Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for May, 2016…

The Regional Office is Under Attack!, by Manuel Gonzales – I picked up this comedic thriller about butt-kicking, possibly sort of superpowered, female assassins on the recommendation of Rebecca from the All the Books! podcast.  The premise was a lot of fun and it was certainly action-packed, but ultimately, The Regional Office is Under Attack! left me cold.  I struggled with the perspective-shifting and found some of the characters incredibly grating.  And the violence wasn’t my cup of tea, either.

Parenting with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Kay – I’ve been trying to avoid parenting books since I OD’ed on them last spring, but my pediatrician recommended this one, so I gave it a try.  It did make some sense, and I’ve been trying out the recommended techniques with some mild success (but toddlers will be toddlers, you know).  The main premise is that giving little kids choices helps them hone their decision-making abilities and empowers them, which I believe in – the trick, which makes perfect sense but which I didn’t really consider, is to make sure that you offer choices that you can live with no matter what the kid decides to do.  Some of the suggestions for behavior correction won’t work for us because Peanut’s room currently doesn’t have a door, but when that eventually changes, I’ll revisit the tips for dealing with tantrums.  All in all, a decent parenting book.  I’m still cool on the genre, though.

 The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson – I haven’t read Simonson’s other book, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, although I own a copy and hope to get to it soon.  Major Pettigrew has been popular for awhile, and I know that Simonson’s new novel was hotly anticipated by many Anglophile readers.  I devoured it (and it’s a chunkster!) and really loved it.  The story of two cousins, Daniel and Hugh, and their friendship with the new female Latin mistress at their aunt’s country school, was charming and moving.  Daniel and Aunt Agatha irritated me a bit at first, but they quickly grew on me and I adored them both by the end.  As for Hugh, Beatrice, and Celeste, they charmed me instantly.  I can’t recommend The Summer Before the War highly enough, and I look forward to reading more from Simonson.

 Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim – After reading and loving The Enchanted April, I downloaded another von Arnim (hurray for free classics on iBooks!) – the popular Elizabeth and Her German Garden.  An autobiographical novel, Elizabeth follows the title character through all four seasons in the garden she loves more than anything.  I adored the beautiful descriptive writing – von Arnim evokes every season with beauty and glory – but didn’t love the book itself.  Elizabeth’s marriage to “the Man of Wrath” made me sad, and her life seemed so empty and bleak – despite having piles of money, a beautiful estate, and three sweet babies.  What more could you want for?  And yet, I felt she was deeply unhappy throughout the entire book, and it left me sad and confused.  (And distracted, trying to figure out which parts were true to von Arnim’s life and which were poetic license.)  I plan to read more von Arnim – including the two Elizabeth sequels – but I can’t say that Elizabeth and Her German Garden is going to become a favorite.

 Everyone Brave is Forgiven, by Chris Cleave – Another hot new historical fiction release, Everyone Brave is Forgiven was said to be based on letters exchanged between the author’s grandparents during World War II.  I’d heard quite a lot of hype and was excited to pick it up.  It was well-written and engaging, and I think fans of historical fiction and World War II would find a lot to like in here – I certainly did.  But I was bothered by some of the language.  Mary, the female protagonist, works as a teacher in London during the war, and she takes under her wing a handful of children of color after one young evacuee returns to London due to bullying in his village.  Mary’s devotion to her young students is touching, but I was bothered by the racist language that the characters – even Mary – use from time to time, and by the descriptions of the minstrel show in which the children live.  I suppose the language was true to life, but Cleave invented that part of the story – it wasn’t based on his grandmother’s life – and I didn’t think it was necessary to use such demeaning language.  I’m afraid it rather destroyed my enjoyment of the book.

 Heat and Light, by Jennifer Haigh – Haigh is always a winner for me, and especially her Bakerton books.  I’ve read and loved Baker Towers and News from Heaven, so when I learned that Haigh had a new Bakerton book coming out, I was delighted and I immediately requested it from the library.  Heat and Light returns to Bakerton, which is a ghost town after the last of the big mines has closed – until natural gas is discovered underneath the surrounding fields.  Soon Bakerton is on the energy industry’s map again, and oil and gas giants are vying for their share of the riches in the rock.  In Heat and Light we see some old friends and meet some newcomers, and I found myself drawn back into the town as I have been with Haigh’s previous novels.  Heat and Light wasn’t my favorite of the Bakerton books, but any Bakerton book is a good Bakerton book.  Recommended.

 Good Behaviour, by Molly Keane – This was one of those “what to read if you’re still grieving the end of Downton Abbey” recommendations.  Good Beahviour, which is probably Molly Keane’s most well-known book, follows the tribulations (no triumphs) of an aristocratic Irish family in decline.  Money is trickling out of every edifice of the St. Charles family’s stately home, it’s impossible to find good help, and soon the family will be left with nothing but their icily impeccable manners.  Much like Henry Green’s Loving, which I read a few years ago, something about this book just didn’t ring right for me.  It was well-written, but I couldn’t love it despite my best efforts.  Still looking for that perfect book to scratch the post-Downton itch.

There we have it – a bit of a slow month in May, and June isn’t looking any snappier.  But I did read some good books – Heat and Light was a highlight, as was The Summer Before the War, and if I had a few flops the rest of the month, well, that’s to be expected.  June promises more library reading as I continue to try to work my way through the stack and fight against urges to play outside instead of reading in my limited free time.  I do have some fun picks on deck for June, so stay tuned for more recommendations.

What did you read last month?

While I think that it’s incredibly important to expose my kids to stories that describe, and images that illustrate, the particular experiences of people who are different from them, there’s also a place – an important place – for incidental diversity.  A story that simply presents diverse characters in a matter-of-fact way, without making their differences a focal point, can go a long way toward introducing young readers to the concept that, while differences are to be celebrated, there’s also plenty that unites us.  So while I make a point of buying books for my kids that are more open in their portrayals of diversity, I also look out for books with incidental diversity – where diversity is present in the illustrations, perhaps, but is not the focal point.  Through these books I hope that my children learn that while a person’s racial or gender identity is an important part of their personhood and life experience, those things are not all there is to an individual.  We are all so beautifully complex.

Whose Tools? and Whose Truck?, by Toni Buzzeo and Jim Dotz, are perfect examples of books that do incidental diversity well.  In fact, that’s why I bought them – I read a review of Whose Tools? in the “Shelf Awareness for Readers” newsletter, which mentioned, delightfully, that the book featured male and female characters of different races, wearing appropriate safety gear.  That was all I needed to know; I was adding Whose Tools? to my Amazon cart less than thirty seconds later.  And when Whose Truck? followed in time for the holidays, I put in a special call to Santa to make sure it was among Nugget’s presents.

Both Whose Tools? and Whose Truck? pose riddles that ask children to guess who a particular set of tools – or vehicle, as the case may be – belong to.  After each question, a flap opens and the answer is revealed, along with a simple explanation of the job in question.

In Whose Tools?, the neighborhood craftsmen and women combine their skills to build a house for a family.  The mason lays bricks, the carpenter readies the window frames, the roofer nails shingles, and more.

The “Shelf Awareness for Readers” newsletter was spot on – the characters in the illustrations are wonderfully diverse.  There are female roofers and carpenters – because girls can do anything!, which is an important lesson for both my daughter and my son to internalize – and there are faces of all different colors and ages.  The races of the characters are never mentioned outright, because what’s important – for this story, that is – is the pride they all take in their jobs.

Whose Truck? is similar, and just as delightful.  Again, the illustrations show characters of all ages and races, and there are both male and female characters (most of which are performing traditional male jobs – fist pumps for girls who drive a crane truck just as well as the boys!) and, once again, all wearing proper safety gear!  The book follows the same riddle and answer format, and the lilting rhymes are a joy to read aloud.

Whose Tools? and Whose Truck? are relatively recent additions to our family library – only within the last year or so – but they’re already favorites.  Peanut loves the books just as much as Nugget does, which makes my heart sing.  Girl power!  Mom loves the simple, fresh way that things like race, age and sex/gender are presented as only one part of a complete human being.  As for Nugget…

Nugget loves trucks.  And if you have a truck-loving kid in your life, both Whose Tools? and Whose Truck? are sure to please.

What diverse stories are you reading aloud this month?

Greenbanks, by Dorothy Whipple, opens on Christmas.  The Ashton family has gathered at Greenbanks, the family seat, for the holiday.  There are the grown Ashton children – abrasive Jim; lovable black sheep Charles; trembling Letty and her imperious husband Ambrose; and spoiled baby of the family Laura.  There are the Ashton grandchildren – including four-year-old Rachel, most beloved of the group.  And they’re all gathered around Robert and Louisa, the matriarch and patriarch of the family.  On the surface, they appear to be a close-knit family, but the fractures and cracks in the veneer are almost visible.

Robert is a philanderer.  Everyone knows – Louisa included – and everyone turns a blind eye – Louisa especially.  Jim is constantly at war with Charles, whom he considers to be a no-good layabout.  (Louisa adores her boy and doesn’t see it at all – and personally, I found Charles lovable and Jim irritating, so I’m on Louisa’s side here.)  Letty, who wanted nothing more than to marry a man who was “solid” – everything her father, with his roving eye , is not – is now trapped in a loveless marriage and growing more spineless by the day, as Ambrose seeks to control everything his wife and daughter do in the name of propriety.  And Laura is on the verge of great happiness but is destined to throw it away in a fit of spite.

As picturesque as their Christmas appears, change is coming to the Ashton family.  It starts when Robert is thrown from his carriage while out with a young lady.  Louisa is widowed (and probably secretly a little relieved) but she remains the heart of the family.  But more change is coming – the Great War shakes the family to its foundations.  Louisa convinces an old friend of Letty and Laura’s – Kate Barlow – to join her as a companion, because she blames herself for Kate’s spectacular fall from society after being seduced by an older, married man.  Jim and Ambrose contrive to ship Charles off for distant lands twice, until he finally puts an end to their machinations by volunteering to serve his King in the armed forces.  Rachel grows into an intelligent, joyful young woman, but her father’s antiquated notions of what is proper for a woman threaten to stamp out her future before it even begins.

There are births, deaths, money lost and gained, loves parted and reunited, and at the heart of it all is an old woman struggling to remain relevant to her fracturing family, and the granddaughter who is her most beloved and the face of the family’s future.  Some characters get happy endings; others don’t – it’s like life that way, you see?

I can’t tell you how much I adored Greenbanks.  It’s one of those quiet novels in which nothing happens except people living their lives, being born and dying, and yet it is completely, utterly, all-encompassingly gripping.  I could not put the book down until I knew what was going to happen to each and every one of the Ashtons.  I raged when Ambrose tried to deny Rachel an education.  I sobbed when Louisa had to say goodbye to Charles (picturing my own Nugget, all grown up and leaving for another country, and no idea when I would see him again) and I sobbed again when he unexpectedly returned home, only to be driven away again.  I wanted to slap Jim and Ambrose and to shake the spite out of Laura.  I hoped extra hard for a happy ending for Kate.  But the true genius of the story is in Whipple’s characterization of Louisa and Rachel.  How often do you find a novel focused on the relationship between a grandmother and granddaughter in which both characters are so completely vivid and real and alive?  Watching Rachel grow up on the page, and watching Louisa love her, was one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had.

Why don’t more people read Dorothy Whipple?  Why isn’t she better known?  (Greenbanks is the only Whipple stocked by my library system – which I suppose means I’ll have to place a Persephone order for some more.)  There were funny moments, certainly, but Greenbanks was not a funny book – or at least, it was no funnier than life itself.  (And life really isn’t all that funny.)  Whipple drew me so completely into the world of Greenbanks and its surrounding village that I felt like I was an Ashton – the characterization, and the set writing, were so spot on that I knew from the first chapter I was reading the work of a master.  Highly recommended to everyone and their mom.  Read it again and again and again.

Have you read any Dorothy Whipple?  Which of her other novels should I read next?