The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

This is a lovely novel based on a Russian fairy tale.

1920's. A childless couple, Jack and Mabel, move to Alaska to escape the sadness of their baby's death. Unable to grieve together, they were drifting apart and hoped that homesteading in a beautiful and peaceful new place might bring them the healing they desperately seek.  

However, Mabel finds herself still in despair and lonely in their isolated cabin and Jack works continuously to ready themselves and the farm for the harsh winter to come.

During the first snowfall of the season, the couple finds themselves in a rare playfully mood and begin building not a snowman, but a snow child. 

The next day, the snow child is gone... but they soon begin catching glimpses of a young girl in the woods. A young girl alone in the Alaskan wilderness that hunts with a red fox....

Something different today.

I love this.........

Litterbugs Come in Every Size by Norah Smaridge

Occasionally I will be featuring children's and youth fiction. Good stories for kids are especially important and can solidify a love of reading that will last a lifetime.

Today's remedy for reality is one of my favorite children's books. I still own my childhood copy that both of my daughters also enjoyed. A bit ragged at 40ish years, but still wonderful!

This is a fantastic story about keeping our environment clean and healthy.  It has incredible colorful illustrations and silly characters and fun rhymes.

It tells young children the importance of being a "Neato" who cares for other, their environment and possessions, rather than being a "Litterbug" who are gross, dirty and disrespectful.

First line... "Litterbugs come in every size, their really monsters in disguise".

This book is a lot of fun, and manages to have a good moral lesson while still being interesting and engaging for kids. Five stars!

                                                  Litterbug getting his book all gross.  :(

                                Neatos putting trash in a can and hanging with friends.  :)

What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman

I have read every book this author has written to date and loved them all.  

This novel is about two women living about 60 years apart. One in present time, Izzy, a teenager who is in a foster home after her mother shot and killed her father. The other a young woman named Clara, in 1929. Their lives collide when Izzy discovers a stack of old letter and a journal belonging to Clara.

When Clara was a young woman she secretly fell in love with a poor Italian immigrant and became pregnant. When she refused to marry the man that her father, a wealthy and overbearing man,  had chosen for her, he sent her away to a home for rebellious and unruly women. 

After her father lost all of his wealth, he was unable to pay the cost of her care at the home and she was committed to an asylum.  Living under harsh conditions and with terrible treatments in the asylum, many of the women in this asylum were there simply for making choices that their parents or husbands disagreed with, behaving in ways that didn't conform with "polite society" or just trying to assert some independence, few were actual lunatics. Many of the staff were uncaring that Clara was pregnant and forced her to give her baby up for adoption when it was born.

For Izzy, learning the story of Clara makes her realize that if Clara was sent away to an asylum but wasn't actually mentally ill, perhaps she should visit her mother to let her explain her violence and explore the story behind her mother's decision to shoot her father.

An engaging and illuminating novel that I deeply enjoyed.

Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

This is the story of Tom Wingo and his deeply Southern family, their dysfunction and the modest home where he and his family lived on a small island in the South Carolina Marshes. 

It is the story of Tom's family, of his older brother, Luke. His mother, Lila, loves the natural beauty surrounding their home but feels that she and her family have been deprived of a "decent" and cultured life.  His father, Henry, a vet and ship boat captain is a traditional southern  male in every way and the cause of much of the dysfunction in their home. Tom's twin sister, Savannah, grows up to be an artist and an adult who frequently suffers psychotic episodes.

After Suzanna suffers one particularly harsh episode, and attempts suicide (again), Tom is contacted by her therapist, Dr. Lowenstein, in hopes that he could help shed some light on what may be the cause of Savannah's depression and mental illness.

In telling the story of his family and sibling, Tom unexpectedly reveals an old and terrible secret from his childhood that his family has held in silence for many years.

This novel is lovely, beautifully written. The author describes the marshes and natural surroundings of the small island so well that might you think you can actually smell the salt in the air and hear the whistle of the tall grass in the wind.

This novel is also disturbing, describing the horrific events and childhood trauma that this family was forced to survive. Contrarily, it also shows how the love of family and employing their strength, can lead to healing by facing shared trauma together, facing reality, even when it is uncomfortable, and overcoming the past.  

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

If I could take only 5 items with me to be stranded on a deserted island, this book would be one of them. I absolutely loved every word.

World War II. France. Two sisters.

Vianne is the older sister, a teacher who is married to Antoine. They enjoy a quiet life in the town of Carriveau.

Isabelle is the younger, wilder, sister who has been expelled from (or run away from) several schools, so is now staying with her father in Paris.

When France becomes involved in the war, Antoine is sent to fight, leaving Vianna and her daughter alone to fend for themselves. 

Isabelle is sent away from Paris as it has become too dangerous, so she travels to Carriveau to stay with her sister. Along the journey, she meets and falls in love with a man named Gaetan who gets her involved in the revolution. 

While living with Vianne, Isabelle is outspoken and a bit careless and Vianne fears her behavior will draw the attention of the Nazis while she is desperately trying to keep quiet and keep everyone safe.

Isabelle begins rescuing downed airmen and helps them to cross the mountains into the safety of Spain. 

Vianne, after watching the brutality of the Nazis and witnessing the suffering and starving of her fellow townspeople, decides to join the resistance in her own way by helping Jewish children to escape to safety after their parents are taken away.

I'm not doing it justice at all so I'll just say it is absolutely one of the best books I've ever read.

Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin

This incredible historical novel is based on the true story of Blanche & Claude Auzello, in 1940's Paris.

Claud is the manager of the Ritz in Paris, a glitzy, glittering, glamorous hotel that catered to famous guests such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Picasso. 

Blanche is Claude's wife, a lovely, smart and beautiful woman who is feeling more ornamental than useful.

When Germany invades Paris and the Nazis set up camp and make their headquarters in the Ritz, both must follow orders and commands from the Nazis who have commandeered their beautiful hotel that is also their home.

Blanche realizes that she has found her purpose. She pretends to drink & party all night, making her husband worried and annoyed. In reality, she is out all night because she has actually joined the resistance.  

Claude pretends to have a mistress to explain his frequent absences and making his wife angry and sad, while in truth he too is actually working with the resistance. 

Neither knows the truth about the others actions. Deeply disappointing each other based on what they believe is happenings, neither discover the reality about the others work to stop the nazis until the end of the war. 

Sometimes glamorous and scandalous, sometimes sad and terrifying, this is an interesting read that I highly recommend.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Not everyone's cup of tea, but a huge bestseller and I, personally, thought it was fantastic! An amazing thriller that keeps you up till the wee hours, saying "just one more chapter" and hanging off the edge of your seat.

Nick and Amy have what appears to be the perfect marriage. On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy vanishes. Gone in what looks like a struggle. Of course everyone suspects Nick, but he insists he's innocent and that someone else must have taken her. After following the clues that she left him for their annual anniversary scavenger hunt, he begins to believe that he has been set up by Amy herself to make it look as if she has been harmed by her husband. 

Told from each of their alternating perspectives, I found myself siding with and believing in Amy, then later totally believing Nick, only to reverse my entire position again and again.

Told in present tense and also in flashbacks, what really happened to Amy? Was she a devoted wife who was killed by a cruel and cheating husband? OR, is she a mentally disturbed woman who has faked her disappearance as his punishment, hoping to see him hated by all and locked away for life?

I was riveted for the entire journey.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This is a charming novel about friendships and the importance of literature.

1946. London. Juliet Ashton is a writer looking for the subject of her next work.

Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams who lives on the small island of Guernsey after he stumbles across her name written in a book. Books are rare on Guernsey, although they have a book club called "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society". 

Several islanders begin corresponding with Juliet, and she begins to know them and their stories over the months.

She learns that their book club brings together friendships based on literature and provides friendship and fellowship for the islands people recovering from the the terrible times during the German occupation.

Juliet decides to travel to Guernsey to meet her new friends. Over the next few months, she learns how their book club provided so much comfort for the islanders who were able to bond over literature. Juliet creates many new friendships with the eclectic island residents, discovers love and even finds the perfect material for her next book.

Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross

This is another of my favorites in the southern ladies genre. A warm and funny novel.

This is the story of Julia Springer who is adjusting to a quiet life after the passing of her controlling, judgemental and demanding husband. She lives on a tidy sum left by her husband in her comfortable home, a respectable older southern lady with an impeccable reputation.

One day a young woman named Hazel Marie Puckett shows up on her doorstep with a young boy, claiming that her late husband is the boys father, and Julia's life is turned upside down.

In total disbelief, she consults her housekeeper and friend Lillian for advise and then turns to the man who rents a room in her large home, Deputy Coleman Bates.

Throw in the greedy pastor from Julia's church who claims that her husband actually meant to leave his life's saving to the church and not his wife, Julia has her hands full trying to hold on to her fortune, avoid small town gossips and total scandal and ruin.

I highly recommend this one, and if you enjoy it as much as I did, there are no less than TWENTY ONE more books in the Miss Julia series!  I only read the first 5 or 6, but they were all a lot of fun. This series could keep you busy for a long while!

Something different today....

The Whingdingdilly by Bill Peet

Today's remedy for reality is a children's book that I loved as a child and shared with my daughters.

I think it's important to add some childrens and young adult books here too as they are just as important as adult fiction and in some ways, more important.

If children are exposed to good stories with fun and interesting plots and three dimensional characters that they care about (and not just books made from their favorite movies or toys) that creates a reader. If they continue on and find great young adult stories, that can solidify a love of reading that will last well into adulthood and beyond.

This is the story of Scamp and Orvie. Scamp is a dog and Orvie is a boy. Scamp is sad. Scamp wants to be a horse because horses get so much attention. When Scamp tries prancing around like a fancy horse, Orvie teases him and Scamp decides to run away.

After ducking into the woods to get out of the heat, Scamp meets a little witch named Zilly. Zilly says she can turn Scamp into a horse, but offers to turn him instead into a Whingdingdilly, a marvelous amazing creature! Scamp barks "yes!" and suddenly he had a camel hump, back legs striped like a zebra, front legs, feet and ears like an elephant, a long neck like a giraffe's and reindeer antlers on top of his head!

Not knowing what to do, Scamp decides to head home and scares several creatures along the way with his unusual appearance. Once home, he find Orvis desperately looking for him, but how can Scamp actually reunite with his friend looking the way he does now?

Many exciting adventures occur before the end of the story... what will happen to Scamp now??

When I pulled out our copy of this book for this post (not my original childhood one - I purchased this copy used on ebay when my girls were little), I discovered that I had a signed copy! It's not signed to me or us, and I kept the name secret,  but it's still neat! Bill Peet wrote many great kids books (I'll likely share more of them eventually), so I'm thrilled to have a copy that he held and signed.

Bill Peet -1915 - 2002