Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I feel the need to add this disclaimer each time:  This is NOT an official book club pick, but I'll be posting on whatever I am reading at the moment.

10 pages in and liking it so far!!

UPDATE July 13:  Okay-- I got 34 pages in and I DO like it, but I just can't do another "eat whole foods" book right now.  My mind needs an escape.  I do plan to come back to it, though, especially since my family just joined a CSA.

Imperfect Birds

UPDATE:  June 11... I'm giving up on this book for now.  I've read 26 pages and it's depressing and doesn't seem so good.  I am really not a book giver-upper, but I want to read something right now, and I keep avoiding this book.
Rating:  Incomplete
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I feel the need to add this disclaimer each time:  This is NOT an official book club pick, but I'll be posting on whatever I am reading at the moment.

Just starting this one because I heard Tina Fey said she was reading it on a day I was wondering what to read next.  (The Help was completed in 36 hours-- I hadn't expected to be sucked into that so thoroughly!)

This looks a bit depressing, but also looks like it has a good parenting message... we'll see!

June's Pick: The Help

Rating:  5 (1-5)


The Book Club pick will be announced on the 1st of every month.  Imagine-- reading 12 books a year, mamas!   Whoohoo!

June's pick is The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  For those low on cash, the Jax library has 86 copies-- reserve one!

I swear I picked this before I knew they were making a movie of it (debuting August 2011).  I was waiting til the 1st to reveal.

And.... GO!  Enjoy.
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Review:  So good--- lived up to the hype and beyond.  I read this in under 36 hours because I was SO sucked in.  No laundry, dishes, sleep or... anything, really, got done while I was reading this.  Set in the 1960s, it tells the stories of the black maids/nannies working for white women in their 20s.  The one white girl who actually finished college and comes back (unmarried, tsk, tsk) begins to see the town in a new light and wants to write a book about "The Help" from their perspective.  (i.e. They do 90% of the child-rearing--they leave that to them--but at the same time put out a memo about how 'negros are diseased and we must keep a separate toilet for them'.)  Such a great read, well-written, gripping.

The Good Daughter

Book:  The Good Daughter
Author:  Jasmin Darznik
Rating:     5 (1-5)

Review:

Okay... I know, I keep rating everything 5 stars!  But to be fair, I am mainly picking books out of random interviews I m hearing on NPR to and from Zoe's school, so they are already getting recognition.
This book had me hooked.  I couldn't stop reading it--it was just too interesting.  My heart broke for this woman, Lili--the author's mother.  Her story is insane--- talk about a survivor.  Married off at 13, beaten by her new husband (26 years old and a sadist), pregnant 2 months after the wedding, and whisked away to a derelict horrible part of town because her grandmother-in-law (who was rich) didn't want to have to see her "getting fat".
I also learned so much about Iranian culture and found it fascinating.  (Well, Iranian culture set against the 1950s/60s backdrop, anyway).

One author's quote on the back of the book sums up the feeling I had:
"Darznik's deeply affecting memoir about her mother, lili, illuminates the complexity of Iranian women's lives as few books have ever done.  Once you read this book, you will see Iran and Iranians with new eyes.  A brilliant debut." 

Ultimately, I was totally entranced by this woman's story.

May's Pick: Cinderella Ate My Daughter

Book:  Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
Author:  Peggy Orenstein
Rating:     5

This is the FIRST OFFICIAL book of our book club here.  We begin reading/discussing May 15.  Go get/rent/borrow it!

REVIEW:
In the spirit of this blog----"mothers have no time/I'd rather do an "okay" job and have it done than sit on it forever" -----I've decided to keep my reviews short and simple.


Every parent of a daughter should read this book. 
At the least, every parent of a daughter should read the first chapter.

As I was reading this book and talking about it daily, I would get reactions from moms like:
1.  "Everything in moderation is fine." 
2.  "My daughter went through it and she's 9 now and doesn't care about princesses."
3.  "It's just girls being girls."
4.  "Moms these days are too worried about every little thing."
5.  "Oh, please.  Why does everything have to be so gender neutral?"

I may have said one of these things before I read the book... but this is not what the book is about!  It's about the parts we DON'T realize.  That aren't obvious.  CONFESSION:  I have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to people weighing in on things without having actually read them.

To answer just two of the above comments:

2.  Yes, Orenstein addresses this.  As the Disney execs will tell you--- all girls DO pass through it.  That isn't the point.  3-5 yrs old is the time when girls are forming their ideas of who they are, yet are also the most rigid in their thinking.  Take my daughter.  Not yet 4, she already refuses to wear anything that a princess wouldn't wear including shorts and her glasses.  I mean, she will throw herself on the floor before wearing shorts.  Yes, part of me says who cares--but the part that read this book says she is boxing herself in to thinking that she isn't beautiful in shorts (yes, her exact words).It isn't the fact that they shouldn't have access to this stuff--it's that they are using it to define them, their sense of beauty, acceptance, etc--from here on out.  Orenstein does a better job of disseminating the research (and I only start labeling quotes the last 30 pages when it finally occurred to me).
4.  Hmm, not really.  Or maybe the wrong things in some cases.  We give in because it's a tiring job.  But lip gloss, vanity mirror, etc.  Try to think of specific girl toys that have NOTHING to do with looks.  Try to even offhandedly compliment your daughter without it being about her looks or attire in ANY way.

As my friend Stacy put it below, "What strikes me the MOST...I think it would be my own realization of how numb I had become to the marketing and products targeting little girls."

It is a slow, slow, slippery slope. I feel like I'm not even sure how we ended up with so much princess stuff OR how we went from Zoe wanting EVERY Thomas train and boy Toy Story undies to only caring about wearing skirts or dresses.

Bottom line---- read it/scan it/Google articles on it.  It's important and eye-opening.

Ignore them for a book vs. an iPhone

Read with us wherever you are in the world.  Moms or not, commit to reading 5 minutes a day.  Surely, we can find 5 minutes to indulge in a BOOK--and what a great example for our kids to see us ignore them for a book vs. an iPhone

I'm Over All That

Book:  I'm Over All That
Author:  Shirley MacLaine
Rating: 4     (1-5)

  I started reading Shirley MacLaine the summer after I graduated college in 2002.  I have now read 11 of Shirley's 12 books.  (Waiting to read 'Out on a Leash' when I am ready to be a dog owner.)
I love this woman.  As I like to say, Shirley MacLaine is my favorite person I've never met.
I loved the book, but it hasn't replaced my favorites of hers.  (Out on a Limb, It's All in the Playing and The Camino.)
If you're open-minded, you'll enjoy her point of view.  If you're curious, her insights make for great discussion and probing.
A lot of the book is her giving a quick opinion on certain subjects (rude people,  boring people, liberals and conservatives, vanity, fear based religions, her time with Sinatra, Jack Kennedy, etc.).  But the parts I liked best involved her talking about spirituality and how it ties into what is happening with the world today-- the speeding up of everything and human beings not tapping into the connection they share.
This was a quick read and I loved almost every minute.  Giving it 4 stars only because it still dosn't make my Top 3 Shirley MacLaine favs.

I'll leave you with one of the passages I enjoyed:
"We go about our lives, or work, our shopping, our raising of children, in half-trance.  We don't know what to do about the speed of life and information that we can't keep up with.  We don't even know we can't keep up.  We just feel it... We are half awake as to who we are, who we aren't, and even what our needs would be if they could be fulfilled."