lovely illustrations by Kate Endle of What is Green? and apparently the text is also a song- you can hear a bit of it here. Very catchy and cute. And the book is pretty unique, for baby fare. It's not just about naming animals or recognizing colors, but shows individual animals in their different habitats, and names the kind of light they're basking (or sleeping, etc) in. So it's not just sunlight and moonlight but starlight (skunk wandering across a yard), fog light (whale by a lighthouse), lamplight, lantern light, candle light, dawn light, twilight and so on. I really enjoyed this one. I'm holding onto it for a bit even though my kid shows little interest and won't sit through it. Maybe she will if I sing!

Rating: 4/5 ........ 20 pages, 2011

The Big Eating Book

by Guido van Genechten

I seem to be making a round of poor choices, for my toddler's taste in books lately. This one I happen to almost agree with her assessment, though, which equals that of the last book. The book is about how kids eat, compared to other animals. First shows an infant nursing with a young boy looking on. Then shows a variety of animals eating different kinds of foods- the orangutan only eats fruit, the rabbit likes veggies, squirrel has nuts, the goat eats grass and so forth. I like that the last page of animals shows butterflies and says they get their food from flowers! Then we see the little boy again, eagerly raising his fork and spoon before a spread of spaghetti, salad, soup and bread. And on the next page he gets three desserts! I don't know why but something about the ending doesn't sit right with me. I like that it showed how we eat a variety of foods- but did the boy have to have three bowls of ice cream? I guess kids would find it delightful, though. And I do like the quality of the illustrations.

Rating: 2/5 ........ 20 pages, 2007

Egret

by Helen Collins

I really picked up this book by mistake. Probably because of the title, it was shelved among nature books on birds, where I found it browsing at the Book Thing. It was an interesting read, but not really my kind of book.

Egret is about a young woman named Jodi trying to make her way in New York City. She's an artist, and her experiences adjusting to city life, living in crowded apartments with roommates who don't share your interests, and the often-desperate embarrassment caused by feeling like you'll never get out of poverty were all things I could relate to (from my years as an art student). Her experiences with budding sexual awareness and entanglement with various love interests were foreign to me. She's lesbian, also a virgin and very uncomfortable when her roommates drag her along to bars and nightclubs. Then they convince her to accompany them to Long Island, using an older woman's interest in her and her desire to see the local wetlands and wildlife, to get into a party, where they promptly ditch her. Lots of strange experiences unfold. I could not comprehend the behavior of many characters in this story, and the apparent love-at-first-sight scenario between two people from opposite backgrounds and social classes seemed very unlikely to me. Even up until the end of the story, I couldn't always understand what was going on, people's reactions to each other just did not make sense to me.

The book did make a good point that stereotypes are usually incorrect, whether it was from straight people judging the homosexuals they knew, or the other way around. I found their constant misunderstandings of each other rather amusing, although sometimes a puzzle to work out. But there were other problems with the book, for me. The writing often felt awkward, unpolished. The characters' inner thoughts and opinions on each other were all over-explained, yet in a way that left me with really no sense of who they were. I kept getting her three main friends mixed up; even though they were very different people their characters were unclear to me for a long time. I enjoyed the parts that had to do with art, but felt disappointed there wasn't a bit more depth there. And the aspect of the story that had to do with wildlife conservation felt unrealistic, an extra thing tacked onto the story that didn't really fit. I wished it had fit in better, but most of the narrative seemed to be about who-thought-this-about-whom and which party Jodi was awkwardly navigating now or who she was having overwhelming feelings for (in spite of hardly knowing them) and I just didn't care for all that.

Anyhow, it was interesting and I liked reading about the life-in-the-big-city with an artistic bent, but it's not a reading experience I'll care to repeat.

Rating: 2/5 ......... 220 pages, 2001

Babies on the Go

by Linda Ashman
illustrated by Jane Dyer

This is another board book that my child just doesn't like, protests when I pull it out and we never get through more than a few pages. I however think it's lovely- all about how different infants are carried about by their mothers. The first page shows a baby in a stroller, then goes through a variety of animals: swan cygnet tucked under wing, baby bat clinging to its mom, lion cub dangling by its nape, anteater riding piggyback, kangaroo joey tucked in a pocket and so forth. It's got some nice rhymes and shows a wide variety of animals and methods of taking their babies from here to there. The last spread shows human infants once again, in different kinds of infant carriers, strollers, baby slings etc. The illustrations are nice with very gentle lines and colors, perhaps the lack of strong contrast, bright colors or general liveliness is what bores my kid. I'll try it on her again a few more times when we're in quieter moments, then back to the library it goes!

Rating: 3/5 ....... 32 pages, 2003

Garden Anywhere

by Alys Fowler

This is my favorite book right now. It has galvanized me into doing new things for my little garden. I was kind of dismayed at first at the lack of space and open ground I now have, living in an apartment. But I do have big windows with lots of southern light, and a decent-sized balcony. And suddenly I am excited about the prospects of spring again, I have all kinds of plans. Thanks to the inspiration that is Garden Anywhere.

I used to always kind of ignore the advice in gardening books about container and small-space gardening, but now that's what I need to learn, so this book was perfect. It's all about gardening in a city environment, in a rental unit or small space, when you don't have permanence to put a lot of effort into the soil, for instance. She talks about choosing containers, utilizing space, understanding the needs of your plants- light, soil, moisture, etc. Discusses aesthetics, recommends easy plants, pretty ones and tasty ones. Stresses the importance of being environmental-friendly, of saving your own seed, of growing organically, of learning to deal with the pests in ways that don't hurt others. She gave me enough info on making a worm bin that I am hoping to create my own plant food again, and taught me some new stuff about composting as well. Introduced me to a whole slew of new favorite websites. And even better than all that, she discusses all kinds of ways to re-use or find materials you need for your garden, or make it yourself. She calls it "scrap crafting" and this is my kind of thing! I got a lot of new ideas on things to use and make, and hers are usually attractive-looking to boot. I took tons of notes; if you're interested in the details they're over here.

rating: 5/5 ......... 192 pages, 2008

more opinions:
Eco-Library blog
apartment therapy
Folkways Notebook
Velvet nectar

Every Season

by Anne Love Woodhull 
and Shelley Rotner

This is a wonderful picture book celebration the seasons. It starts off proclaiming I love spring and subsequent text and pictures depict the joys of spring: fresh rainfall, sprouting seeds, eggs in bird nests, ducklings and flowers and baby animals galore. But then summer comes and I love summer too, it continues. Summer features visits to the beach, running barefoot on the grass, watching butterflies, tasting watermelon and lemonade, etc. Autum pages show the beauty of leaves turning colors, of seeing geese fly across the sky, picking pumpkins and enjoying pears and apples, feeling the wind. Winter has glittering icicles and fun in the snow, ponies with thick warm coats, the comforts of hot chocolate and bundling up warm. Then it cycles around again with I love spring and a picture of bright green, new leaves.

There are so many things I like about this book. The photographs are very nice. It shows not only how things change in nature and how the animals behave in different seasons, but also how we change our clothes, the differences in weather, and what foods are enjoyed fresh. There's something exciting, fun or wonderful to discover about each time of year. Perhaps my favorite page is the one with pictures of the lovely, secretive patterns animal tracks leave across the snow. My toddler has little patience for longer books but she will sit quietly through this one.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 32 pages, 2007