Classic for real

Understood Betsey is the kind of utterly charming kid's book I should have read forty years ago.  It was written in 1917 and tells of a little girl who's being raised by a spinster aunt--a proper lady who learned all about raising kids from how-to manuals.  (Incidentally, she appears to have gotten her knowledge of the world from sensationalist journalism.)

The good part starts when the Aunt has to send Elizabeth Ann (Betsey) to stay with her earthy, uncouth, farming relatives, who actually expect kids to do work. (No way!)  They might even expect kids to figure out how to do things by themselves.

It's lovely.  Kids of today might be put off by the intrusive narration.  If you can stand Little Women, you'll love this.  And if not, bear with it--it gets better.   Just be sure you're under 12 or have a soft spot for kids books.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

I thought I'd read this before, but that's impossible--I would never have forgotten it.  Much like Island of the Blue Dolphins, it's about a girl surviving on her own in a wilderness.  And surviving quite nicely.  In both books the girls show ingenuity, curiosity and courage; they take chances; fall down and climb back up again; and more than anything else, strike up a friendship deeper than family with the animals who share their lives.

But...balderdash! you say.  Girl kids can't survive on their own in a wilderness. Maybe a boy, a Huck Finn on the Mississippi or an exiled Kung Fu master in the Old West.  But not a girl!

Wrong on all counts--this story could have happened.  Maybe this kind of fantasy is a result of the overactive, wishful imaginations of a young women when they suddenly realize that their tree-climbing days are over--now they've got to grow up, live for others and forget they had a dream.  Or maybe not.  I've known many happy old ladies who live alone, do what they want and dream what they please.

They might even build a snow sled out of frozen caribou skin.

I guessed right.

I was about halfway through    Year of Wonders (by Geraldine Brooks)
when I added it to Goodreads and noticed some of the comments -- an equal mixture of "riveting masterpiece" and "dreckage".  The number of people who "hated, hated, hated!" the ending and wanted to throw it across the room surprised me.


I went back and read the beginning again, then finished the book...and now I can guess from whence much of the hatred emanates.  And in response I'll quote Tim Minchen:

"If you open  your mind too much your brain will fall out."

Which won't happen to any of the haters of this book.

So be it.  I liked it.  Many the ending was a little unrealistic, but hey--the poor heroine deserved it.

Ah, vacation!

Wild birds in Florida seem to be getting used to the intrusive impertinence of man--this was at Disneyworld, seen from the ferry.  I saw many more up close to the park.

When I read other peoples' reviews of The Immortal Life, I realized that some of my own disappointments in the book could have persuaded me to rate it a 4-star, instead of 5.  I'm not changing it, though.  Perfection in style and execution does not a 5-star book make.  Story does.

Now I'm sneaking in another "off the list"--Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.  It's a novel that a lot of people on Goodreads loved until the last 55 pages, then hated it with a fury.  I can guess what's coming...we'll see if I'm right.

"The Immortal Life" could have been twice as long for me

Since I'm still a couple of books ahead of schedule, I snuck in another book that wasn't on the list.  I may suffer for this later, but right now I'm delighted.  I was a book not to be missed.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Science writing that reads like a novel.  A family history that might be your own.  A pair of unlikely detectives, pursuing history--the jagged, spotty, and sometimes dangerous history of the HeLa cells and the woman who created them.


It's hard to say anything more without giving away the plot--and doesn't that say it all?  this is a non-fiction book, do they even have plots?

You bet they do!

The only thing I didn't like about this book is that I bought it on Kindle.  I may have to buy a hard copy so I can loan it to all my friends.

Peppers after vacation

Status update

I survived Metrocon 2013 and my pepper plants did, too.  But I don't have any pictures--the new camera is not playing well with the old cable.


Also I managed to sneak in a book that wasn't on the reading list--
My Life In France by Julia Child.


Very good, maybe even very very good.  I didn't take it on the trip, but I finished it today with great satisfaction.  Since it's an autobiography rather than a biography, it didn't start with her birth and end with her death--and I liked it that way.  It started with France (and a little bit of back

story) and ended with her leaving France.  Not unhappily, either.  She has a lovely "every ending is a new beginning" attitude in her writing, and, I think, in her life.