Today we are going to talk about my CPF (close personal friend)'s new book, Pope Awesome. Then we'll return to our regularly scheduled kiddie lit with Kathryn Erskine's Mockingbird and Jennifer Holm's historical fiction romance, Boston Jane.
I was hesitant to read Pope Awesome by Cari Donaldson. I've met her and hugged her husband and witnessed how gosh darn polite her children are, but would I like her book? What if I didn't? What if it stunk?
To be completely honest, I did not like Pope Awesome.
I LOVED it!
I first fell in love with the writing of Cari Donaldson when I read her conversion story on Catholic Exchange. Pope Awesome is a better fleshed out re-telling of that journey interspersed with kid comedy and birth stories.
When she talks about "God's fingerprints" on her life, I both marvel at the turn of phrase and start to recognize His fingerprints in my own life, and occasionally the muddy bootprint to the backside.
When Cari talks about "unclenching her fists" and letting God take control, I know exactly what she means. Frightening and thrilling at the same time.
I have to say my favorite chapter is "Conversion Means to Turn." Even the chapter title gives me chills.
As I said the other day, I cried, I laughed, I cried some more with a smile on my face. See, Cari essentially wrote her own birth story, and like all birth stories, it's a comedic drama with raw pain, raw love, and bodily fluids splashed all over the place.
I was telling a friend all about the book the other night and I was brought to tears just trying to explain the beauty of Cari's story. I promised I'd loan you my copy, Kris, but I must let you know that it didn't come with the food stains. I added those bits myself.
I'm not kidding when I said I'm going to be handing out copies of Pope Awesome on Christmas Day. There's a lot to be learned from Cari's story, even if she didn't include her famous pizza recipe.
You're in good company this week, Cari.
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine is the enigmatic story of a young girl (maybe 10?) with Asperger's, but that's the least of her problems. Her mother died of cancer when she was young, and her older brother, Devon has been the mainstay of her life, teaching her behaviors and interpersonal skills and loving her unconditionally.
Devon is not in the book however, as Mockingbird is set six months after the deadly school shooting that took Devon's life. It's just Caitlin and her dad, an unfinished Mission-style chest that Devon was working on for his Eagle Scout project, and mountains of grief.
Using Caitlin as the unlikely guide to closure, Erskine introduces other victims of the tragedy as well, Michael the son of a teacher who was gunned down, and Josh, whose cousin was the shooter.
Erskine uses the Gregory Peck film To Kill a Mockingbird to weave her story together. Devon's pet name for Caitlin was Scout, Caitlin sees her father as Atticus, and Devon (obviously) is both Jem and the mockingbird.
The subject matter is heavy in Mockingbird, which makes it difficult to suggest an age-group for this book. I suppose 10 year olds could read it, but unless they are somewhat familiar with the book or movie To Kill a Mockingbird and are quite ready to a fictional account of the effects of a school shooting on a family and a community, this book would be better suited towards junior high students and up.
Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda suggested Boston Jane by Jennifer L. Holm to me when I requested her girls' favorite romantical books. Like the cover says, Boston Jane is An Adventure, not a romance strictly speaking.
Jane Peck is the only child of her widowed father, a surgeon in Philadelphia. Yes, you read that right. Boston Jane is from Philly. After being ridiculed by the local girls for being wild and uncouth, Jane takes it upon herself to enroll at Miss Hepplewhite's Young Ladies Academy at the tender age of eleven. Over the next several years, she becomes adept at embroidery, etiquette, and tea-pouring.
When her father's former student writes to her asking for her hand in marriage, she sets out for the wild Pacific Northwest and spends the next five months in the belly of a ship.
Miss Hepplewhite left her woefully unprepared for the wild frontier, as Jane finds herself letting each dictum of courtesy and class slip away.
Though her fiance is months away, (she arrived two months late) Jane waits for him, befriending the Chinook natives, working as a seamstress, learning to cook, and going into an oyster business. Will she be the demure girl he wrote to when he arrives, or has Boston Jane become someone else entirely? You'll have to read it to find out.
Boston Jane is appropriate for any advanced reader. I'm putting the trilogy on a wishlist for Christmas for my own daughters.
