Books. Books. Books.

 

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

    Before We Were Yours is a wonderful book. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, it is based on the true (and horrible) story of Georgia Tann, a woman who worked for the the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. In reality, she kidnapped thousands of poor children from struggling families and sold them to wealthy families through "adoptions".

    The story follows a 12 year old girl named Rill in 1939 who lived on a shanty boat with her mother, father and siblings. While her parents were gone, Rill and her siblings were taken to the Tennessee Children’s Home Society where they were abused and starved while the staff found rich couples to pay to adopt them.

    The story also follows a woman named Avery in present times who becomes a bit obsessed by the story of her grandmother, who seems to have some sort of secret that links Avery's story to Rill's.

    While this is a novel, it is shocking to read knowing that stories like these happened in real life to thousands of families.

    A fantastic novel that I highly recommend!

 

Reading a good book in my happy place!

                                 

                                     Reading a good book in my happy place, Lakeside, today!

                                                          Where do you like to read?

Read. Read. Read.

 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is one of my all time favorite books. Sad enough to break your heart and beautiful enough to take your breath away.  This novel should be read by everyone, by law, in my opinion. If I was to crash on a deserted island, this would be one of the top ten books I would want to have with me.

Set during World War 2, and narrated by death, who, as you can imagine is quite busy. This is the story of Liesel. After the death of her little brother, Liesel arrives at the home of her new foster parents,  Hans and Rosa , on the outskirts of Munich. Liesel also befriends a young boy near her age named Rudy and they become the best of friends. 

As a young girl, Liesel is horrified by the Nazi regime, and as the situation in her town becomes even more dire, her foster parents take in and hides a young Jewish fighter named Max. 

Liesel has been taught by Hans to read and has she fallen in love with stories and understand the power of books. She begins secretly stealing books from the wealthy wife of the mayor, sneaking into her library and bringing books home to read to Max. She also begins to write her own manuscript.

When Hans sees a parade of starving Jews paraded through town, Hans can't help himself and offers one of these men who is near death, a single piece of bread. As punishment for this act of kindness, Hans is drafted to work for the Nazis. Later he returns home and Max leaves in order to save the family from further danger.

Years later, in 1945, Liesel works in the tailor shop and tells how the bombs fell on her city, killing Rudy and every one of her friends and family. She is surprised and overjoyed when one day, out of the blue, Max wanders in to the shop.

I am not able to do this amazing novel justice in my summary. 

I'll just say it is a work of absolute and total brilliance and you should read it. Right now. Go.

Also made into a touching and well crafted movie, but as we all know, the book is always better.

Books. Books. Books.

 

The German Midwife by Mandy Robotham

 I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 

Germany. 1944. Anke is a young woman in a Nazi work camp, imprisoned for being a midwife who was willing to help pregnant Jewish women, despite a Nazi policy to end Jewish reproduction. 

In the camp, she continues her work, desperately trying to help her fellow imprisoned and pregnant camp mates to keep them and their babies alive despite their terrible neglect and horrid treatment.

Because of her compassion and skilled work as a midwife, she is noticed and chosen to be the midwife for Eva Braun, who is pregnant with the Fuhrer's child.

Despite Anke's disdain for Hitler and the Nazi party, she is surprised that she develops a friendship with Eva, who is naively in awe of and in love with Hitler.

Anke is faced with a tremendously difficult decision. Does she continue to help Eva and in doing so, help the Reich that she loathes? Or, should she, could she?, sacrifice an innocent baby in order to keep Hitler from spawning an heir?

                                       

Corduroy by Don Freeman

Written and illustrated by Don Freeman in 1968, this book was one of my favorites when I was a little girl.

This is the story of a bear, sitting alone, high on a department store shelf who longs to be taken home to live with a family.

One day a girl and her mother come by and the girl wants to buy the bear, but the mother says no after she notices that a button is missing from his overalls. 

That night, when the store is quiet, the bear jumps off of the shelf in search of a button to replace the missing one in hopes that if he can just be mended, he might find a family to adopt him.

Will he ever find a family?

This is more than just a touching children's story with lovely illustrations. It has a lesson on not judging people or things based simply on appearances, which is an important lesson for us all, children AND adults.

The Impact of a Book.