Brotherhood by A.B.Westrick

Historical fiction seems to be finding me lately. This first novel by Westrick brings a rich history to the page: the KKK, post- Civil War reconstruction, all within a changing and at times hiding humanity.

The protagonist is a typical younger brother, particularly to such a bully as his older brother. Jeremiah shows up at all the wrong times, forcing his younger brother Shad to do things he might not usually do. It is however the ugly ways with which he misuses power that is so unsettling. Not surprising, just unsettling. The mother figure is a loss, still maneuvering her own grief over the loss of her husband and the boys’ father. Ah, another reason why Jeremiah is such an absolute loss perhaps? The grandfather puzzled me, leaving me wondering where his real allegiance lay. The neighbors nearby are ramrod straight and trouble to boot, although there are some folks more interested in humanity rather than separation. But still what surprised me was Shad: what was he going to do about his own trouble, the trouble with….

Nope. No spoiler alert here. Worth a trip to the library or bookstore for Brotherhood. Happy reading!!

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

I have failed you, readers! Accept my apology for holding out on offering up one of my favorite books of the year. I thought I had already written about The Round House, figuring it was hanging out in my book stacks for my partner to read. Ha, how wrong I was!!

I love Louise Edrich's work. She is a brilliant writer for me, and I knew when I got my hands on this book I was in for a treat. But I had no idea how powerful and engulfing this story would be for me. Some of you know that I am well immersed in my own healing work from being sexually assaulted as a child. Some of you know that I am researching with  a handful of survivor/educators, exploring how their teaching practices connect with their experiences of healing from sexual assault. Some of you have inferred from some of the kinds of books I blog about that I search for books that identify healing processes from a variety of trauma experiences. What a gift then to experience how The Round House touched on each of those arenas with such depth. But alas, I must remember: Louise Edrich wrote this book. Brilliant, she is simply brilliant.

A young teen's mother comes home smelling like gas and looking like a ghost. At the hospital, the boy and his father learn that the third member of their family has been brutally raped. She refuses to talk about it, retreating to her bedroom and into her own inner lost world of silence. Utterly tossed off course by what has happened, the father and son use their own curiosity and expertise to search for and try to identify the attacker. Edrich exposes the emotions and healing of the family, the boy and his father far more than the mother, and the way that she tells their story held me quiet and carefully engaged. I lived into how the boy felt about what happened, about his own despair that he can't share with the mother. Readers view this story directly through the boy's eyes, and it is from there that we come to see this story as both a coming-of-age piece as well as an adult novel, heartbreaking and filled with life and survival and death all tied together.

Yea, this terrific read won the National Book Award....and I can see why. 

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Have you seen this on the shelves? Has it been calling to you? Have you felt this draw to the book, this kinship with a story you haven't entered but are intrigued by the storyline? Yep, I was that way once....but not now.

This story based on the actual orphan trains that ran from New York to  from 1854 to 1929 (seriously new info to me!!). The author stumbled into some insider information on a family vacation and created this totally plausible and engaging story that twists back and forth between 2011 and the '30's, '40's, and '50's in the U.S. The two main characters, Vivian and Molly, find their lives intertwined in unique, surprising, and life-changing ways. Molly is a rebellious teenager, having lived in a number of foster homes where it sounds like she got the short of the stick and grew more frustrated and frustrating through each experience. Vivian is decades older and holds her own story of orphanages, loss, and wicked living experiences. Time brings them closer and closer together and they surprise each other with their collective interest and engagement in friendship and kinship.

A lovely read. 

The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech

Ooopsie, I'm a day late and a dollar....well, we won't talk about money...not here, not in the midst of such wonderful conversations about books. And speaking of books, have you read The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech yet? No....well, time for some more searching. This twister from expert author Creech caught me and made me slow down and do one thing at a time. Seriously no treadmill, no half-hearted listening to my partner while the pages were open, no eyes-half-closed attempts right before the lights go out for sleeping. Nope, not for this one.

Creech combines family, language, life stories, questioning, farm life, city life all in a not-so-tidy package here. A young boy "arrives" on a young couple's porch one morning. For some reason he won't/can't/doesn't  use verbal language to give them any information about him. A note waits in his pocket until he decides it is time to give it to the adults:

Plees taik kair of Jacob.
He is a god good boy.
Wil be bak wen we can.

So the young couple waits. And waits. And search. And listen. And fall in love with the youngster. And then they don't want him to leave. The story is kinda like a mystery within a mystery, a how-do-we-keep-this-boy-a-secret while searching for his parents and also deciding what it might be like for him to join our family. Ah, but maybe I spoil too much.

Or maybe I don't.

I will stop there. Find this one. As usual, Creech wins. A lovely book. And I still wonder: who is the boy on the porch...for the rest of us?  

Paperboy by Vince Vawter

I was wonderfully surprised by this book. The writing kind of held me in a gentle way; each time I put it down (to go get tea, to make dinner, to go to work), it called out to me, encouraging me to spend just a little more time in it. I really enjoyed its gentle but insistent pace, and the details of the story framed the boy's thinking quite effectively. Thumbs up for Paperboy.

But wait: what does it remind me of? Funny you should ask. While I read it, I searched out The King's Speech, a movie I loved, connecting two stutterers. And I searched out The Stuttering Foundation, an organization centering on supporting those who stutter, their families, and research. And I connected with John Green's book Will Grayson, Will Grayson, another stellar read that I reviewed earlier.

The main character takes over his friend's paper route for a month one summer. As he moves through the tasks connected with being a paperboy, he learns all sorts of details about his subscribers, his nanny, and his parents. I appreciated how he struggles to become both more independent as well as no longer childlike, both in respectful and thoughtful ways. I also appreciated the small town energy of this read, that slower, focused, important energy that comes with a read like this. Rich, definitely, worth reading for sure, and maybe even worth returning to for another read. 

Snowflakes Fall by Patricia MacLachlan

Patricia MacLachlan is doing some serious book writing these days, seeming to birth a new text frequently. This one emerged from the enormous tragedy that occurred in Sandy Hook a year ago. Steven Kellogg, the illustrator, actually has very deep roots in Sandy Hook, and according to his note at the front of the book, "the changing seasons in the woodlands, fields, and streams that surround Sandy Hook village" inspired his drawings. MacLachlan notes her deep sorrow at the loss from the tragedy and wrote this book to center our losses on memories and renewal.

The illustrations in this text are bright, vivid, and inspiring. The words on each page, sparse and engaging, draw the reader into winters bright and cold gifts. I love the double-page spreads, and I found myself wanting to seek out snow and play. I really enjoyed this read for its purpose of inspiring and celebrating. A portion of the proceeds of the text support the Sandy Hook School Support Fund. 

This Is the Rope: A Story From The Great Migration by Jacqueline Woodson

Woodson brings a magnificent gift to her writing. Sometimes she moves me far beyond what I know in life, leaving me speechless. This Is the Rope does that to me.

While fiction, Woodson draws on her own inferences of growing up and making sense of the historical schema and living truths of her family in this book. She names indirectly and directly some of her family experiences dating back to the early 1900's. She leads her readers into these connections in gentle and authentic ways. I found myself wondering frequently what it must have been like for her to make sense of her family lineage, the history that has interrupted some of her family living, and the movement from down south to New York that has taken place in her lifetime and before. This Is the Rope leads readers into questions seemingly outside of their reach, inviting us to consider what it means to move within the United States, changing home spaces and questioning family establishment.

Woodson is beyond honest in her writing, and This Is the Rope invites us readers to dig deeper and wonder more fully about what metaphor of truth fills in some of the questions children grow up with regarding their family history.