more books . . .

Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

     This is one of my favorite YA books.  I read it many years ago while I was teaching middle school and loved it so much I got a mini-grant from the district to buy a set for our department.  I loved teaching this book, it is such a great story.  The setting is England around 1300 AD.  Catherine is the 13-yr-old daughter of a minor nobleman who owns a manor.  She spends her days helping Cook in the kitchen, scaring off suitors her father finds and learning the arts of herbs and doctoring to prepare her to be the lady of the manor someday.  Catherine is hilarious as she writes the journal that makes up the book.  She is constantly in trouble for not trying to be a proper lady, and her observations of those around her are always dead on.  I loved this book, I learned so much about life in the time period, the roles of those who lived then, and absolutely loved Catherine herself.






Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

      What more can be said about Pride and Prejudice that hasn't been said?  However, this book will always have a very secure place in my heart because of the circumstances surrounding my reading of the book.  I was taking English lit and was pregnant with my first child.  (A girl!!)  Jim was home very little so I was alone a lot.  I remember sitting in our little apartment and reading this book for many evenings.  I was a goner - I loved every syllable.  I had never heard of Jane Austen, and at the time she was for the most part, just required reading for English lit, and not otherwise too widely known.  Not only did I fall in love with the book, but I particularly loved Jane Bennet, she was so sweet, something that I aspired to in my character but never quite seemed to master!  I remember very distinctly the Saturday afternoon that I got to the unexpected letter to Elizabeth from Mr.  Darcy.  I dropped the book - seriously.  Never has a passage taken me by such surprise.  I read the letter over and over, not believing my eyes.  This isn't a spoiler - you all know the story, right!?  Anyway, after one of the best discoveries in lit I'll ever make, I had no choice but to name my daughter after my favorite author and character:  Jane.  This is probably the only time in my life I have been so far ahead of the "cool" curve, I recognized the total wonderfulness of this book and author way before she went mainstream, and my daughter Kasey Jane is proof of that! 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

     This was the very first purchase I made on my Kindle - the Kindle being the single best present my husband has ever given me.  I love you honey!!  Anyway, it is wonderful!  The setting is the Mississippi at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.  Most of the main characters are the African American women that served as maids in white households - the help.  We also see this situation from the perspective of a young white girl just back from college who comes home to find the woman who raised her, the maid Constantine, has disappeared.  Out of this frustration and the realizations she has about what life was like for black maids she begins to write a book, telling the stories of the women themselves of what life is like for a maid in the South.  The characters are funny and heart-wrenching and very real.  We learn what it's like to be in Jim Crow South.  A great read.  5 stars for sure.