book clubs – Peaceful Reader

Farewell to September

I can’t believe October begins tomorrow. Summer is my favorite weather season because I like the heat of the sun, the warm days on a boat or patio, and easy summer foods and beverages. Many people love all that about Fall; the pumpkin spiced everything, the sweaters, the leaves falling. We’ve had amazing weather throughout September and I hope October brings more of the same. Truthfully all the seasons provide something to love but when we veer towards winter I dread feeling chilled all the time. As with every month I’ve done a fair amount of cooking and reading this last week. Right now I’m enjoying Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo, the 2nd in the series.

Last weekend I cleaned up an area of my living room and went through a stack of books. Weird right, that I would have a stack of books sitting right on the floor in any of the rooms in my house? As I sorted this particular stack of books I found a note from a friend inside the front cover that said “I’m going to want this one back” which is code for “this was very good!” so I promptly started to read it.

The Plot was amazingly good and written by Jean Hanff Korelitz, an author I was completely unaware of until now. I read the book in 4 days and while it has some creepy moments it isn’t over the top because I can’t handle scary. It has great plot twists and interesting characters. Now I want to read other stories by this author. She is a playwright and started an online book group, Book the Writer, that pairs authors with readers. Check out the EventBrite page to see upcoming authors. I would love to sit in on one of these sessions even though technical they all take place in NYC apartments. (After browsing the list I signed up for the online group with Jhumpa Lahiri and her new book Wherabouts. I’ll have to check if the library has a copy as I made a promise to myself about book buying after I moved that stack of books from one spot to another.

{Half-Baked Harvest image}

Sometimes my brain works overtime and I try to prepare something for book club that relates to the book we read. This is not always easy but reading Anxious People by Fredrik Backman the food question was very clear. The characters all eat pizza together in the apartment with the bank robber/kidnapper and so I made Roasted Mushroom Kale Pizza from Half-Baked Harvest and it was delicious. There were no leftovers. Last night I made Roasted Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna and it is amazing. We had it for dinner tonight with a salad and we had to force ourselves to stop picking at what remained in the pan. Two pieces is plenty…but oh, so good! I do want to make her Vanilla Chai Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew soon as well…I mean tomorrow is October after all.

Now I’m off to do a little bedtime yoga with Adriene and get myself mentally prepared for Friday.

March Reads

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain: Beryl Markham, a horse trainer and aviator, is raised by her father and the native Africans that live on their land in Kenya during the 1920’s. She has difficult love affairs and struggles with life after her father’s horse farm fails. The imagery of Africa that McLain paints is beautiful. I like historical fiction and this was well-written. My mother-in-law gave me The Paris Wife a few years ago and I feel inspired to read it after finishing this one for our February book club discussion.

The Mothers by Brit Bennett: Bennett tells a captivating story of Nadia Turner; a young high school senior ready to move on with her dreams of going East for college. The summer before her senior year though she is battling loneliness after her mother’s recent suicide and she takes comfort in Luke, a damaged former high school football star. An unplanned pregnancy changes how they both move forward into the world. This was very good and I look forward to Bennett’s next book.

The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas: I loved this one also. Angie Thomas writes a wonderful and timely story of Starr Carter, a basketball-loving, smart young girl attending an expensive prep school outside of her neighborhood. Through Starr we are shown first hand how difficult it is to remain true to yourself as you juggle friends and ideas from both lives. When Starr’s childhood best friend is killed by a police officer her two worlds begin to collide. The conversations between Starr, her parents, and extended family remind me of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ letter to his son (and to us the white audience) on how hard it is to raise kids knowing their lives don’t matter to some. Reviewed here by me.

How the Garcia Girls lost their accents by Julia Alvarez: I wanted to like this but ultimately it didn’t hold my complete attention. Like the struggles in The Hate You Give, this one shows how hard it was for the Garcia sisters to be both old world for their parents yet navigate in the modern NYC they are raised in. While the four sisters love their Dominican family it is not easy being raised in the mostly sexist/patriarchal society when they have their own ideas of what their lives should look like.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: I read this for my 6th grade book club and was not that impressed. It had mixed reviews from the 6 kids in the club. One of the students loved it, finished two more in the series by the time the rest of us finished just the one. This is why I love book club; it pushes you to read what you might not otherwise have picked up. This student even admitted “I don’t think I would have picked this off the library shelf!”
Now that I’ve read it I know I have other students that I can recommend it to but I know I don’t need to read beyond this first one. Maybe it’s the political arena right now that made me shudder with many of Artemis’ villainous ideas.

My March reading greatly improved from February where I got bogged down with that one book, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.
Happy April!

Tough beginning to December

My kid’s favorite month has had a tough start for me. I’ve been sick for about 4 weeks with a cold that turned into a sinus infection. I finally took myself to the doctor (which I’m always slow to do) and am now on an antibiotic (which I really dislike) but I am beginning to feel human again.

I watched copious amounts of Parenthood, making me cry, and read several books (The Wednesday Wars, The secret life of bees, The invention of wings). In all that sick time I just didn’t get any blogging done-I blame it on a the snot. Really though I was just so tired. It took all the strength I could gather just to finish a day at work.

I wasn’t writing but I did do all this:

I made this lasagna from Martha Stewart. Good flavor but a bit dry. It tasted much better the next day.

I hosted my husband’s work Christmas party so we had 11 people over for a potluck dinner; I made bread and the lasagna. We cleaned house for 2 days. It was dusty.

I went to my school Christmas gathering hosted by my principal. It was lovely and I made this artichoke dip from Paula Deen. It doesn’t have any butter in it but it was a huge hit.

I made a second artichoke dip for book club (The invention of wings) which happened on the exact same night as aforementioned school party.

I also hosted a reception for my husband’s Christmas play (A Coney Island Christmas by Donald Marguiles.) The play was a huge hit and Groovy Girl even had a good role.

In between but mostly just the last two days I’ve been able to finish Christmas shopping and prepare for our two oldest to come home. We picked up the oldest, Kaylee, yesterday in Iowa City. Tomorrow the second, Tristan, flies into Mpls/St Paul airport. Last spring for Kaylee’s graduation is the last time we’ve been together and we are so excited to be together.

You can see from my list why the writing drops off the list so easily unfortunately. Too tired, too much to do. I hope your list isn’t as long!

What I'm reading…the number might amaze you.

How many books do you read at one time? Usually I prefer just one but often I have more than one going at a time depending on circumstances. For most of the year I’ve been able to balance my student book club books with a few that I’ve already read so I can discuss without the need to read.

I did have to read most of the Gregor series with my boy’s group and I’ve read most of Christopher Paul Curtis with another group and we are reading The Mighty Miss Malone right now. It is an amazing and intellectually stimulating book for all of us. I’m so happy Curtis turned to writing as he is a talented story teller. If you haven’t read his new historical fiction about The Great Depression you should. Next up for this group is Shannon Hale’s The Princess Academy, one of my favorite girl power books. Luckily I’ve already read it 3X’s so I can just re-skim and ask good questions. I blogged about my boy’s group in my weekend cooking post and I did make the cranberry oatmeal cookies, they were tasty but flat. Sadly two of the boys were missing from our meeting today. Suspended over a fight they had with EACH OTHER. This is the horrible hard part of where I teach. I think I reach them and then things like this pop up. My soul cries almost every day for the kids I work with at school.

Onward.

Monthly I have my own adult book club to keep up with and we are reading Anthony Mara’s lengthy novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. I downloaded this to my Kindle as the price was right and I am interested but it is not a quick read. I have to kick it up a notch though as we meet next week. Maybe I should look for the Cliff Notes on this one.

I also started something easy the other night as my Kindle needed a charge. The Lying Game by Sara Shepard has been on my to-read pile for awhile and I picked it up and read three pages. I will finish but those 3 pages were all I needed to fall asleep. No reflection on the rest of the book I hope.

I also started The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin about a week ago to help me get in the mood for Spring cleaning and reorganizing my house and my thoughts. I am anxious to get back to it but it will have to wait until the book club book is done.

While I was upstairs reading (Daughter of Winter by Pat Lowry Collins) to Groovy Girl I realized I am “reading” another book on my phone through Audible as I drive back and forth to work; Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss. It has me so hooked that I listen to it as I make dinner. I’m only on the fourth chapter and yet still quite disgusted how the food industry works. I am someone who cooks almost all meals from scratch and still I shake my head at the mystery of it. How can people go to work every day to purposely make people sick. Why worry about real drugs when they are giving them to our children daily in pre-packaged form. Yuck.

Seven books. Can you beat me? Let me know your total.

Gregor and his last bite

I finished book five in The Underland series, Gregor and the Code of Claw, by Suzanne Collins. This has been quite an accomplishment as I read the whole series with 3 fantastic 5th grade boy readers. They’ve loved this series, reading each one in a quick span of about 2 weeks, which is an excellent triumph. Along the way each young man created a plausible character would they be lucky enough to exist in the Underland world. At our last meeting they were so animated about discussing the series and that there is not a sixth book that I charged them with appealing to Suzanne Collins to continue the series with just one more book. Like a dying man to water they all agreed how it would help them to know how Gregor is faring and if Luxa and Ripred are holding to their bond.

As a teacher and a reader I am overjoyed by their display of emotion over the book. I love that they get to know Suzanne Collins through this work as well as The Hunger Games. We’ve discussed such deep topics through this series; war and peace, what it means to be a warrior, how does this compare to our war-plagued world today, and the mind-set of a soldier during battle and after. Whew. These conversations have spilled over into guns and why we need to have guns in our homes. One of my three shared that his mother almost shot him one night as he came in late through the front door of their trailer. Guns. But this blog post isn’t about guns so much as it is about cookies. Not to {ever}make light of guns but honestly we need cookies more.

In one poignant scene as Gregor is preparing for battle, one in which he believes he is doomed to die, he eats one last cookie made by his kind neighbor Mrs. Cormaci. It’s an oatmeal raisin cookie and that cookie got me to thinking about last bites. Not a last meal, mind you, but just a taste of one last thing-what would it be? For Gregor he was very excited to have that cookie in hand.

I’m going to make these oatmeal cranberry cookies (cuz if it were my bite I would prefer cranberry over raisin) and Martha does it best. I’m going to bring these to book club this week as we have our final conversation about The Underland Chronicles, we find a way to mail our letters to Suzanne Collins and we pick our last book of the year.

The quote:

“They settled themselves down to wait. Gregor passed Ares (his bat bond) a cookie and ate the other. If he did end up dead, he was glad the last taste in his mouth came from Mrs. Cormaci’s kitchen.” {339}

Happy Saturday! This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekly cooking meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; Fat chocolate chip cups

This has been quite a year for my school book clubs. They’re organic matter constantly changing and shifting. Generally I’ve had two book clubs and they start out large and then dwindle to a small handful of die-hard book fans that didn’t know they were fans when they started. The whole process is amazing to me.

This year has brought new challenges as I started off bold with three groups; two girl groups and one boy group. Luckily another 5th grade teacher has been willing to help me all year with the second girl’s group. She took the stronger reading group and they’ve read a wide variety of challenging fifth grade material. They just finished The Lightning Thief. Now the gaggle of girls I lead is another story. I like have to lead them like little baby lambs to the book. They are much more concerned about drama and excuses. I’m trying to raise them up and they are all like “this is so hard” but yet they keep coming back. I’ve had a few drop out and I’ve asked a few not to come back and yet we’ve had others join up mid-year and this is why is has been a very natural and organic book club year.

This has also been the first year we’ve served snacks consistently for every meeting. Amanda, the 5th grade teacher, and I alternate bringing treats for the Wednesdays that the girls meet and I solely bring treats for the boys. It is MUCH easier to bring treats for the boys!! They about die for anything I bring for them which in turn make me excited to bring them treats. It is a dynamite cycle. The girls tend to be a bit more picky. I made them little cookie cups near Christmas that had a chocolate mint kiss in the middle and several girls threw them away after just one bite because of the mint. Geez!

This week I made these top notch treats from a recipe I found on Pinterest. I love when a pin takes you to to a blog worth reading and Averie Cooks is just such a blog. The Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups were a huge hit at book club and the children I live with were a little upset that the whole pan wasn’t staying home with them. The cool thing was it was such an easy recipe I’m going to surprise them this weekend with more. This board of Averie Cooks is dedicated to recipes she’s made and I’m especially intrigued by this post about her Top Ten Favorite Chocolate Cake recipes. I’m searching this week for an extreme chocolate dessert for College Boy as he turns 18 next Sunday, the 28th. His only requirement is that it be like chocolate heaven.
Any suggestions?

If you need a special treat this week try those chocolate cups!
This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking post-click there for more food-related links.

Angry Housewives eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik

Lorna Landvik

(2003)

A friend from church gave me this book. She loves to read like me and we have similar tastes in book but I have to admit when she gave me this one I thought it was going to be a shallow girly book but it has far more depth than that. Actually I can’t say enough wonderful things about this book as I loved the setting (Minnehaha Creek area of Minneapolis), the characters as they were all very distinct, and of course the book club focal point has me excited about a whole list of older (classic) titles.

Synopsis:

The women of Freesia Court are convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delicious desserts, and a strong shoulder can’t fix. Laughter is the glue that holds them together-the foundation of a book group they call AHEB (Angry Housewives eating Bon Bons), and unofficial “club” that becomes much more. It becomes a lifeline. Holding on through forty eventful years, there’s Faith, a lonely mother of twins who harbors a terrible secret that has condemned her to living a lie; big beautiful Audrey, the resident sex queen who knows that with good posture and an attitude you can get away with anything; Merit, the shy doctor’s wife with the face of an angel and the private hell of an abusive husband; Kari, a wise woman with a wonderful laugh who knows the greatest gifts appear after life’s fiercest storms; and finally, Slip, a tiny spitfire of a woman who isn’t afraid to look trouble straight in the eye. (back of the book)

To me that just sounded like a lot to take on but it is a credit to Ms. Landvik’s writing that it never goes over a melodramatic top. Through the group’s book selections as well as how they react to the changing world around them history was shared through the changing point-of-view of each character.

I’ve started a list of books the Angry Housewives read and I’m interested in reading a bit down the list. Not that I need more books on my to-read list but often the book club conversations intrigued me.

Selected quotes:

As a peace activist myself I could easily identify with Slip; Freesia Court’s resident bleeding heart in 1968.

“I’m sorry,” I said when I was drained of all bodily fluids, “but I just keep asking myself, whatever happened to the Summer of Love?”
“I beg your pardon?” Faith looked like she’d just been asked to explain the theory of relativity.
“You must think I’m some kind of nut, but it’s just…I don’t know, it’s just that I can’t take what’s happening in the world. I can’t take all these people getting shot. I can’t take this war. I just thought we were supposed to be better than that. I really did believe we were on the dawn of a new age.” (63)

Slip’s brother enlists in the Vietnam War but her feelings never waiver as to the unjust war and its aftermath.

And another great quote during a book discussion:

“But I mean this book in particular,” said Slip impatiently. “This is a hit-you-over-the-head-look-how-different-our-world-is-from-yours kinda book.”
“I agree,” whispered Kari, so as not to wake the slumbering baby in her arms. “With both of you. I always love reading about people with lives unlike mine because I get to live in their world for a while. But the funny thing about reading On the Road is that I didn’t feel their world was so alien…probably because I’m an outlaw too.”
“If you’re an outlaw,” said Faith, “then I’m Granny Clampett.”
We all laughed, but then Slip said, “I’m with Kari. I feel like an outlaw too.”
“Well, you are,” said Merit earnestly. “You get arrested on picket lines.”
“Actually, I’ve never been arrested,” said Slip, and I thought I heard regret in her voice. “But what I mean is that there are outlaws inside all of us-ready to break rules that need to be broken.”
“Right,” I said. “But society doesn’t want its wives and mothers and PTA presidents to be outlaws, so most of the time we repress that voice that tells us to break the rules, to-” (87)

I find that to be a perfect quote especially for March-in celebration of women’s history! Thank heavens to many of the outlaw women like Sojourner Truth, and Julia Ward Howe, Barbara Jordan, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton just to name a few. Cheers to the outlaws and the rule breakers, the makers of change!

As I’ve talked about this book to other reading friends they’ve asked if I’ve read other books by Lorna Landvik and I haven’t but I’m interested. Anyone else have favorites of this author? I would love recommendations. After reading Lorna’s bio I’m wowed by her own life story.

Anne Ylvisaker and The Book Club

Author Anne Ylvisaker

I was the host of our book club last night and we had a a fantastic time. Through a round of chance encounters (one of our members worked with Anne’s husband in Cedar Rapids a few years back) and after I’d read and loved Little Klein we cooked up a plan to read a few of her books and see if she would skype with us. We’re so happy she agreed.

Ylvisaker grew up in Minnesota; in the St. Paul area, her father was a minister and she spent time in Iowa as an adult as well. All three of her fiction books take place in these Midwest settings. She had a lot of good stories to tell; some about her family and some about her writing process. I particularly loved this one…her writing group at one time gathered words and shared them with each other; using them to write with that week. She could pick them out of Little Klein and demonstrated how they raised the story up. She also shared many of the personal family stories that have became part of her books.

It was one of the best book club experiences we’ve had and it had nothing to do with the delicious food or the wine. It was the lively conversation we had with her and the discussion we had after we hung up the camera.
I’m a huge fan of hers and hope you will take time to read any of her fiction books for fun.

I read Dear Papa recently (2002) a wonderful elementary/middle grade fiction that shares the letters Isabelle writes to her deceased father and other family members as she deals with her grief and her mother’s eventual remarriage. The book is filled with daily joys and disappointments…just like real life. It takes place in Minnesota around the second World War.
Here’s a snippet:

“Dear Papa, Jan. 1, 1944 It’s a brand-new year. I have made some resolutions: Help the first time Mama asks. Hang up my clothes before bed. Go to church with a willing heart. Keep our family together. Your daughter,Isabelle, nine and a half today” (15)

I also read her latest book, The Luck of the Buttons (2011) about a young Iowa girl, Tugs Buttons, who is cursed with an unlucky family. Tugs changes her stars as she wins a three-legged race, an essay contest and a raffle all at the 4th of July celebration. She suffers some hard times but in the end she is able to show her family sometimes you got to make your own luck happen. Tugs is another positive young heroine!
Another snippet to share:

“Tugs shrugged into yesterday’s clothes, which still lay in a heap on the floor, slipped past Granny, who was writing a letter at the kitchen table, and collected five pennies from her mother on her way out the door. Wednesday mornings were Granddaddy Ike’s checkers mornings. and in the summer, Tugs was in charge of walking him from his house to Al and Irene’s Luncheonette…”(60)

We found out she has two more books in the works about this Button family and the next one up is Button Down, featuring Tugs’ cousin, Ned. Read my review of Little Klein here, which features an adorable boy and a dog combo that will make you smile to the heavens.

There was a grand moment for me when Ylvisaker recognized the “Peaceful Reader” name and asked if we were not on twitter together…I was over-the-moon-thrilled!

Thank you to Anne for taking time out of her busy schedule (her children had just returned home for the holidays) to talk with our group and to all authors who make themselves available to us, their adoring readers.
Thank you to my book club friends for willingly taking this leap of faith with me and Kay!
(now I’m thinking why didn’t I ask her for a preview copy of Button Down…silly me)
Enjoy.

Student-led Book Clubs

I read a lovely post over at The Brain Lair, discussing book clubs she’s tried in the past, what she is working on now as well as ideas for the future. She’s a middle school librarian with great ideas. I wish she lived and worked in my district so we could partner up our students. At least I would know my book club students could graduate to her book clubs, which would keep them reading through those tough middle years.

I’ve hosted library book clubs for the last four years and started one my last year in Arkansas for a total of five years book clubbing with kids. It’s not an easy task but one that can be exceptionally rewarding. For me, it’s all about lifting students up to a higher level of reading. Everything about school becomes easier once you’ve mastered good reading.

I offer up that enjoying good literature brings you long-term happiness as a person. Really…[don’t we all agree out here in the book blogging world]…I envision the kids that participate will go on to middle and high school book clubs, library trips, college degrees coupled with a long term love of literature for almost every book club student. Not to say all the other students will be unhappy, miserable adults but I’m just saying, book clubs help. Okay, maybe it’s a lofty goal but I aim high.

I have two groups of fifth grade students, one group [5 girls] are reading The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I love this book because it isn’t the Disney idea of princess. Students have preconcieved notions just from the title but they quickly learn there is so much more to this academy. It is a rough and tumble existence with miner’s daughter’s and my student’s can relate to and enjoy this aspect.

The second group [7 boys and girls] are reading Peter and the Starcatcher’s by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. This is a great prequel to J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan. We are watching small portions of Peter Pan while we eat just to catch some students up [many of them hadn’t seen anything other than the cartoon.]

Students are required to come to each meeting with their book and their required chapters read. Each week we have a new discussion leader, who tries hard to come with open-ended questions-it’s a struggle but they get better at it. They learn to work together, give each other the opportunity to talk and are empathetic to each other’s opinions. Do you have student book clubs at your school? What has been successful for you?

If you’ve read The Princess Academy, try the quiz from Hale’s website: beginners and advanced.
Shannon Hale’s amazing website
Peter and the Starcatcher’s website
Ridley Pearson’s website.
Dave Barry’s website
I found these discussion questions for Peter.

Beets, Beautiful Beets!

Beets are a favorite root vegetable here at this house. I know this is rare. I have other friends, even farmer’s market-type friends, who turn up their noses at the lovely beet. The beet is nice and simple. I roast them with their skins on, olive oil drizzled, just enough so they don’t stick to the Corning Ware dish. The outer skin just rubs right off except you are trying to get it off while they are steamy hot! Once I get them peeled I sprinkle with some sea salt and serve them piping hot. Sometimes a small dollop of sour cream adds to the eating experience. We’ve been eating them frequently as they were easy to find at our last remaining markets.

Beets and Jitterbug Perfume go hand-in-hand. I started rereading Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins this week for my fourth book in the 451 Challenge, which finishes up at the end of November-I’m in a bit of a book-reading crunch as I have to catch up by two books (The Everafter and A Curse Dark as Gold) for my long distance book club and have to read My Abandonment by Peter Rock for my other book club. I hope to get all four of these books done before Thanksgiving.

This book has been one of my favorites since I read it the first time in my early twenties. I’ve read most of Tom Robbins books and his other’s are good but this one takes the cake or well, the beet! It is a love story that transcends the normal confines of time and place. It entertwines several lives, including a few mythical characters, from New Orleans, Seattle and Paris and they all come together over perfume, immortality and beets. Yes, beets.

From the beginning:

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

and another three paragraphs about the wonderul characteristics of beets!
The beet is unusual for sure and Robbins’ choice of this blood red veggie adds much charm as the beet is a character in this novel as much as any other.

Are you a lover of the lusty beet?
Have you read any Tom Robbins?

This post is connected to Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.
Here’s a great post about the nutritional value of beets at The Lunch Box Bunch.