WWRW: Twitter Style

I've got a lot of books and a little time, so I'm going to review these titles in 140 characters or less. Give or take.

Pioneer Girl: A Novel by Bich Ming Ngyuen

Tries too hard.  Vietnamese American girl with a connection to Rose Wilder Lane travels the country to do research and hooks up with a few guys along the way.  #disappointed #adultbook

Slob by Ellen Potter

Fat kid who gained all of his weight since #spoiler his parents' double murder.  Adopted by 911 dispatcher.  Tries to find the killer with a long shot science project.  #icried #teensandup

One for the Murphys by Lynda Mulally Hunt

Girl enters foster care because her mom's boyfriend nearly beat her to death.  Did her mom really hold her down while he beat her?  #toodark  #icried #makeyourkidsreadhappierstuff #teensandup

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

Best written book of this post.  Autistic kid before autism had a name in a prep school in ME befriends KS kid whose mom just died.  WWII.  Bootleggers.  Fiction that borders on fantasy.  #middleschoolandup  #awesome @vanderpool wrote #newbery #moonovermanifest

We Have a Baby by Cathryn Falwell

Please read this book slowly, thoughtfully, and in a gentle voice.  Jill and I love this one. #greatnewbabybook #breastfeeding #agesonetothree

An InLinkz Link-up

What We're Reading Wednesday! North by Night and Other Things.

If you're looking for some historical fiction for Black History month or about the Underground Railroad, North by Night: A Story of the Underground Railroad by Katherine Ayres is a decent read, but not without it's problems.

North by Night is definitely written for the female reader, as our heroine, Lucy Spencer spends a good bit of the novel worrying about boy troubles.  She can't decide between her childhood friend Jonathan Clark, or the Quaker who helps her hide runaway slaves, Jeremiah Strong.  She's been kissing both of them, and now she's in a quandary as to which one holds her heart.

She spends most of the novel at the Widow Mercer's house, helping her care for the pregnant Cass, a runaway who is too ill and too close to her time to continue on the railroad.  Lucy has an eye-opening experience when she realizes that Cass is not married, that her children, including the one she's carries now are fathered by her white owner.  That Cass was forced to "breed" with the Master.

Lucy abruptly leaves all of her girlish dilemmas behind at the end of the story, when *SPOILER ALERT* she takes Cass's newborn north to Canada as her own child.  Lucy's willingness to throw away her reputation and all hope of seeing her family again is remarkable if not a little disappointing to this reader, who wanted to see her live "happily ever after."

There is a scene at the end where the white slave owner, suspecting that Lucy in not the real mother of the baby, suggests that if she would sleep with a colored man, she should sleep with him.  He is truly vile, but Lucy escapes his clutches with pleading that it is too soon since she had given birth.

Lots of mature themes in this book would make me hesitant to recommend it to young readers.  Mature 13 year-olds and up?

I now know exactly one thing about Millard, and it's not good.

I did appreciate learning about the historical impact of Millard Fillmore's signing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1851.  This one bill allowed Southern slave owners to come North and re-capture lost "property."  The bill also stipulated that anyone caught aiding and abetting these fugitives could be fined up to $1,000 (about the price of the family farm) and imprisoned for six months.

Prior to this, any slave who reached a free state was free.  Now, slaves had to escape the United States, all the way to Canada.  This changed the Underground Railroad as well.  States bordering the Great Lakes become more common stops, as one could be smuggled on a boat to freedom.

I've got lots of books from bloggers recently.  I started Laura Pearl's Finding Grace yesterday and am totally enamored with the awkward but spunky heroine.

Sweet Catherine of Catholic Mom Apologia sent Jill a copy of I'm a Big Sister by Joanna Cole.

You guys.  You should have seen the sweet smile come over her face as we discussed her upcoming "big sister-ness."

She does treat the book a little like a catalog.  She has chosen the baby on the "I can keep the baby warm and cozy page." as the baby she would like.

Lastly, Kendra of Catholic All Year sent me TWO copies of her recently published A Little Book about Confession for Children.  So keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming review and giveaway.

An InLinkz Link-up

What We're Reading Wednesday: Frances and New Baby Books

I've been reading the Frances canon to Jill.  She sits for a longer story now, and I am so very tired of princess books.  Frances is a badger-scented breath of fresh air.

We love spunky, song-singing Frances and her mishaps. However, Jill and I have a few (minor) complaints too.

In A Baby Sister for Frances, Baby Gloria is only shown on the first page!  On every consecutive page, we had little conversations about which badger was Frances, and where Baby Gloria could be.

The same thing happened in Bread and Jam for Frances.  Baby Gloria is pictured in her high chair on the first page, and she is quoted later in the story, but you never SEE her again.

Bread and Jam is my favorite, because of the food of course!  The sack lunches that Albert and Frances bring to school are just lovely, with cardboard salt shaker for hard-boiled eggs, black olives, and cup custards, which I can only assume are pudding cups.

I told Jill that a cup custard is a tiny yogurt.  Poor pudding deprived child.

Don't get me started on the badger confusion in Best Friends for Frances.  Gloria is almost the same size as Frances, and her sometimes-misogynist friend Albert is only slightly bigger. I just make random guesses as to who's who in this one.

Back to A Baby Sister for Frances, there's a small person who lives in my house who is going to be a big sister in the future, and I'd love to find some New Baby stories that Don't Involve Jealousy.

Take Penny Loves Pink by Cori Doerrfeld.  It looks sweet, and not headache-inducing like Pinkalicious. However, Penny loves pink so much, she is pret.ty. upset by a new baby brother.  "Boys are blue."  By the end, Penny makes her peace with the brother she's dealt, but are there any "new baby" books that are NOT about jealousy?

I only know of one.

I don't own The New Baby (Usborne First Experiences) yet.  The New Baby is illustrated by the same Stephen Cartwright who hides a tiny duck on every page of every book he illustrates. I bought it for a friend many years ago because it was NOT a book about sibling jealousy, but rather a book about preparing for and the arrival of a New Baby.

Bonus:  the mother in this story breastfeeds, which is rare in children's literature. Gloria the badger is bottle-fed, which I am certain is not biologically accurate.

I'd love to start a collection of new baby books that don't involve jealousy, so if you know of any others, please share!

An InLinkz Link-up