Book Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

When trying to pick what I want to read next, I often look at what my recommendations are on Amazon.com.  Based on what you've enjoyed in the past, the site recommends books that you may be interested in.  My latest recommendation was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.  I really had no idea what it was going to be about, but I was intrigued by both the title and the cover art so I requested it at our library.


Jacob is a rich teenager working at a drugstore that's part of a chain owned by his mother's family.  He's living his life bored and trying to no avail to get fired from his job.  His eccentric grandfather has told him stories over the years of his time during World War II when he lived in an orphanage full of peculiar children --- an invisible boy, a girl who can conjure fire in her hands, an extraordinarily strong brother and sister, and a girl who can fly live among them.  Jacob always assumed they were fairy tales or stories his grandfather made up to shield himself from the pain of the war until the day his grandfather calls him panicked at work because he can't find the key to his gun cabinet.  Jacob rushes to house to find his grandfather dying in woods---the victim of a three tongued monster.


Plagued with nightmares and with no one believing his story, Jacob (with the help of his psychiatrist) convinces his parents to allow him to travel with his father to Wales to the location of the children's home.  There Jacob finds that all stories his grandfather told him are true and more.  What I found particularly interesting about this book were the vintage photographs interspersed throughout the book to help in telling the story.  The author is friends with quite a few photography collectors and the inclusion of the photos added to the unique character of the book and helped move the plot along.


Overall, I enjoyed the book.  It was clearly written for the young adult audience and I often felt that in its tone.  A few times I was reminded of the recently cancelled TV show Heroes because many of the peculiars had talents like the characters that appeared on that show.  The girl who makes fire with her hands reminded me of the cheerleader's mother on that show.  It made me wonder if the author was a bit influenced by them.  The book was left open ended, thus leaving potential for a sequel.


I find the latest trend of having a book trailer --- kind of like a movie trailer --- fascinating.  While reading the book, I thought it could potentially be made into a hit holiday movie.  Here's the teaser:

What do you think?  Could this be made into a movie in the future?

A revelation in lunch packing technology!

It's a rite of passage every year --- the new backpack and lunch box.  This year Red is all about peace signs and when she saw this backpack in the Garnet Hill catalog she had to have it.  I wasn't super excited about the price ($30) until they had a promotion where they threw the matching lunch box in for free.  I ended up buying one for Tom Thumb too in a robot print.  You can't really tell in the picture, but part of what sold me on it is that the lunch box clips right to the backpack.  Too easy!


Next, I had to figure out how I was going to pack that lunch box.  I'm not a huge fan of using Ziploc bags because I hate the trash it creates.  Initially, I thought it would awesome to get her the bento box from Pottery Barn Kids, but then I saw all the complaints in the reviews about it not being liquid tight and that the quality was shabby.  Then, I made a fantastic discovery --- the square divided Lock & Lock container.  It was about $5 for the container.  I bought four so I could have one in the lunch and one in the dishwasher for each kid.  It's my dream --- reusable, air and liquid tight, and it's like a bento box!  Check this out.  Here it is closed inside the lunch box.  I figure I still have enough room in there for a drink container and a piece of fruit if I scoot the container off to one side.

Then you take off the lid by lifting the flaps that are on all four sides.

Inside it is divided into four areas.

But wait!  You can also have one big area with two smaller ones.

Or just one big box with no dividers!

Did I say how much I love this thing?  I seriously can't wait to pack a lunch in it.  

I know --- I'm crazy!   But look at this --- a lady who posted a product review on their website actually uploaded a photo of her lunch packed in it.  

Looks good to me. :-)

Today is a new day in the life of Tom Thumb.  It will be his first play date by himself.  Red has always had lots of friends in the neighborhood because all the neighbor kids were close to her age.  Unfortunately, there are only two kids Tom Thumb's age in the whole neighborhood and today they play!  My little guy is growing up.  Sniffle, sniffle...

Book Review: To Be Sung Underwater

After the let down from reading The Beginners, I was really, really, REALLY hoping To Be Sung Underwater would be okay.  I'm happy and relieved to report that it was thankfully readable and actually quite good.


I think everyone at some point wonders what happened to their first love.  Unfortunately, now that there's Facebook it's all too easy, but what if we didn't have that crutch?  In this book, Judith Toomey has a good life---an attractive husband, a nice house in Los Angeles, a teenage daughter, and a job she loves.  When her husband makes the seemingly innocuous move to replace the bedroom set that she used as a teenager in Nebraska, Judith makes a series of decisions that lead her to reminisce about what might have been had she stayed with her high school boyfriend Willy.


In the first half of the book, a chapter of Judith's present day life alternates with a chapter that flashbacks to her senior year of high school.  Eventually, it's all high school for a period of time.  I didn't like present day Judith very much.   She often comes off as selfish and unsympathetic.  On the other hand, reading about high school Judith was fun.  The interactions between she and her college professor father and hippie mother were entertaining.  Willy's character made me smile.  I was left with a warm feeling while reading about that period in her life.  It really made me wonder about the time in her life that doesn't get told in the book.  What happened to her between high school and present day that shaped who she became?  If she had stayed with Willy would she have continued to be happy or would she have started to feel trapped by him in their small Nebraska town?


Without revealing any spoilers, the end was a shocker.  A BIG shocker.  I'm still not sure how I feel about it or what the author was trying to accomplish by ending it that way.  Was it realistic?  Maybe.  You're left as a reader feeling uncertain about where the story is going next.  I suppose that's life though.  When your reach a crossroads, what are you going to do?  That's for each of us to decide on our own.  Although the conclusion in the end was unclear, To Be Sung Underwater left me feeling hopeful that love can live forever.

Back from the Engine Show!

Even though I was under the weather (why did I get a cold in the summer???), we went up to northern Michigan to attend the Buckley Old Engine Show.  The kids and the Cobbler had a blast with my Dad and my older sister's family riding the train and checking out all the tractors last Friday.  The men decided they didn't get enough on Friday so they went back for round #2 on Saturday, while my mother and I took the kids to an art fair.  We followed that up with a trip to the Dune Climb at Sleeping Bear Dunes.  There was a huge church camp group there the same time we were and they all decided to run down the dune together.  I had never seen anything like it!  Notice the people rolling down!

We did our tour of duty climbing the dunes too and the kids had a blast rolling and somersaulting down the dunes.  Here's me and my Daddy:

 The Cobbler and Tom Thumb

 Red in the tall grass

 Tom Thumb got tired of rolling.

It was nice to get some final rest and relaxation in before school starts in two weeks.  

In the meantime, I have my million bazillion projects that I have to finish:
1. Tom Thumb's airplane quilt.  His 4th birthday comes in for a landing on September 8th and I need to get a move on with that baby.
2. Christy's veil.  Yes, I'm a whack job and will be making my sister's veil for her wedding.  She and her fiance will be in town to get their marriage license over Labor Day weekend and I need to have it done for then.  Must sew.  Must sew.
3. Red's Model T dress.  Red finally outgrew her vintage looking dress that she wears when we tour in our Model T.  Have to have that one done for a 2nd weekend in September car festival.

4. Altering Tom Thumb's tux - I got his tuxedo for the wedding in the mail today (found an absolutely AMAZING deal on eBay) and I need to make adjustments to the shoulders of the jacket.  I curse you set in sleeves.  He does look pretty darn cute though.  

What are you doing with the rest of your summer?

Anderson Cooper kills me making puns about Gerard Depardieu

You have to check out this link with Anderson Cooper doing his Ridiculist about Gerard Depardieu urinating on the airplane.  Around the 2 1/2 minute mark in the clip, Cooper starts giggling like a school girl when he says the flight crew "should thank their lucky stars it wasn't de part deux".  Tee hee!  I couldn't stop laughing.  Thanks Andrea for calling me about this one.  Enjoy!

Book Review: The Beginners

As I've mentioned before, my methodology for selecting books at the library is a little unorthodox.  I usually either have books held so I can pick them up after the kids select their books or I browse the new books online before we go and hope that one or two will be there.  In this case, I saw the new book The Beginners was filed under the subject headings Teenage Girls-Fiction and New England-Fiction.  When I quickly read the flap before checking it out, it sounded like a coming of age story set in Massachusetts with a supernatural twist (there was some mention of the Salem witch trials in the description).  It sounded interesting, not to mention the cover is beautiful and I tend to be swayed by gorgeous book covers.  I had genuinely high hopes for this book.  Then, they were pretty much immediately shattered.


I generally like most books I read.  They may not always be high literature (e.g. the Kendra Wilkinson book) or I may not like the subject matter (e.g. Push by Sapphire), but most of the time I can find something redeeming about a book.  Not so much here.  In fact, I dislike this book so much that I'm going to suspend with keeping the spoilers to myself because I want you to not waste your time on this book that much.  I hated it more than A Reliable Wife and we know how I felt about that book.


Here's a summary---
Fifteen year old Ginger lives in an average small Massachusetts town (I know this because I used to live in one.  I will give it to the author there --- her descriptions about the town were good enough that they brought back some pleasant memories of my time there).  When Raquel and Theo Motherwell, a 20 something couple, move into town Ginger thinks she's found her mentors.  They are educated and take an interest in her.  The couple tells her that they are doctoral candidates in history --- Theo specializing in the history of religion and Raquel in the Salem witch trials--- and that they moved to town to do research for their projects.   


Up until this point in the book, I really thought it would be okay.  The author's style came off as pretentious to me because she had the teenage narrator using way to many huge vocabulary words that no fifteen year old would ever use, but I was willing to read on.


Then, it just started getting weird.  The Motherwells start putting Ginger in all these sexual situations that she brushes off as coincidental---like them going swimming naked at the reservoir in front of her.  She overhears them having sex and suspects they may have known she was there and liked it.  Just downright weird.  Ginger starts thinking that she's encountering ghosts, but it's really the Motherwells messing with her.  


If that was weird, then it got really twisted.  Theo rapes Ginger's best friend.  Theo has sex with Ginger.  Theo confesses to Ginger that Raquel and he aren't really doctoral candidates but that they met in a psychiatric program.  Ginger continues hanging out with them and having sex with Theo with Raquel's knowledge.  I would have stopped reading, but at that point I was so close to the end I figured I might as well finish it up.  


In the end, Ginger finally is beginning to get a little bit leary of the Motherwells (but just a little bit) and the story abruptly ends when her best friend and her friend's boyfriend find her and Theo at the reservoir in yet another compromising sexual situation.  The boyfriend and Theo fight until Theo makes a run for it.  They don't find Raquel.  


In the epilogue, it's implied that Ginger ends up pregnant with Theo's baby but has an abortion.  After reading all this crap, the last couple sentences of the book were exceptionally frustrating:


Now, and now, and now again.  There is no end to this story, in my version or any other.  An X marks the spot where I rest, remain, and you can't tell from where you sit, or stand, if I am an X on a diagram---a place, a situation, a process---or a timeline.  If this is a map, or a history, or a beginning.


Now---what the hell is that supposed to mean in relation to the rest of the book?  Is it because the Motherwells are now gone (it's implied, but nope, you don't get told what happened to them) Ginger has a beginning...sort of...maybe not?  I wanted to throw my hands up over this one.  


Really I should have known how awful it was going to be based on the pretentious review (equal only to the pretentious language in this book) on the back cover:


What a marvel, what a wonder is The Beginners.  Rebecca Wolff fully awakens the spookiness and enchantment inherent in the encounter of a lonely, imaginative girl with a louche, disquieting couple new in town, her moonstruck passivity chiming with a ready feminine awareness---it made me think of Rilke in collaboration with Emily Bronte.  Wolff's novel is driven by a true bravery, an utter willingness to follow and ever-evolving narrative thread toward a complex, freshly astonishing state of consciousness.  Reading it, I kept being delighted by her gorgeous and incisive language and amazed by the rich, hypnotic places is opened before me.  This book is ravishing. --- Peter Straub, author of Shadowland and A Dark Matter


I couldn't disagree more.  And congratulations Peter Straub, based on your review of this book I will never read one of your books.  Ever.


And for your entertainment---there is actually a Youtube video promoting the book.  Sigh...

Snails and Karate

Over the past few days, we've been trying to do some work from the R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Life curriculum I bought at the beginning of the summer.  I feel very mixed about it.  On one hand, it's nice having a curriculum where what you need to do is all laid out.  I like the extra reading suggestions list and the fact that they have a page listing everything you need for each lab (which is mostly household items).  On the other hand, the worksheets included are very writing intensive, and writing is not Red's strength (i.e. she can write well when she feels like it, but is quickly fatigued).  Even though the publisher says it's designed for 1st through 5th grade, I think if you intend to have the child do most of the writing it is definitely geared toward the older grades in that range.


A couple of days ago we went for a hike on a trail close to our house.  We didn't last very long because there were mosquitoes out the size of pterodactyls, but we did collect some snails for observation for the unit on mollusks.  We're planning on returning them to their home on the trail tomorrow, but in the meantime we've had fun checking out the little creatures and their slime.

Another new development in the last week is that we started Tom Thumb in karate class.  Red has been taking dance since she was two and took two years of figure skating when she was 3 and 4.  Unlike Red who is super outgoing and always wants to try something new, Tom Thumb has been a little bit more cautious.  He tried a couple of dance classes last year because there was another boy in the class for his age group.  He would last about 10 minutes in class and then would want to come sit on my lap with his blankie in the hall.  Since he's not going to preschool, I wanted to give him some more opportunities to hang out with some other kids. We decided to try a local martial arts studio that offered a deal on one month of classes including the uniform to try it out.  So far, he's gone to three classes and has loved every single one.  He spends most of the class smiling and the instructors are very encouraging and enthusiastic.  This might be a winner.  Fingers crossed...

Making a Sumerian Seal

We finished up reading about The First Sumerian Dictator in Story of the World this past week.  The art project in the activity book for this chapter was making a Sumerian seal.  Back then, most Sumerians did not know how to write so they each had their own unique seal that they used to identify themselves when writing in clay. We decided to make ours out of Roseart modeling clay, but didn't realize until it was too late that we didn't buy the air-drying variety.  No matter--- Red stamped with it anyway.

We also read a couple of the recommended books --- The Three Princes and The Golden Sandal.  Red and I especially enjoyed The Golden Sandal because it was a Middle Eastern version of the Cinderella story.  It had cute illustrations to boot!  One more thing to add about this lesson --- I let the kids watch Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Red asked me, "Is Darth Vader the leader of a military dictatorship?"  I guess these Story of the World lessons are really sinking in. :-)


We had a snafu with our plan to see which one held up better --- the hieroglyphic scroll vs. the cuneiform tablet.  When we checked on them a week after putting them in the yard, the scroll was still there but the tablet was nowhere to be found!  Perhaps some wild animal likes the taste of Play Doh tablet?  Since it is the tablet I made that is missing in action, Red is debating whether or not she'd like to do some of the other experiments about seeing which one lasts longer using her tablet.  We've already decided not to leave it outside though.


On an entirely separate note, I finished the long process of removing the wallpaper border from Tom Thumb's room.  It was a bittersweet moment for me.  Before Red was born, I spent hours poring over wallpaper books at a small paint and wallpaper store in the downtown area of our city trying to find the perfect border.  I fell in love with this one.  Even after she attempted to rip it off the wall a few times during her 2 year old destructive phase, I pasted it back up.  When she and Tom Thumb swapped bedrooms in the spring we left it up.  He has been begging me since then to paint his room yellow (his favorite color) so it was time to say adios to the baby border.  Here are some photos before I took it all the way down.  Sniff, sniff...

It was so difficult to remove (I scraped at the adhesive for HOURS) I told Red that no matter how many years pass that if Mommy ever says she wants to put up wallpaper again she is to tell me NO!  I think we finally have a shade of yellow selected that matches what is already going on in Tom Thumb's room without burning our eyes out.  I had to immediately talk him out of the neon yellow he really wanted.  T.G.I.F.!

Book Review: Dead Until Dark and The Host

I'm kind of on a sci-fi/fantasy kick these days.  I just wrapped up Stephenie Meyer's The Host and Charlaine Harris's Dead Until Dark.

First off---what's the deal with Sookie Stackhouse?  I had to know.  Although we don't get cable and I haven't even seen the show, I was interested in the fascination people have with the HBO show True Blood which is based on Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books.  Everyone seems to be talking about it (plus, the hot guys from the show were on the cover of TV Guide last time I was at my mother-in-law's house) so I had to find out what was all the buzz about.  The best way to describe the genre of this book, Dead Until Dark,  would be to say it's a mystery with vampires, romance, and a unique narrator.  Sookie is a small town waitress who happens to be able to read minds.  When she finally meets Bill, a vampire whose mind she is relieved that she can't hear, she thinks she's met her match.  Unfortunately, things in town begin to go down hill as other blue collar women from the town are murdered one by one.  This novel puts a unique spin on the typical vampire tale in that the general public is aware that vampires exist.  Bottled blood is available at the bar Sookie serves at and Sookie's grandmother even invites Bill to speak at her Daughters of the Glorious Dead group (essentially the Daughters of the American Revolution except for the Civil War) since he was a soldier during the Civil War.  Sookie has an interesting narrative voice.  It's Southern, it's sweet, but tough too.  I don't think I've ever heard a narrator use "lickety split" before in a sentence, but I did here.  Bill is the quintessential hero---sexy, strong, and of course a vampire.  I enjoyed this book so much that I'll be picking up the next book in the series to read!

Another book I can recommend is The Host.  The Host is an adult novel written by the author of the Twilight Saga Stephenie Meyer.  Although I read the Twilight books and enjoyed them, I know some of you probably didn't so please don't judge this book by the author.  The Host follows an alien named Wanderer after she is implanted into her female human host Melanie Stryder.  Earth has been taken over by Wanderer's species and Melanie was a member of the very small human resistance.  Although most humans immediately cede their minds to the parasitic aliens, Melanie refuses to go away.  Wanderer struggles with Melanie's presence and tries to use the information that she gleans from her to help the Seekers (her species version of the CIA) find the hiding place of the remaining humans.  As time progresses (I don't want to give too much away here), Wanderer develops a relationship with Melanie and realizes she is more like the humans than she realized.  Meyer does a great job of developing the main characters (i.e. Wanderer, Melanie, Melanie's boyfriend Jared and her brother Jamie) and the supporting characters as well.  I really was able to picture the people in this book, I felt connected to them, and couldn't wait to find out what happened next.  The Host clocks in at a little over 600 pages and I finished it in three days.  I just could not put it down.  Whether you like sci-fi books or not, you really need to check this one out just for the characters.  I really hope the author comes out with another adult novel down the road.


I also finished the book The Help earlier in the month for my book club.  What an outstanding book!  I was inspired by the writer Kathryn Stockett who did not succumb to defeat even after 60 rejection letters!  What a woman!

Building Lego Pyramids

After reading the section on Egyptian pyramids yesterday in Story of the World and then reading a bit more about them in Pyramids and Mummies (great easy reader on the subject!), we dumped out the Legos and built two small pyramids according to the instructions in the Story of the World activity book.  The block options are to make your own blocks out of sand or use sugar cubes or Legos.  Although I'm sure making the sand blocks would have produced a more realistic looking facsimile, I'm all about projects that are easily dismantled because my kids are pack rats.  If we had built a pyramid out of sand cubes, it would still be in my house when they were 20 and off at college. :-)

Then, in the end, we built the behemoth "Great Pyramid" in the photo above.  Currently, Red has erected it on top of her headboard in her room.

Yesterday, we put the hieroglyphic scroll and cuneiform tablet in our backyard to see which one lasts the longest.  Updates coming soon!

Book Review: Sliding Into Home

I admit it.  I'm a reality TV junkie.  I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be since we no longer have cable, but the addiction is still there.  When I was fresh out of college, I never missed an episode of MTV's The Real World.  I even kept watching it after it went from being semi-real to crazy land.  Yes, I remember when it was all about whether or not the cowboy was going to get along with the girl from the 'hood, not how many kids can we can drunk and naked in a hot tub.  I watched the finale of the first season of Survivor on the couch of my house in Massachusetts while on the phone with the Cobbler who was on a business trip in Vermont.  I once claimed to want to be on the show Big Brother (I have since decided I would be a crying blubbering mess if I was forced to live in a house with some of those people for a whole summer).  


After reading my confession, it should come as no surprise to you that I was a fairly consistent viewer of the E! reality show The Girls Next Door, which followed three of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's girlfriends.  While browsing the biography section at the library, I came across a memoir by Hef's former girlfriend Kendra Wilkinson.  Let me be clear---my expectations were not high and I was not thinking I was going to find anything life changing inside.  How much could possibly have happened to her?  She was 25 when the book was published and it came out before she did her stint on Dancing With The Stars.  I did, however, hope to have a few of my questions answered like---


How does one become Hugh Hefner's girlfriend?
Answer: He calls you up and asks.  Granted, he had seen her photo from a shoot she had done for a motorcycle company and she had been offered a gig as a painted shot girl for his birthday party, but all the man did was call up and ask.  That must have been some photo!


What does being "a girlfriend" mean?
Answer: You move into the mansion, you live and eat for free, and get a weekly $1000 allowance.  You have a 9PM curfew (unless you're out with Hef), no drugs are allowed except pot, and you are followed by a bodyguard (to make sure you're not harboring any illicit boyfriends) except when visiting family.  Hef paid for her to go to physical therapy school while living in the mansion.


Did she have sex with Hef?
Answer: Yep.  Apparently weekly with 7 (or more) other women present.  And he does everyone consecutively.  She wasn't into it though.  It sounded more like she viewed it as a duty or job than actually wanting to be there.  Yikes...


So I got my main questions answered.  Along with those juicy tidbits, you also get to hear about her tough teenage years (lots of drugs, sex, and cutting--oy!), obviously her time at the mansion and filming The Girls Next Door, and her courtship and marriage to NFL player Hank Baskett and the birth of their son.


Overall, it was a quick entertaining read.  Every once in a while it was obvious that her co-writer was doing the writing.  I can't really imagine her saying, "It was a job nonetheless."  Nonetheless?  Has she uttered that word at any point in her entire life?  On the other hand, the parts she did help with were clear.  I should go back and count how many times she says "Shut the f--- up!" in the book just for kicks.  So if you need a break from that classic you're reading and want a trashy pick me up, this one is for you. :-)

Making a Hieroglyphic Scroll and the Maker Faire

Last Friday we made a hieroglyphic scroll as we continue our early writing study in The Story of the World Ancients.  The instructions in the activity book called for using ink, paint, or purple berry juice to write with.  We decided to make our own.  We started out with some blueberries.  

 When that was too faint, we added some cherries and SQUISHED.

And in the midst of our squishing, this happened:

Then, when I tried to clean it up I dropped even more on the floor.  Sigh...not my best performance.  We finally caved and added a wee bit of red and purple paint to the berry paste so you could see the writing.

Red used the hieroglyphic decoder from the activity book to write her message on some resume paper I had taped together (which is slightly more papyrus like than regular printer paper).  She wanted me to write too so I wrote on the top sheet and she wrote on the bottom. Here's our finished hieroglyphic writing.

The next step was to attach some dowel rods and roll it up, but she just wanted to roll it up and tie it with some blue curling ribbon instead which was just fine with me.  Next, we're on to seeing which will last longer --- our cuneiform tablet or our hieroglyphic scroll!

Speaking of making things --- we attended the Maker Faire over the weekend.  The Cobbler was very interested in going in the hopes that he would find some more inspiration and ideas for the electric car he's building.  I was just hoping that the kids would last long enough for him to get his fill.  It ended up being a lot more interesting and fun than I expected.  While we missed out on the fire breathing pony and I was too hot and tired to enjoy the life size Mousetrap game, we did have a lot of fun! 

Here's the front end of the fire breathing dragon (not to be confused with the pony :-).

 Red on the trapeze

 Tom Thumb making a paddleboat using recycled items.

 Me, the Cobbler and Red with some members of the Dark Side (Tom Thumb is in the stroller out of frame because he was too afraid!)

 Red weaving.

 Tom Thumb swinging on the waterfall swing.  I did this too with Red and it was awesome.  Water would fall on you based on your rhythm created on the swing.  We got very wet which was very welcome in the heat!

 And of course, where there are balloon hats, my children will come.

Hope your week's off to a great start!