Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The English countryside, life in Ethiopia, somewhere in fairyland and finding new hope in Mexico.

I've been a world traveler lately, reading 3 books from around the world. First the children’s books :
Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan had me cringing at times but I loved the story. Naomi Soledad Leon Outlaw lives with her brother, Owen, and great grandmother in their trailer in California. Naomi and her brother haven’t seen their mother since she abandoned them seven years ago. While she is curious about her parents, Naomi is very happy living with Gram who she says is “both parents rolled into one.” But when Terri Lyn, now Skyla, wants to re-gain custody of Naomi and move her to Las Vegas, Naomi’s world is turned upside down. Skyla’s drinking, anger and occasional violence, and unstable history scare Naomi and she doesn’t want to go anywhere with her mother. Nor does she want to leave Owen, whose physical deformities repulse his mother. It’s Skyla’s complete rejection of Owen that had me cringing and made me so angry! Gram decides they need to re-connect with the children’s father and the family travels to Mexico. During this journey Naomi, who always speaks very softly, finds her voice and can finally stand up for herself and her brother.

I had a few Christenings to go to this weekend and bought books for the newest members of my family. I had fun in the board book section of the book store and came away with 2 copies of a book I hadn’t seen before Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg is a great book to share with little ones. Characters from different nursery rhymes travel throughout the book and eventually all get together in the end to have a picnic. Toddlers will have fun trying to spot the 3 Bears and Jack and Jill in the illustrations.
I thought Alexander McCall Smith’s La’s Orchestra Saves the World was going to be similar to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, but that comparison isn’t quite right. World War II has broken out and Lavender Stone, a widow in her 30’s known as La to her friends moves to her in-law’s country house. She forms a local orchestra that includes members of the RAF and other armed forces to keep everyone’s spirits up during the war. La gets to know her neighbors better, including Felix who is a Polish pilot and now a refugee living in England. The war eventually ends and the orchestra breaks up, but La wonders what could or would have been if only she would have or could have told Felix her true feelings. When leaving the theater in London many years later La just may get her chance. I said comparison to Shaffer’s book isn’t quite right because La’s Orchestra moves a little slower. You don’t get a big payoff until the very end of the book and at times it seemed like I was waiting and waiting and the payoff was NEVER going to come! But by the last page, I was a happy reader.

Cutting for Stone is quite a ride. Abraham Verghese’s characters are so memorable and his descriptions are so vivid, I feel like I was in Ethiopia during the revolution and that I worked at this field hospital. Shiva and Marion are conjoined twins whose mother died just after birth. After a risky delivery the twins are separated, but still feel such a connection during their childhood that they feel more like one person, ShivaMarion. After their mother’s death, their father abandons the twins and leaves the country. Shiva and Marion are raised by two doctors at the Missing hospital and are close with all the employees there. Both boys go into the medical field and make names for themselves in unique ways. Marion moves to the United States and finds friends in the Ethiopian-American community and Shiva revolutionizes healthcare for women. This epic novel and all its characters will stay with me for a very long time. It took me a while to get through this 600 page book, but it was worth it.

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