Marmee's Girls

Hola, are we all ready to be done with the holiday's and back to our (sort of) regularly scheduled programming?  Great.  To get back into it I'm gonna ramble about one of my favorite old school books.  Little Women by Louisa May Alcott has been a favorite of mine for a long time and I read it as a bit of a counter balance to all the snark and weirdness I was into this year.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

This book is about the March family, a family in the New England region during the Civil War era.  Marmee (the mamma) has four girls.  The oldest is Meg, who is beautiful, practical and longs for the finer things in life.  Next comes Jo, a wild girl who when younger wishes she could have been born a boy, is creative, impetuous and loves her family dearly.  Beth comes next and is as sweet and fragile as they come, she is musically and domestically talented and is beloved by all.  Finally the youngest Amy, a fair and pretty girl with artistic talent, a wee bit of pretension and dreams of being a proper lady.  These girls are the main focus of the story and we watch them grow from teenagers into women and follow their lives, dreams, challenges, heartaches and eventual futures.  The book was origanally two separate books, Little Women and Good Wives, but has been published as one book forever.  Lets start with the first half (There is WAY too much stuff going in to put in every detail, but I'll try and give you the highlights).  The girls and their Marmee are trying their hardest to live their live in a greatly reduced state while their father is off being a chaplain for the North during the Civil War.  The are encouraged by their mother to continually improve themselves for the sake of others.  Each girl is continually featured dealing with their own particular flaws, getting into some sort of scrape because of it and becoming better for learning their lesson.  All of this is enhanced by the presence of the neighbor boy Laurie, who has his own good points and bad as well.  Meg continually struggles with her want of nice things, she wants to be comfortable and often over extends herself to the point of foolishness to obtain them.  She is called on it more than once by Laurie who prefers Meg to just be content with her natural beauty and charm.  Meg is the first to grow up and is won over by a man who while poor is honorable and loving.  Jo is continually either up or down, she is constantly frustrated at trying to constrain herself to the ideals of a female in polite society.  Lucky for Jo, her family understands her and gives her great leeway in finding herself.  She and Laurie are very close and run around getting into all sorts of shenanigans, enjoying themselves immensely.  Unfortunately, Jo's mouth and temper are getting her into all kinds of scrapes, some with significant consequences.  She is the most distraught when her sisters start to grow up and have lives of their own, as she is torn between wanting everything to stay the same, and the urge to turn life on its head.  Beth has very few flaws, other then being incredibly shy.  She is sweet and docile and just wants life to be smooth and happy for her little family.  Her giving nature leads her to fall ill with Scarlet Fever, an illness that she never fully recovers from.  Little Amy tries very hard to be good, and usually succeeds...even if she tells everybody just all about the nice things she has done.  Her burden is her desire to be a little lady and accepted in society, even if it means going against her upbringing.  Of all the girls she probably does the most growing.  The second half of the book deals with the girls as they become women and show how the hard work they put in growing up eventually pays off.  Meg marries, John and has a pair of adorable babies.  She works hard at being a good wife and mother and entertains the reader as as she tries to balance the two and her never far desire for the finer things in life.  After a heart breaking decision regarding her relationship with Laurie (she can only see him as a brother and he wants more) she leaves to New York to work on her career and eventually finds her future in a German professor by the name of Behr and a school she founds for the boys of the town.  Beth continues to serve her family and breaks all of their hearts when she can no longer fight her illness and dies.  Amy goes abroad and learns to be a gentle and devoted lady and is rewarded when she and Laurie fall in love and marry.  At the end everybody returns home, watched over by the spirit of Beth and do their best to try and live the best lives they can.

Whew that was a chunk of synopsis and it does not even got into any real detail, and the detail is where the charm lies.  I have always enjoyed this book starting the first time I read waaaaaay back in the second grade.  I think most of it comes from the fact that, especially when I was younger, I very much identified with the March family.  There were four kids, I come from a family of four kids.  There are lots of sisters in the book, I have two sisters.  Laurie reminds me very much of my own adventurous, mischievous brother.  Mamma and Daddy March tried their best to raise decent, thinking kids, with love and acceptance being the main mode of operation, the same at our house.  All of this combined with all the little episodes and going ons of the girls and Laurie made me feel like I was part of the family as it so closely resembled my own.  Now that I am older I appreciate the struggle of many of the characters to just become better humans,  They all have flaws that most humans have, but instead of glorifying them, or vilifying them, the author used them to create very realistic and constantly growing characters.  Now all that being said, the book can very preachy and moralizing, but never in a judgmental way, but more in a gentle "hey maybe not be so selfish so everybody can be happy" sort of way.  All the girls are realistic, with not any one being better then the other, and even little angel Beth had her moments of self-pity and little rebellions.  I also like how all the characters grew and improved, but still struggled with their own particular problems, none of them magically going away, but constantly being worked on.  Jo was always my favorite, with her boyish and bold personality...and since I have been accused of having a big mouth on more then one occasion understand the struggle.  I have read this book so many times that I rarely read the whole thing cover to cover anymore, perfering to flip to the bits and pieces that best suit my mood and situation at the time.  Overall it is a great read for anybody who likes early American fiction, great characters and/or an overall timeline that can be read in small stories.  I give it 8 out of 10 limes and will probably read it several more times.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Awesome Present For ME!!!!

My baby sis is back in the states from her world tour and she came bearing an early birthday present for me :-)

Private Worlds 

It's a book published and printed in 1937...and yes the first thing I did was smell it, and let me tell you it smells awesome!

Other then being a really cool find from overseas, where she got the book is pretty awesome too!  Shakespeare and Company in Paris is an old book store built...or should I say created by George Whitman who said "I created this bookstore like a man would write a novel, building each room like a chapter, and I like people to open the door the way they open a book, a book that leads into a magic world in their imaginations." —George Whitman

The builder of the bookstore and various authors who were passing through at the time used to be able to spend the night inside the bookstore.  There is a ton of history behind the store and the book and I cannot wait to explore both of them!  Thanks baby sis for a perfect present.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Londonawoo

I was in the mood for a quick read and as such picked up the second book in The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series, The Hidden Gallery by Maryrose Wood.  What did I think?  I'll tell you, but first as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Ms. Penelope Lumley has just received a letter from her beloved former headmistress Miss Mortimer inviting her to London.  Ms. Lumley approaches the flighty and shallow Lady Constance Ashton for permission, when the Lady decides the whole household should spend a season in London.  When Ms. Lumley tells Miss Mortimer she is able to come, Miss Mortimer sends her a very unusual guidebook with odd illustrations and not so helpful hints.  The three children (who only occasionally howl at the moon) and their governess arrive in London and get promptly lost.  They soon meed up with a delightful young man by the name of Simon who helps them find their way and a mysterious Gypsy who tells them that the Hunt is On.  Ms. Lumley settles her charges into their nursery while the chattering Lady Ashton anticipates all the social events she will be invited too.  Alas the next day the only mail is for Ms. Lumley, which does not make the Lady happy at all.  Ms. Lumley goes to see Ms. Mortimer and she is warned that somebody may be out to do harm to the three children and that she needs to keep her own hair dyed...presumably to keep her mysterious resemblance to the children at a minimum.  She is also advised by her former headmistress to not delve into the mysteries of her own parents too closely.  Ms. Lumley heads home to find the children missing and has a bit of a

panic after her unsettling talk with Miss Mortimer.  Ms. Lumley finds her charges safe and sound with Simon and Judge Quinzy, one of the nasty men at the disastrous holiday party from the last book.  The children had been to the zoo, and to the delight of Ms. Lumley had mostly behaved themselves. Lord and Lady Ashton are to go to the opening of a new play about pirates (with the Lady Ashton getting together the most unusual dress), but Lord Ashton has to bow out at the last moment due to an illness that seems to make him scratch and howl.  The children and their governess go to the play which ends with the children on stage chasing a parrot.  They in turn are then chased by the pirate actors for some unknown reason.  They end up in the hidden gallary that Ms. Lumley had read about in her guidebook and find a most unusual picture of Agatha Swanburne, the founder of the school Ms. Lumley was left at by her parents.  They all make it back home eventually and Lady Ashton thoroughly embarrassed about the scathing reviews her dress received decides they should all head home.  Ms. Lumley finally puts two and two together and discovers that the full moon and Lord Ashtons mysterious illness coincide and that must account for the howling she heard in the last book.  Miss Mortimer sends her a letter letting her know that the guidebook she sent Miss Lumley was not a guidbook at all, but a secret post card collection of sorts from her parents.  All of this sums up to this, there is an unknown curse on the three "wolf-children" going back before they were born, Lord Ashton has a mysterious illness connected to the full moon and howling, Ms. Lumley does have parents and hair that matches the three children which she must keep hidden, and there is a bunch of stuff that is somehow connected that we will hopefully learn soon.

Ok so that was longer then expected, especially for such a short book, but there you have it.  My thoughts on this book are varied.  I again LOVED the children and their mix of wildness and extreme intelligence.  I enjoy the love they have for their governess and how willing they are to do whatever it is she asks.  Ms. Lumley remains a resourceful, optimistic young woman who is able to keep her head and adapt to most situations.  I appreciated the authors use of words, and her way of defining them in a most entertaining matter before applying them to the case at hand.  I imagine if I were a younger reader I would be glad of those definitions.  I am not enjoying the long dragged out mystery of the children and Ms. Lumely.  I think I would not mind it as much if their was a decent plot for each book, but it seems the "plot" is just more of the mystery.  I am hoping that at the end of the series I can look at it as a whole and find a good story.  In the meantime I will continue to enjoy the characters, which to me is the strength of the whole series, and hope to get some answers soon.  I give this book 6 out of 10 eye patches and will eventually get to the next book.

What do you think of drawn out mysteries?  How amusing do you find precocious children? What is your family curse?

History And Myth

One of my many favorite aspects of reading is the ideas and topics that get me thinking beyond the book.  One of the books I am reading now reminded me that books and stories are more then entertainment, they are teaching tools, history keepers, and legend builders.  One thing that strikes me about the old stories in particular is their ability to create a blur between reality and myth, to the point that sometimes you are not 100% sure if a person existed for real or a certain event actually happened.  Take for example the legend of King Arthur.  Most people in Western Culture have at least heard of of King Arthur, many books, songs, stories, plays, movies, tv shows and even comics have been made to feature him...but was he even a real

person?  To be honest, nobody knows for sure.  He could have been a king in the 5th century that had his exploits written down by somebody, he could be a conglomeration of several kings and rulers, he could be a name that people of the time period used to sum up all the glory's and failures and morals and lessons they wanted to impart.  We will probably never know for sure.  Others have also achieved that blurred mythical status.  Robin Hood, Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, Beowulf, and many many others that are all as interesting and all as nebulously real as the last.  These legends have a very important purpose around the world.  They are there to preserve history, events may not be exactly what happened in the song, or poem, but we can get an idea of what was going on during that time period.  They are used as lessons, to teach morals and consequences.  These stories are used as entertainment and to evoke emotion, to bond people together over a shared experience.  When I first started thinking about this the other day, I felt like we don't do this anymore.  We don't memorialize our hero's in song, epic poems are no longer written about epic battles.  Then I watched Band of Brothers, and read Jepp Who Defied the Stars and realized that most historical fiction, heck most fiction in general is a way to record on film, or put down on paper, or digitize in binary numbers our current history and turn it into legends in their own forms.  The biggest difference is that it is so much easier to produce these works then it was before.  More people have access to, and the ability to read and write on their own.  Before a select few people could read or right, multi media consisted of writing on paper that took weeks to make, painting, weaving, and song.  All communication was done in person, on foot or horse back or by ship, things were slow and new entertainment few and far between, so any new song or story or piece of art was rare, valued and known by most people in the region.  Today I can access thousands of stories, books, songs, pieces of art,

cultural rites...or add to it myself.  Before stories were passed from on person to another, allowing for errors, embellishments and miss attributions until the original person or event became morphed into an epic tale, only vaguely resembling the original.  Today we can record most history in a fairly accurate way, we can usually find the source story, so the mysterious hero's are no longer so mysterious.  In the end, I still kind of wish we would all gather around the fire to hear tales of heroism, or hear a ballad of an epic event, or decorate our halls with weaving's depicting the building of great monuments...but I am also glad I can download every Harry Potter book in 20 seconds anytime I want :-)  Happy Reading Everybody!
Do you think we have any mythical legends now days?  What is your favorite legendary figure?  Do you think bard is still a legitimate proffesion?

Don't Let The Stars Define You

Fate vs. Free Will, Destiny vs Decisions, Luck vs. Hard Work.  These are all themes that are very prevalent in literature across the ages.  It has been the big question through out time, and discussed thoroughly in many a book both fiction and nonfiction.  Did a person get where they were because the stars fated it so, or because he made a certain decision...or did he make that certain decision because he was destined too...or was it all luck?  The book Jepp Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh, is a book that explores these questions in great detail. As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Jepp is a dwarf who was born and lived in the late 16th early 17th century Spanish Netherlands.  He had the good fortune to grow up in the inn of his mother, protected by the villagers from the harshness that he would have experienced almost anywhere else.  He is sheltered, loved, and even taught to read in this little bubble of the village and the inn.  Jepp's only real sorrow is he does not know who his father is and no matter how much he begs nobody will tell him a thing.  One day a noble stranger appears and offers to take Jepp to the court of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain to be a court dwarf.  He promises Jepp all kinds of comforts and books and a new life.  Jepp and his mother both see this as an opportunity and off Jepp goes with the man he calls the Don.  They arrive at the palace and Jepp is placed with the other three court dwarf's, Lia the young, sweet and beautiful dwarf, Maria the older, regal, often drunk dwarf, and Sebastian, the comically important dwarf.  Jepp also meets the giant Robert, and Pim the jester/master of ceremonies and the Infanta's favorite.  Hendrika is introduced as the dwarf's keeper, making sure they are taken care of and on occasion disciplined.  She seems to have a weird reaction to meeting Jepp, but he finds so many things odd that he takes little note of it.  At some point all of the dwarf's get their horoscope drawn for them based on their dates of birth and Jepp is encouraged as his is very well favored.  As Jepp gets used to court life he realizes that he is just there for the amusement of the court, he is well taken care of, but humiliated on a regular basis.  During this time he falls in love with the sweet Lia and does everything he can to be around her.  Pim also takes a not so innocent interest in Lia which results in Lia falling pregnant.  This of course

causes a great stir, especially when Lia refuses to reveal the father to anybody but Jepp who has already figured out that Pim attacked Lia.  Jepp tries to help Lia run away but is taken back to the castle when Lia goes into labor before they can escape the city.  Lia and the baby die and Jepp is packed into a cage and sent away.  Jepp arrives at the island fortress of Tycho Brahe, an eccentric noble who has a thing for the sciences, especially astronomy and astrology.  Jepp is again looked down on as a stupid bit of entertainment, but this soon changes when Tycho's daughter Magdalene catches him in the library after hours and discovers how smart he is.  He is eventually given a position in Tycho's library as a scholar and is finally starting to be happy.  Magdalene is the one who drew up Jepp's horoscope and they have many spirited debates over fate vs free will.  Eventually the two fall in love and wish to be married, but Jepp still has the ghost of his father hanging over his head.  Tycho releases him, telling him to only come back for his daughter if he can find his fortune. Jepp returns to his mothers inn only to learn that she had died a year ago from a fever.  Jepp also learns that the woman who raised him was not his real mother, that the man Jepp calls Don brought him to her to raise.  Jepp goes back to Infanta's castle, determined to find his real parents.  Turns out that Hendrika, the dwarf's keeper, and Don's older brother were Jepp's real parents and that he was sent away as his father was already married to another woman at the time.  Hendrika and Jepp reunite and Jepp heads to visit the Don to see if his father ever acknowledged him.  Jepp's father had left him 3000 gold pieces but Don, who was the executor of the will spent it all, leaving nothing for Jepp.  Jepp heads out to find work, determined to make his own fortune, even if it takes forever.  Luck is with Jepp however in the form of the man who took Jepp to Tycho in the first place, he found a stash of gold in Don's apartments and tracked down Jepp to give it to him.  Magdalene shows up to marry Jepp regardless and they head out to start their life together.

 This was an interesting book on many levels and there was a lot I enjoyed about it.  I think the part I liked the best was the historical context.  The author wrote this piece of fiction around little tidbits of true history.
Tycho Brahe was a real eccentric noble who made minor contributions to science.  Infanta Isabella was a real royal who regularly kept dwarf's for her own entertainment.  All these little tidbits were strung together and filled out by the author to create a compelling story.  This is a YA book...and sometimes it read exactly like a YA book, complete with teenage angst, identity issues and miscommunications, other times it read a little older, with some of the situations being a bit older, such as rape, pregnancy and marriage.  This is not to say it is not appropriate for the teenage crowd and in fact I am encouraged to see books like this featured in the YA section.  It has a bit more heft and substance then a lot of the YA books I have read, it is just

something that for the younger half of the YA crowd, some explanation or guidance might be needed.  I liked the format of the book, the story being told to us by Jepp, who for the first and second parts of the book told us his story as he traveled to then an unknown place, the only problem was sometimes big events where telegraphed which made me by turns anxious and a bit disappointed when the events finally happened.  I really loved visiting Tycho's fortress, the descriptions of the various oddities and little touches of eccentrics were a lot of fun and now I want to go visit. I like the various relationships in this book, and how Jepp fell in love with two completely different type of women.  First the sweet, mysterious,haunted dwarf Lia and then later the bold, smart, forward, "normal" sizeed Magdalene.  The only real complaints I had was sometimes Jepp seemed to be written as a 13 year old girl.  A lot of his moonings and angstyness had a girlish flavor to them that I have never witnessed in a teenage boy, this kind of took me out of the story a bit on occasion.  The other complaint is that on occasion events took on a very convenient turn, especially at the end, like the author just wanted to move on with the story.  Over all though I enjoyed this book and read it pretty quickly.  It was nice to have a story about a different kind of person without adding all the magic and vampires and stuff that usually accompanies it.  I would recommend this for anybody who likes a good story, who remembers what it was like being different as a teenager, has a interest in 17th century Spanish Netherlands, or wants something to read with their teens. I give it 7 out of 10 horoscopes.

Then VS Now

As I continue my nostalgia kick, I have noticed an interesting change in how I read these cherished nuggets from my past.  As I read them I have started picking up on things that went completely over my head when I was younger (the hazards of having a reading comprehension level apx 8 years more then my actual age) or I notice subtleties that probably never occurred to me at age 7.  It makes for a very interesting reread experience.  I am not talking about my beloved classics that I read once a year, as much as I love and adore them my Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, and Lord of the Rings, they get read so often that I have grown up with them and my opinion and what I get from them is pretty much set in stone.  No I am talking about the books and series that I devoured and loved as a kid, forgot or put aside as I grew older
and am just now picking them back up.  Some stand the test of time like Peppermints in the Parlor which while a bit simpler then I remember is still a solid story that I would recommend to any young reader.  Others like the SVH series are just so atrocious on what it teaches impressionable young girls that I could not in good conscious recommend it to anybody under the age of 21.  I find it interesting to see what bugs me now that never bugged me before, certain attitudes and especially relationships drive me bananas.  I was never an overly romantic teen, I was fairly pragmatic about boys (and girls) and knew full well that fairy tale loves were just that, fairy tales.  That being said, I still did not see a problem with most of the relationships I read about, especially in YA books, now when I go back and read them I see the same problem I still see today, a controlling boy who is just doing "what is best" for his girl, and the girl, who even if she is supposed to be strong, falls for this overprotective oaf, thank God my Daddy taught me better then that.  I also see a lot of social, racial, and just moral issues that seemed to have been glossed over or accepted in some of these older books, that while I may not have agreed with them as a youngster, I accepted them in the course of the story.  Now of course I take to my blog in outrage over these things.  Of course it is really hard to get over the nostalgia factor, as much as I kind of hated rereading Double Love SVH or rolled my eyes over my recent skimming of one of the BSC books, I can't help but be transported back to when and where I was when I was reading these books.  They also had the added bonus of being written at the pace of about a dozen a year, and at the rate I was reading, this helped keep my voracious appetite for books under control.  I also have to consider that the source of most of my books was my local library which did not get in books at the rate of your friendly neighborhood bookstore.  Growing up with very little money, the library was my source for most things literary (with a healthy injection from my parents whenever they could).  I blazed through their supply of books in a heartbeat and started rereading at an early age, just to have something in my hands.  The librarians were great at setting aside any new book that came through the door for me.  This is why as awful, or simple, or "not my current taste" some of these old books are, I will always have a soft spot for them, and hey as I am rediscovering some of these oldies are actually long forgotten gems just waiting to be rediscovered.  So I am off to read, reread, and discover new and old loves. Happy Reading Everybody!

What books have you rediscovered recently?  What books are you appalled to have loved so much?  Are books just way too much a part of my thoughts?

So Many Babies!

I had a fantastic weekend and hope yours was the same.  I got to help celebrate my nephew E's first birthday (ha you can't see it but I just tried to type first and birthday at the same time...my spell check hates me ha ha ha ) which was wonderful, watched a bunch of boy movies which was interesting, actually got to spend some time outside with the Hubbin which was glorious, and was even productive enough to get to sessions of CMU's in.  And of course I read, oh I read and read and read.  Finished a book, started two others and bought two more YAY ME!  One of the interesting things about this weekend was a conversation I had with Hubbin about crowded and potentially unsafe living conditions in the area.  As an EMT I see every kind of living condition you can think of, this paired with my Baby E time and my CMU's in patient care all came together to remind me of a book I just finished reading.  Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Joy, Birth and Hard Times by Jenny Worth.  I picked this book up 'cause I love the BBC series by the same name and was in the mood for something a little different.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD (kind of)

This book is not one that has a plot so much as it has a bunch of stories all strung together.  The memoir format is not one I have read in a while, being more of a fiction person, but this book reminded me why I used to read a lot more of them.  Quick synopsis.  Jenny Worth arrived in the East End of London in the 50's to what she refers to as Nonnatus House, a pseudonym to protect the privacy of the patients and caregivers involved in these stories.  The author takes the name from St. Raymond Nonnatus who is the patron saint of childbirth, midwives, children, and pregnant women.  The author takes us through her first year or so as a trained midwife in this new and different environment.  In the 50's in the after math of WWII people live in crowded tenements  where running water is a luxury and a whole floor, or even a whole building sharing a lavatory is not uncommon.   Families often had children into the double digits all living in two or three rooms, heated by a stove that doubled as the kitchen.  In these conditions our young midwife had to learn to how to deliver babies as safely as possible.  She tells us of the various patients she saw and the various circumstances in which the births occurred.  Some of the stories are sweet, some silly, some sad (obviously I am in an alliteration phase today) but all of them real.  My favorite stories are the ones about Conchita Warren and her 25 live births, there a couple stories about this exotic woman who spoke no English yet seemed to be the paragon of wife and motherhood.  Both stories she is involved in makes me want to stand up and cheer.

This memoir is fascinating to me as a health care professional because it shows in some ways how far we have come (gloves were rarely used, shaving and enema's before birth were the norm, hygiene was optional for most patients), but also how we are starting to lose some of the personal touch that makes a nurse or doctor or even EMT a good one.  I also noted how much more parents were involved in making medical decisions for themselves and their children.  Now day's, especially if you go to a hospital to give birth, the mothers are made to feel that they must do everything the Dr. or Nurse says.  Now the vast majority of the time this is a good idea, but sometimes a Mamma has to go with her gut and say no, or speak up about something wrong.  In the book a baby is premature and the consensus is that he should be placed in an incubator in the hospital, but his mother refuses to let him go, knowing that she can give him the best care.  In the time period this happened, there was not a whole lot the Dr. could do but come check on the little guy, now days there would have been court orders to take the child away to be placed in a sterile incubator with minimal human touch.  Again, Drs. usually know what they are doing, and Nurses tend to be top notch, but this example of society allowing a parent to be a parent seems to be missing now days to our detriment (that was an awkward sentence, but I think I got my point across.).

The TV show so far has followed most of the stories fairly faithfully from the memoir.  I watched the first season before I read the book and was surprised at how closely they followed it, with a few tweaks of course, but totally recognizable.  It will be interesting to see if the future seasons follow the later memoirs, or if they go off on their own, but either way I am enjoying both immensely and cannot wait to get my hands on the next book.  Books like this remind me that as much as I will always be a fantasy/sci fi/fiction girl, that real life is just as exciting, varied, and interesting if you look for the right opportunities...it also makes me want to write down some of my favorite calls for future people to read.  I give this book 8 out of 10 babies and recommend it to anybody who is interested in post WWII history, midwivery, a couple good stories, or enjoy the tv show.

What type of memoirs do you like to read?  What era interests you?  Did you ever think a tv show about midwives would ever be so popular?

Whoa Nellie!

Don't know why but I have been in full on nostalgia mode lately, everything reminds me of yesteryear and has that hazy film of softness like you see in flashbacks in movies.  Maybe it's cause my nephews are all having birthdays and making their own memories, or maybe 'cause I get to see the whole clan next week (more on that awesomeness in a later post), or maybe it's Netflix and all the old school shows and movies I used to watch as a kid, or possibly it's because of books like this Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I survived Nellie Olsen and Learned to Love Being Hated.  This is a memoir by Alison Arngrim who play Nellie Olsen on Little House on the Prairie.  I picked this book up for many reasons, one being I love the books, to this day they still hold a place of honor on my all time favorites shelf.  Two I grew up watching the TV show and forcing my siblings and most of my friends to reneact it (with certain amendments as I saw fit of course) on a very regular basis.  Three, I have always adored the character of Nellie Olsen, I don't know if it is because I started reading so young, but I have always understood that a story is only as good as its conflict, and the main conflict in Little House tv series was Nellie.

Alison Arngrim has a fantastic tone to her writing.  She covers a lot of ground in this book, everything from her parents origins all the way to the present day.  She is the daughter of a formerly closeted gay stage actor and a glamorous character voice actress, who roles included the voice of Gumby...yep that creepy green claymation dude.  Alison also has an older brother who was a brooding child actor who never really got it all together. Ms. Arngrim takes us through her young years, growing up and moving around constantly.  Landing the role of Nellie Olsen on the TV series, her amazing friendship with Melissa Gilbert who played Laura Ingalls and all of the funny, frustrating, sad and silly stories of what it is like growing up on a television show.  She talks about how playing a hated bratty villian forced her to come out of her shell and taught her how to deal with other people.  The role gave her the freedom to not have to constantly portray the idea of a sweet tractable girl as so many others had to do during that time period.  Alison seems to be able to find the humor in almost any situation and seems to recall the feelings of witnessing all kinds of events and scenarios as a child, comparing and contrasting how she felt then with the knowledge and understanding of a child, with what she knows now as an adult.  She also does not shy away from hard issues.  She tells us early on that she was horribly abused by her brother, and could not ever get anybody to believe her.  This spurs her on in adult hood to try and promote the striking down of laws and loopholes that are written into most state legislation that actually use incest as a way to LESSEN the penelties given to a sex offender.  Yep if the

molestation is done in the context of incest is was considered a lesser crime then if some child was molested by a stranger...seriously no words.  This was on the books in California and was vehemently defended until 2005!!!!! This only changed when Ms. Arngrim was brave enough to go on national television and tell her story and essentially shame the legislators into changing the law.  She also does a lot of work with various AIDS groups.  She has lost dear friends to the disease and works on promoting knowledge, care and help for people suffering and the general public to become more informed.  She is married to a fellow AIDS volunteer and at there wedding everybody wore tuxedos, bare feet and black toenail polish, how awesome is that.  She embraces her most famous role as the bratty Nellie Olsen, allowing fans to talk, scream, yell, cry or whatever at her, all in the name of defending there heroine Laura Ingalls.  Alison has turned all the bizzarness surrounding peoples reactions to her into a stand up comic show that does quit well.  All in all she seems to be a trooper who knows how to take hard situations and turn them into a way to make life better for herself and others.
I really enjoyed reading this book, it went by pretty quickly the pacing is spot on.  She spends about 2/3 of the book talking about her Little House years, which is what people want to hear about.  There is a good mix of on set stories, personal information, facts, feelings, assumptions and a fair amount of well placed profanity.  To me the mark of a well written memoir or biography is one where I would like to meet the person after I

have finished reading it.  After this book I want to invite Alsion Arngrim over for a couple bottles of wine and a slumber party :-)  This brought back some happy memories, and reminded me that no matter how good or bad the past was, the only good option is to move forward. I would recommend this book to anybody who has ever seen even one episode of Little House on the Prairie, needs a good laugh, wants a child actors insiders perspective on Hollywood, or is interested in activism...and doesn't mind a bit of swearing. I give this book 8 out of 10 horse and buggies.
What type of memoir/biographies do you like to read? Does learning about your favorite character as an actor make the character better or worse for you? How weird is it to read a book about a tv show about a book?

Not So Good To Be Queen

Being inspired by my trip to the Renaissance Festival I read the book The Wild Queen by Carolyn Meyer. This book would probably be considered historical fiction by most folks and follows the life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots .  This book is part of the authors Young Royals series, of which I have read several and have enjoyed the mix of history and fiction.  The books are about real life people, and contain their real history that has been embellished with what author has written to fill in the day to day conversations and such (does that make sense).  As always SPOILERS AHEAD (well only if you don't know your history).

The plot of this one is interesting because it is based on the actual recorded life of an actual person, with just certain details added in.  I do not know enough to distinguish the facts from the fiction, but from what I do know the major events are all real and recorded.  A young Mary Stuart is crowned Queen of Scotland at just six days old.  She is sent to France at the age of five to live in the household of the French monarchy where she is eventually to marry the eldest son and heir to the throne Francis.   Mary or Marie as she is now called has much family in France as her mother was from a noble house of France before she moved to Scotland to marry the King.  Mary learns much of court life and the power and lack there of a woman can wield in it. At the age of 16 she married Francis, who was a small and sickly boy who never attained his manhood.  According to the book, Mary and Francis never consummated their marriage as Francis was too delicate and child like.  Mary is named Queen Consort alongside Francis when he gains the throne after the death of his father. During this time Mary Queen of England has died and her half sister Elizabeth has claimed the throne.  Several of Mary's family feel she has a better claim to the English throne, but it all falls to naught.   Alas Francis falls ill and dies leaving Mary a widow at the age of 18 and with no power whatsoever in the country of France.  Mary returns to Scotland amid treaty discussions with England to claim her throne.

 Mary does not want to sign a treaty with England until Elizabeth names her heir in the case of Elizabeth dying with no children.  Elizabeth does not want this because she feels it will cause people to try and depose her to put Mary on the throne.  Mary is welcomed back to Scotland where against the will of almost all her advisers she marries her cousin Henry, giving in to his every wish and whim out of  a desire to please him.  This union quickly sours and other then her precious son James, no good comes from this marriage.  More arguing, fighting, treating and such occur and one fateful night the lodging where Henry is staying is blown up.  Henry is found dead and Mary is blamed for plotting to kill him.  Mary is captured by Lord Bothwell and forced to marry him (making this Mary's third husband in her young life).  They attempt to put the divided kingdom back together with John Knox pushing for a Protestant only kingdom and the devoutly Catholic Mary decreeing a policy of tolerance.  Knox has also persuaded several important people (including her bastard half brother James) that a woman will never be fit to rule a country.  Mary is captured by her brothers people who force her to abdicate in favor of her son with her brother as regent.  Mary escapes and flees to England hoping Elizabeth will help her regain her throne, even though they still have not resolved there own issues.  Mary is taken captive in England and held as prisoner for 18 years before being placed on trial for plotting Elizabeth's death.  Mary is sentenced to death and is beheaded.  Ironically her son James does ascend the throne of Scotland and later England when Elizabeth dies leaving no heirs.  All of the subsequent monarchs of England and Scotland came down through the Stuart line.

I like books like this because it makes history a bit more interesting.  I know that a lot of it is speculation or filling in the gaps, but the basic history is still present.  It get's frustrating to read these stories sometimes and realize just how powerless even a sovereign monarch can be, especially if you were female.  The reader also has the advantage of hindsight which makes you cringe at the inevitability of some of the choices these characters make.  I think the best part about this book, and books like it is that it makes me want to go find out more about the real history of these people and places.  It is a great jumping of point to see where your historical interests lie, or to discover something that never even occurred to you before.  Most people know about the big events and people in history, but a lot has been documented and discovered about other less known players and events which add an even richer layer to already known history.  This isn't really making any sense because it is hard to review just the book instead of the whole learning/discovery process so I will just let you read it for yourself.  An interesting side note if you will, I actually played Mary Stuart in the play Mary Stuart with my best friend playing Elizabeth in a meeting that never took place in real life, but in the play she took great pleasure in condemning me to death :-)  We won a couple of awards for our performance so this era will always hold a special place in my heart.  I recommend this book for anybody interested in history, historical fiction, or a way to get kids started on history in a more palatable story form.  I give this book 7 out of 10 coats of arms.

What is your favorite period in history? Do you like the fictionalized versions as a way to learn history or are you a purist history buff?  What about alternative histories where the death of Kings and Queens is really an alien plot to seed the world with pod people? 

Renaissance Reading

Hit up the Maryland Renaissance Festival this weekend and had the best time ever! The turkey legs were greasy and yummy, the ale was cold and plentiful...and so were the corsets :-)  Hubbin even got me a pair of black feathered wings (there is a debate on if they are angel wings, or something else...) which I wore while running into absolutely everybody, so AWESOME!  I have always liked this era of history, with all the court intrigues and almost wars it's like Ye Olde Soap Opera.  Here are some other books set in this time period of sex, ale, and madrigals.

Six Wives

For you history buffs, this is a great book.  Using immense research skills, and a writing style even us fiction lovers can appreciate this biography is a great way to dive into Renaissance reading.

The Other Boleyn Girl

I am not usually a fan of straight historical fiction, but this book was a great read.  It was a bit on the girly side, and I learned more words for lady-bits then I thought possible, but it kept my interest all the way through.  Please skip the movie though, it was horrible in every way possible.

The Young Royals Series

This series follows the lives of the young girls who would go on to play a pivitol role in the Tudor era of rule. These are historical fiction for YA, but I really enjoyed reading them even as an adult.  I especially liked that each girl/woman got her turn to voice her part in each book.

Seraphina

One of the things I liked so much about this fantasy book, is that it reminded me so strongly of the Renaissance era.  The political intrigues, the religion, the clothes, the various classes, all present in this alternate world.

The Tree Shepherd's Daughter

Of course no Renaissance post would be complete without mentioning my favorite Renn Fest series.  I love the variety of fair's our heroine is involved with, and the hiding in plain sight for elves and fairies always makes me look a bit closer at the folks at my Renn Fest.

Hopefully there is something on this list for everybody.  History, fiction, fantasy, adult, YA, all kinds of fun stuff.  Happy Reading Everybody!

100 Year Sleep

I am absolutely exhausted and there is no end in site for at least the next four weeks!  Sometimes when I feel like this I have the urge to prick my finger on a spindle and see if I can't get myself 100 years of sleep like our friend Sleeping Beauty.  I think that is the amount of sleep it would take at this point to feel finally rested, on the down side I bet I would have horrible morning breath :-)  Since 100 years of sleep is not on the schedule I will instead share some of my favorite versions of this tale in hopes that I can get some sleep vicariously.

Spindles End

A whole new twist on the Sleeping Beauty tale.  All the characters are fleshed out and we get to live the whole life of our heroine princess turned peasant.  The ending is a bit Huh? but over all one of my favorites (note to self, reread and ramble)

Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep

An extremely humorous take on this classic tale.  For being such a short little book, it packs a lot of punch, recommended for everybody!

Beauty Sleep

This is part of a series of hit or miss retelling's of all the classic fairy tales.  This Sleeping Beauty retelling is actually quit good.  The love story aspect of it is particularly well done, especially since 100 years really does pass.

Briar Rose

I have mixed feelings about this story, which is less a retelling and more of an allegory.  The biggest part was I wanted more of the fairy tale to be in the story, but that being said it is definitely worth reading and inspired further research on my part.

Enchantment

This may be one of my favorite retellings of all time.  The way the author combines history, magic, and great writing make this a classic for any lover of a good tale.  This is another book that had me running time and again to the computer to look up characters and tales mentioned, and yet it is still seamlessly blended into the  classic Sleeping Beauty tale.

Hopefully reading some of these books will help me feel like I've gotten sleep through osmosis.  I suppose I could try and get some extra sleep by putting my book down...hahahaha I crack myself up sometimes.

What is your favorite tale of sleep? Are you a morning or night person?  How bad would you have to pee if slept for 100 years?

And Now Back To Our Regular Programming

Ok folks I'm back...for the moment :-)  I have had a whirlwind of a couple of weeks and now get a brief week of sanity before I dive right back in.  One of the things I did was visit the National Geographic Museum and it was AWESOME!!!!!  My favorite part was the Real Pirates exhibit which featured the crew of the Wydah Gally captained by Captain "Black Sam" Bellamy.  To make it even better my amazing Hubbin bought me a book to go with the exhibit.

The Mammoth Book of Pirates

I have to say I am very excited to start reading this.  Sounds like the perfect summer adventure, learning the tales of true pirates.  It also makes me want to start a trip that hits all of the old major strongholds of the pirates!  Tomorrow I will resume with my Ramblings and we shall get on with our summer reading!

Your Nose Is Growing

I may have mentioned it before, but I have a thing for the show Once Upon A Time, this season not as much as last season, but it still holds a place in my cheesy Disney loving, fairytale hoarding heart.  One of my favorite characters in the show is the grown up Pinocchio, let me show you why mmmmmm.

Mmm seriously yummy little wooden boy :-)  My Hubbin, being the wonderful guy that he is has been buying me all of the movies, books, and TV shows that include all of these great characters.  Once of the books was the original Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.  This story is a bit different from the normal fairy tales because instead of a short story it is a full blown book.  It is a bit crude and a bit out there, but I found myself enjoying it immensely.

The story starts out in Master Cherry's work shop where a bit of wood starts being very rude.  Shocked at this woods behavior he sells it to his friend Geppetto who then carves it into a puppet.  This puppet is Pinocchio.  Alas our little puppet boy is a very selfish creature demanding food and clothes. even though the woodcarver is desperately poor, he supplies his puppet son with paper clothing and what food is in the house.  Geppetto sends Pinocchio to school, selling his own cloth coat to buy his puppet son a proper school book.  Pinocchio is told to go straight to school, but is enticed to sell his book to get admittance into a puppet show.  Pinocchio makes friends with the other puppets.  He is then caught by Fire Eater, the puppet master who intends to us him for fire wood.  Pinocchio's friends implore Fire Eater to release him, which he does, but informs them that he will use another puppet instead.  The horrified Pinocchio will not allow this and offers himself in the other puppets stead.  Moved by this loyalty Fire Eater decides not to burn any of the puppets and sends Pinocchio on his way with five gold pieces.  Pinocchio is very excited to bring the gold home to his Papa Geppetto, so that he can buy a new coat and have food in the house.  Along the way the

hapless puppet meets up with Fox and Cat who convince him to plant his gold pieces in a special field that will grow a tree full of gold.  Pinocchio thinks that this sounds like a good idea and goes off with the unsavory duo.  The trio stop at an inn, where the Fox and Cat order a feast and tell the puppet that they will start their journey at midnight.  Alas when the puppet is woken at midnight by the landlord of the inn, he informs him that Fox and Cat have already left without paying for their board or meal.  Pinocchio gives the innkeeper a gold piece and hurries after his supposed friends.  While out he is accosted by a hooded duo who try and rob him, thinking quickly Pinocchio puts the gold pieces in his mouth and refuses to open it.  The shadow figures hang Pinocchio in a tree and wait for him to die so that they can get to the gold. Luckily for Pinocchio the beautiful Child with the blue hair spots him and sends help.  He is taken to her house and put to bed.  He is seen by multiple doctors who come to the conclusion that he must drink a bitter medicine or die.  The naughty puppet does everything he can to not drink his medicine, until they begin preparing for his funeral, which is just what he needs to finally take his medicine.  Pinocchio then proceeds to start lying to the Child and his nose starts to grow, with every lie he tells his nose gets bigger and bigger until he is trapped.  After finally confessing to the lies the Child has birds come in and peck Pinocchio's nose back to its normal size.  Pinocchio vows to be a good boy and the Child tells him that his Papa Geppetto is coming to live with them.  The excited Pinocchio begs to go meet him.  Along the way he runs into Fox and Cat, who once again convince him to go and plant his gold in the fields.  Of course this is all a ruse and when he goes to check his gold is gone.  Heartbroken the puppet gets into a couple more scrapes and ends up in jail.  Upon his release he sadly discovers that the Child has died of a broken heart and his Papa Geppetto has gone off in search of his missing puppet son.  Pinocchio sets of to find his Papa and ends up in a small town trying to beg food.  He is not willing to do any work, so nobody will give him anything to eat.  Eventually he agrees to help a woman who turns out to be the Child grown up into the Fairy with the blue hair.  Pinocchio does his best to be good and worthy of the Fairy and applies himself to his school work diligently.  The Fairy informs him that because of his hard work he will be turned into a real boy the following day as long as behaves.  On his way to invite his friends to his real boy party,

Pinocchio gets enticed to run away to the land of Boobies where nobody ever has to work or go to school.  After a time of leisure and fun the puppet discovers that he is turned into a donkey! He is sold and has a few more adventures before turning back into a puppet and getting swallowed by the giant Dog-Fish.  Inside the Dog-Fish Pinocchio discovers his Papa Geppetto and devises a way for them to escape.  Alas all of the time inside the fish has made Geppetto unwell, so Pinocchio goes and finds work to help care for his beloved Papa.  On his way to work one day he meets up with a friend of the Fairy's who informs Pinocchio that she is sick in a hospital with no money to feed or care for herself.  The puppet gives the friend all the money he has and tells him to come back in two days for more.  Pinocchio determines to work twice as hard to make twice as much money so that he can care for both Geppetto and the Fairy.  The next day he wakes up as a real boy.  The Fairy comes to him and tells him that though he has been a bad puppet in the past, he has taken care of the people he loves and has earned himself real boy status.

My synopsis can not do justice to the flavor of the writing of this book.  It is hilarious.  It does not read like a children's book at all, even though that was the intended audience.  There is a lot of violence and insolence and all around mayhem. Doing some research the book was initially supposed to end with the naughty Pinocchio being hung from the tree until he died as a warning to children, but the editors wisely thought that might be a bit much and so the second redemptive half was written.  The version I have has the original font and illustrations which are just really weird and wonderful all at the same time.  I'm not sure what else to say about it other then I recommend it on its oddities alone. Seriously go read it :-)

How do you think children's tales have changed over time?  Do you like the more gruesome original tales for kids, or do you think they need the less violent versions?  How old is old enough to learn some of these harsh realities?  How crazy are the 19th century Italians?!?

Explaining The Unexplainable

Read an interesting short story yesterday in the collection Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears.  The story is called The Fox Wife by Ellen Steiber.  What really caught my interest (besides it being a good little story) is that she says she was inspired by medical accounts in Japan in 1892.  She took these records and married them with the kitsune lore in Japanese culture.  The point of this being that before people knew about certain illnesses, especially of the mental variety, many times they were attributed to something magical.  Since I find the human body and mind fascinating, and I love reading I decided to do some digging around and see if I could find some other common threads in the illness/magic realm  (yeah that didn't quit make sense to me either).  As I was digging around, I found many instances where historians, doctors, researchers and bloggers with too much time on their hands have found lines linking folklore, fairy tales, and legends to real life diseases, illnesses and injuries.  Here are a few examples.

Changelings/Autism- It is amazing how closely the symptoms of autism (especially the more sever forms) match up with old descriptions of changelings.  Imagine that you have this lovely child that seems to be perfectly healthy, then one day you start to notice your once loving child refuses to be touched.  The child pulls away from it's family, has outbursts over the oddest things, seems to hyper-focus on seemingly pointless tasks.  With no frame of medical reference, it would make sense to feel that your child had been replaced by a strangers baby.  Other illnesses that tend to manifest in childhood may also have contributed to the changeling myth.  What I personally find so fascinating about these clear descriptions of autism (excuse me while I climb my up on my soap box for a moment) is that it seems to point towards autism being around for a lot longer then people think.  I know many a child that has not been immunized because somebody convinced them that autism wasn't around until we started immunizing our kids, or that autism is new and contingent on pollution and environmental factors.  While certain environmental factors may play a role (we still don't know a lot about autism) stories about changelings and their dead on descriptions show us that in all probability kids have been afflicted with autism for much longer then anybody realizes, and definitely long before immunizations (getting down of my soapbox now).

Epilepsy/Demonic Possession - Anybody who has had, or witnessed a seizure can tell you it is pretty terrifying.  As an EMT I have dealt with many many many seizures and every time it hits you how crazy it looks.  We know for the most part what causes seizures, but can you imagine back before we had a name and a cause for it, seeing a person just start contorting, flailing, uttering strange sounds, eyes rolling into the back of their heads.  It is no wonder that people were convinced an evil spirit had taken possession of a loved one.  It got even worse when a person had a disease like epilepsy that caused seizures on a regular basis.  It's one thing for a person to suffer one seizure (caused by a high fever or extreme illness), but then be "rid of the demon" and never have another episode.  It would be quit another back in the day to continue these seizures even after a ceremony to excise the demon.  This also lead to a lot of unnecessary incarcerations and even deaths.

Ergotism/Witchcraft-Who would have thought something as innocent as rye flour could be a possible cause for the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials?  Among the usual jealousy, over zealousness, and greed which is really all a group of people really need to persecute their fellow man, a theory that a crop of rye may have been infected with a fungus that when consumed produces some very interesting effects.  There is an LSD like hallucinogen affect for some people.  A person could suffer from debilitating stomach pains, akin to being stabbed in the belly (which many "victims" of the "witches" described during the trial"  There may be sores, neurological issues, and mania.  Any time a large number of people had unexplained pain or illness, they just attributed it to witchcraft, because really what else could it be.  The biggest problems came when there was no obvious cause for the pain, if I accidental cut myself and see it bleed and feel the pain, it is not witchcraft, if my stomach feels like somebody is stabbing it, but I don't see any marks or can find no cause, then it might be witchcraft. It is interesting to see in history how people can take even the most minor of things and blow them out of proportion.

Oh man there are so many more of these especially when you start dealing with things like schizophrenia, OCD, porgeria, just so many illnesses that we now if nothing else can name as a scientific disease.  This is why it is so important to keep writing stories and keep reading books, it gives us a glimpse into the past and shows us that we are dealing with some of the same things today as people did hundreds of years ago.  It will be int resting in 100 years for future humanity to read our books and stories and say "hey I think they were talking about (insert name of some undiscovered ailment here), can you believe this is what they thought it was?"  Humans have a need to have an explanation for everything, especially when things go wrong. Before we had science and wide spread education, people used magic to try and explain the unknown. Thinking over some of the more contemporary books I've read, I think this generation tends to write about more intangible illnesses, mostly of the mental variety.  Liar is a good example of a modern folk lore take on a potential mental illness.  It is written in the same feel and style as a way to explain something that may not yet be explainable.

What diseases/illnesses do you recognize in your favorite folk tale?  What diseases do you think future generations will look back at us and shake their heads over?  Do I read way to much into simple stories?