Book Babes Breakfast
I am going to enclude my "homeschool" learning too! Why not?
This weekend, I hosted our annual "Book Babes Book Selection Breakfast." I made Ham, Egg, and Cheese Strada. Margaret brought cinammon rolls. Cathi brought a fruit plate. Michelle brought Orange juice. Lisa brought Banana Bread.
Here are the selections for the year:
OCTOBER - Shelly
The Salt Garden
by Cindy McCormick Martinusen 300 pages
(She is a personal friend of the Book Babes leader and will come during our discussion!)
Claire O'Rourke is a young writer looking forward to a glowing career in publishing. Sophia Fleming is an aging recluse whose painful past has kept her hidden away for decades. Each woman brings to the other a different view of the same God--one from unbroken faith and great expectations of what God can do, the other from a faith that wavered as a young woman but found healing through years of prayer and seeking God alone. In spite of their differences, their hearts are drawn together, even as circumstances threaten their relationship and their dreams.
NOVEMBER 20 - Margaret
Winter Wheat
by Mildred Walker 306 pages
2003 One Book Montana Selection For this Bison Books edition, James Welch, the acclaimed author of Winter in the Blood (1986) and other novels, introduces Mildred Walker's vivid heroine, Ellen Webb, who lives in the dryland wheat country of central Montana during the early 1940s. He writes, "It is a story about growing up, becoming a woman, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, within the space of a year and a half. But what a year and a half it is!" Welch offers a brief biography of Walker, who wrote nine of her thirteen novels while living in Montana.
DECEMBER 18 - Millie (with an "ie")
Blackbird House (Hoffman, Alice)
by ALICE HOFFMAN 240 pages
From Booklist
Perhaps Hoffman writes so confidently about magical occurrences because her fecund and radiant creativity is itself a form of magic. It certainly seems as though her entrancing and mythological tales flow like water from a spring, and her new book is no exception, although its form, linked short stories, is a new one for Hoffman. Blackbird House echoes her haunting novel The Probable Future (2003) in its lush and evocative Massachusetts setting, focus on indomitable and witchy women, and spanning of 200 years of life anchored to one place, in this case a humble abode on Cape Cod. Each beautifully arcing and surprising story is presided over by a white blackbird, an emblem of mourning and remembrance, and enacted by stoic yet passionate characters, among them passoinate mothers, a math prodigy, a wily gal with a conspicuous birthmark, a Holocaust survivor, and the angry daughter of self-absorbed hippies. As the stories leapfrog from colonial times toward the present, Hoffman, a subtle conjurer of telling details and ironic predicaments, orchestrates intense romances and profound sacrifices. Those who live in Blackbird House, by turns brilliant, crazy, and courageous, follow their dreams, endure nightmares, and find that their numinous home is as much a part of their being as their parents' DNA.
JANUARY - Carol
Cry, the Beloved Country (Oprah's Book Club)
by Alan Paton 312 pages
Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind. Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic tale, passionately African, timeless and universal, and beyond all, selfless.
FEBRUARY - Lisa
My Own Two Feet
by Beverly Cleary (Her autobiography) 288 pages
This second installment of the Newbery Medalist's autobiography (after A Girl from Yamhill) begins during the '30s, with the young Cleary leaving her home state of Oregon to attend junior college in California. The volume ends in 1949, with Morrow's acceptance of Cleary's first novel, the now-classic Henry Huggins (initially written as a short story entitled "Spareribs and Henry"). The author's unsentimental recollections of herself as a student in the Depression, a librarian and a newlywed are told humorously and candidly. Friends and adversaries-her ever-critical mother, formidable professors, congenial classmates, gentlemen acquaintances (including future husband Clarence)-are as colorfully sketched as the characters appearing in Cleary's beloved novels. Able to laugh at her own mistakes and to recognize universal truths in everyday life, Cleary will endear herself even more to her fans with this account of her struggle for independence. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book DescriptionThe New Yorker said of the first volume of Beverly Cleary's memoirs, "It is a warm, honest book, as interesting as any novel, and describes the growing-up process with remarkable clarity and candor." Now the creator of Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins writes of her early adulthood with humor and insight, making Beverly Cleary's own story as lively and irresistible as any of her novels.
MARCH - Michelle
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
by Caroline Alexander 416 pages
More than two centuries have passed since Master's Mate Fletcher Christian mutinied against Lieutenant Bligh on a small, armed transport vessel called Bounty. Why the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain vivid and enthralling is as intriguing as the truth behind the legend.
In giving the Bounty mutiny its historical due, Caroline Alexander has chosen to frame her narrative by focusing on the court-martial of the ten mutineers who were captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in England.
APRIL - Cathi
The Captain's Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe
by Roland Smith 287 pages (Rec. for 9-12 year old readers)
Born the runt of his litter and gambled away to a rusty old riverman, the Newfoundland pup Seaman doesn’t imagine his life will be marked by any kind of glory--beyond chasing down rats. But when he meets Captain Meriwether Lewis, Seaman finds himself on a path that will make history. Lewis is just setting off on his landmark search for the Northwest Passage, and he takes Seaman along. Sharing the curiosity and strength of spirit of his new master, Seaman proves himself a valuable companion at every turn. Part history, part science--and adventure through and through--The Captain’s Dog is the carefully researched, thrilling tale of America’s greatest journey of discovery, as seen through the keen, compassionate eyes of a remarkable dog.
MAY - Millie
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation
by Cokie Roberts 384 pages
Cokie Roberts's number one New York Times bestseller, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, examined the nature of women's roles throughout history and led USA Today to praise her as a "custodian of time-honored values." Her second bestseller, From This Day Forward, written with her husband, Steve Roberts, described American marriages throughout history, including the romance of John and Abigail Adams. Now Roberts returns with Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families -- and their country -- proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it.
JUNE - Laura
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel 336 pages
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?
JULY - PaigeGod and Ronald Reagan : A Spiritual Life
by Paul Kengor 416 pages
Ronald Reagan is hailed today for a presidency that restored optimism to America, engendered years of economic prosperity, and helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet until now little attention has been paid to the role Reagan's personal spirituality played in his political career, shaping his ideas, bolstering his resolve, and ultimately compelling him to confront the brutal -- and, not coincidentally, atheistic -- Soviet empire.
AUGUST - A.J.
Three Weeks with My Brother
by Micah Sparks, Nicholas Sparks 368 pages
Just over a year ago, novelist Nicholas Sparks took off with brother Micah on a jaunt around the world, then chronicled their whirlwind trip in Three Weeks with My Brother (Warner, $22). Having lost their parents to a horse-riding accident and a car wreck, and their sister to brain cancer, the men took this journey to reawaken their shell-shocked selves, hoping to recapture lost faith and shore up ailing optimism along the way.
This weekend, I hosted our annual "Book Babes Book Selection Breakfast." I made Ham, Egg, and Cheese Strada. Margaret brought cinammon rolls. Cathi brought a fruit plate. Michelle brought Orange juice. Lisa brought Banana Bread.
Here are the selections for the year:
OCTOBER - Shelly
The Salt Garden
by Cindy McCormick Martinusen 300 pages
(She is a personal friend of the Book Babes leader and will come during our discussion!)
Claire O'Rourke is a young writer looking forward to a glowing career in publishing. Sophia Fleming is an aging recluse whose painful past has kept her hidden away for decades. Each woman brings to the other a different view of the same God--one from unbroken faith and great expectations of what God can do, the other from a faith that wavered as a young woman but found healing through years of prayer and seeking God alone. In spite of their differences, their hearts are drawn together, even as circumstances threaten their relationship and their dreams.
NOVEMBER 20 - Margaret
Winter Wheat
by Mildred Walker 306 pages
2003 One Book Montana Selection For this Bison Books edition, James Welch, the acclaimed author of Winter in the Blood (1986) and other novels, introduces Mildred Walker's vivid heroine, Ellen Webb, who lives in the dryland wheat country of central Montana during the early 1940s. He writes, "It is a story about growing up, becoming a woman, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, within the space of a year and a half. But what a year and a half it is!" Welch offers a brief biography of Walker, who wrote nine of her thirteen novels while living in Montana.
DECEMBER 18 - Millie (with an "ie")
Blackbird House (Hoffman, Alice)
by ALICE HOFFMAN 240 pages
From Booklist
Perhaps Hoffman writes so confidently about magical occurrences because her fecund and radiant creativity is itself a form of magic. It certainly seems as though her entrancing and mythological tales flow like water from a spring, and her new book is no exception, although its form, linked short stories, is a new one for Hoffman. Blackbird House echoes her haunting novel The Probable Future (2003) in its lush and evocative Massachusetts setting, focus on indomitable and witchy women, and spanning of 200 years of life anchored to one place, in this case a humble abode on Cape Cod. Each beautifully arcing and surprising story is presided over by a white blackbird, an emblem of mourning and remembrance, and enacted by stoic yet passionate characters, among them passoinate mothers, a math prodigy, a wily gal with a conspicuous birthmark, a Holocaust survivor, and the angry daughter of self-absorbed hippies. As the stories leapfrog from colonial times toward the present, Hoffman, a subtle conjurer of telling details and ironic predicaments, orchestrates intense romances and profound sacrifices. Those who live in Blackbird House, by turns brilliant, crazy, and courageous, follow their dreams, endure nightmares, and find that their numinous home is as much a part of their being as their parents' DNA.
JANUARY - Carol
Cry, the Beloved Country (Oprah's Book Club)
by Alan Paton 312 pages
Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind. Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic tale, passionately African, timeless and universal, and beyond all, selfless.
FEBRUARY - Lisa
My Own Two Feet
by Beverly Cleary (Her autobiography) 288 pages
This second installment of the Newbery Medalist's autobiography (after A Girl from Yamhill) begins during the '30s, with the young Cleary leaving her home state of Oregon to attend junior college in California. The volume ends in 1949, with Morrow's acceptance of Cleary's first novel, the now-classic Henry Huggins (initially written as a short story entitled "Spareribs and Henry"). The author's unsentimental recollections of herself as a student in the Depression, a librarian and a newlywed are told humorously and candidly. Friends and adversaries-her ever-critical mother, formidable professors, congenial classmates, gentlemen acquaintances (including future husband Clarence)-are as colorfully sketched as the characters appearing in Cleary's beloved novels. Able to laugh at her own mistakes and to recognize universal truths in everyday life, Cleary will endear herself even more to her fans with this account of her struggle for independence. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book DescriptionThe New Yorker said of the first volume of Beverly Cleary's memoirs, "It is a warm, honest book, as interesting as any novel, and describes the growing-up process with remarkable clarity and candor." Now the creator of Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins writes of her early adulthood with humor and insight, making Beverly Cleary's own story as lively and irresistible as any of her novels.
MARCH - Michelle
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
by Caroline Alexander 416 pages
More than two centuries have passed since Master's Mate Fletcher Christian mutinied against Lieutenant Bligh on a small, armed transport vessel called Bounty. Why the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain vivid and enthralling is as intriguing as the truth behind the legend.
In giving the Bounty mutiny its historical due, Caroline Alexander has chosen to frame her narrative by focusing on the court-martial of the ten mutineers who were captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in England.
APRIL - Cathi
The Captain's Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe
by Roland Smith 287 pages (Rec. for 9-12 year old readers)
Born the runt of his litter and gambled away to a rusty old riverman, the Newfoundland pup Seaman doesn’t imagine his life will be marked by any kind of glory--beyond chasing down rats. But when he meets Captain Meriwether Lewis, Seaman finds himself on a path that will make history. Lewis is just setting off on his landmark search for the Northwest Passage, and he takes Seaman along. Sharing the curiosity and strength of spirit of his new master, Seaman proves himself a valuable companion at every turn. Part history, part science--and adventure through and through--The Captain’s Dog is the carefully researched, thrilling tale of America’s greatest journey of discovery, as seen through the keen, compassionate eyes of a remarkable dog.
MAY - Millie
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation
by Cokie Roberts 384 pages
Cokie Roberts's number one New York Times bestseller, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, examined the nature of women's roles throughout history and led USA Today to praise her as a "custodian of time-honored values." Her second bestseller, From This Day Forward, written with her husband, Steve Roberts, described American marriages throughout history, including the romance of John and Abigail Adams. Now Roberts returns with Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families -- and their country -- proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it.
JUNE - Laura
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel 336 pages
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?
JULY - PaigeGod and Ronald Reagan : A Spiritual Life
by Paul Kengor 416 pages
Ronald Reagan is hailed today for a presidency that restored optimism to America, engendered years of economic prosperity, and helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet until now little attention has been paid to the role Reagan's personal spirituality played in his political career, shaping his ideas, bolstering his resolve, and ultimately compelling him to confront the brutal -- and, not coincidentally, atheistic -- Soviet empire.
AUGUST - A.J.
Three Weeks with My Brother
by Micah Sparks, Nicholas Sparks 368 pages
Just over a year ago, novelist Nicholas Sparks took off with brother Micah on a jaunt around the world, then chronicled their whirlwind trip in Three Weeks with My Brother (Warner, $22). Having lost their parents to a horse-riding accident and a car wreck, and their sister to brain cancer, the men took this journey to reawaken their shell-shocked selves, hoping to recapture lost faith and shore up ailing optimism along the way.
posted by Carol Ann Weaver @ 1:20 PM
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