Ahem...

I'm really excited about announcing the book for August and I'm doing it early because I think those who are going to have already finished The Help (that was really enjoyable and I still find myself trying to make time to go read it).

I had 2 books in mind that I really want to read. The Founding Brothers and Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work.

We are reading neither.

I chose The Gilead by Marilynne Robinson based on Molly Rowan's recommendation. It sounds like just the story I'm in the mood for - fathers, faith, truth, .....
It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2005. Here is a lengthy description of the book.

Books such as these take time, and thought, and a certain kind of genius. There are no invidious comparisons to be made. Robinson's books are unalike in every way but one: the same incisive thought and careful prose illuminate both.

The narrator, John Ames, is 76, a preacher who has lived almost all of his life in Gilead, Iowa. He is writing a letter to his almost seven-year-old son, the blessing of his second marriage. It is a summing-up, an apologia, a consideration of his life. Robinson takes the story away from being simply the reminiscences of one man and moves it into the realm of a meditation on fathers and children, particularly sons, on faith, and on the imperfectability of man.

The reason for the letter is Ames's failing health. He wants to leave an account of himself for this son who will never really know him. His greatest regret is that he hasn't much to leave them, in worldly terms. "Your mother told you I'm writing your begats, and you seemed very pleased with the idea. Well, then. What should I record for you?" In the course of the narrative, John Ames records himself, inside and out, in a meditative style. Robinson's prose asks the reader to slow down to the pace of an old man in Gilead, Iowa, in 1956. Ames writes of his father and grandfather, estranged over his grandfather's departure for Kansas to march for abolition and his father's lifelong pacifism. The tension between them, their love for each other and their inability to bridge the chasm of their beliefs is a constant source of rumination for John Ames. Fathers and sons.

The other constant in the book is Ames's friendship since childhood with "old Boughton," a Presbyterian minister. Boughton, father of many children, favors his son, named John Ames Boughton, above all others. Ames must constantly monitor his tendency to be envious of Boughton's bounteous family; his first wife died in childbirth and the baby died almost immediately after her. Jack Boughton is a ne'er-do-well, Ames knows it and strives to love him as he knows he should. Jack arrives in Gilead after a long absence, full of charm and mischief, causing Ames to wonder what influence he might have on Ames's young wife and son when Ames dies.

These are the things that Ames tells his son about: his ancestors, the nature of love and friendship, the part that faith and prayer play in every life and an awareness of one's own culpability. There is also reconciliation without resignation, self-awareness without deprecation, abundant good humor, philosophical queries--Jack asks, "'Do you ever wonder why American Christianity seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?'"--and an ongoing sense of childlike wonder at the beauty and variety of God's world.

In Marilynne Robinson's hands, there is a balm in Gilead, as the old spiritual tells us. --Valerie Ryan

I loved this book!

I finally got to finish it yesterday. These days I only like to read if I can spend at least an hour at a time doing it so it took a while to find those hour blocks, but once I found them it didn't take very many for me to finish. I LOVED reading this book!

I can't wait to see it as a movie. For some reason I thought about the whole time I read.

Also, Randi - do you really think that Elizabeth was the worst villain in the book? I thought Hilly was the nastiest. I guess I kind of saw Elizabeth as some kind of a victim of Hilly. I mean don't get me wrong, we all make our own choices, but she was just trying to make Hilly think she was cool. And Hilly knew it. She knew that about everyone and she manipulated them. That's why I think she was the worst.

I can't wait to hear what Cami has to say about it having lived in Jackson. I mean I know she was young, but I'm sure it became part of her family culture.

Also, I'm not sure about that part at Celia's with the naked man in the yard. Maybe it was because I read that part when I only had 10 minutes to read so it was kind of choppy for me. It seemed like all of a sudden there was this terrible thing that a black and white woman were sharing and overcame together, but it just seemed kind of out of the blue. Anybody else?

Hmmm, what else.... I wondered a lot which character I would have identified with had I been born a white girl in Jackson, Mississippi at that time. Now, without a doubt I would be some version of Skeeter, but I always wonder how strong I could be if that's what I grew up in. Anybody else?

I love you all. Good work with all the amazing things you're doing in your lives right now.

Is it my turn to choose next?

it makes my insides hurt

I just got The Help in the mail yesterday and I read a ton of it. I love this book, Cami. Good choice. There are a few things I really like. First of all, the writing in this book is really great. A few parts I particularly enjoyed so far are:

"If chocolate was a sound, it would've been Constantine's voice singing. If singing was a color, it would've been the color of chocolate" (pg. 67) This is beautiful.

"I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the negro side of town. I want to stop that moment from coming--and it come in ever white child's life--when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites" (pg. 96) This, to me, is one of the most important themes in this book. Stockett did a good job of summing it up in one little sentence. She is blending all of the colors together and showing the reader that dirty isn't a color. I mean, Elizabeth Leefolt is the dirtiest, most evil one in this book and she's probably as white as they come.

The other thing I wanted to say is that it is hard for me to read the parts about Elizabeth and Mae Mobley. Something I have learned from personal experience is that children act how you label them. A little boy in my family was called "bad" for most of his toddler years. He was labeled "bad" or "disobedient" everytime he didn't make the best choice, or he made a mistake. Consequently, he started to act "bad" all the time. He acted out based on what people were already calling him. Mae Mobley is constantly being berated and spanked by her mother, and she is TWO YEARS OLD! For heaven's sake, two years old. It breaks my heart to read about her mama swatting her all the time and that her mama won't look at her or hug her. Those things are crucial.
So, now that I have a daughter, I try to make sure I don't label her with negative labels, or labels at all I guess. I don't like to say "good girl, Gracie" because I want her to know that her decisions are good and or that she accomplished something good. I want her to know that she is smart, she is kind, she is creative, she is important. I don't like good or bad. I want HER to be the one to label herself, her and her Heavenly Father. I will NEVER say she is "bad." That is so detrimental.
I love that Aibeleen starts telling Mae Mobley, "you are a smart girl, you are a kind girl." I hope as the book goes on that this will prove positive for Mae Mo and that she will start to feel her self worth as she gets older, even if her mother never changes.

July? It is already July?

Seriously, where does time go? Anjanette is kind of busy these days with that super cute baby, so I am going to choose the book for July. Drum roll please.....



"The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. Some of Tim's family has been reading this book recently and they have really like it so I thought I'd give it a shot. Here is a brief synopsis of the story:

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

P.S. I am half way through the book "These Is My Words" by Nancy Turner and it is really, really good. There is a sappy love story in it too, so I know Kim would like it. :)